Gaming has been around for decades, with numerous different genres, characters, worlds, and creations from different game developers.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that developers have perfected the art of creating video games, as there are still many features that, for some unknown reason, game devs cannot perfect no matter how hard they try.
In this list, we go over 7 different features that appear in video games that developers still can’t get right within their projects.
7. Quick Time Events
Pretty much every gamer around the world knows about quick time events and has likely suffered by their hand at some point in their gaming journey.
But for those who do not know, a quick time event is a moment in certain video games where the player is required to react quickly to press a button to complete a certain action, in a more cinematic way than they would by simply doing the action themselves.
For a long time, every game you could think of was releasing with quick time events, whether they were necessary or not, the worst one being Heavy Rain. But a lot of the time these QTEs, as they are more commonly known, are infamous within the gaming industry.
Most of the time QTEs would take place within a life-or-death situation, and back when they first became a feature, developers hadn’t perfected the time limit for them. This led to many players failing them and dying, but now it seems QTEs are improving, and developers are using them less and providing more time for players to react.
6. Invisible Walls or “Difficult Terrain”
One of the best parts about gaming is the ability to explore new locations to your heart’s content, especially within open-world titles; sadly, this isn’t always the case as there are some limitations.
One of the most common practices game devs use is placing an invisible wall or some kind of “difficult terrain” in a player’s way to stop them from moving in a direction the developer doesn’t want them to go.
However, a lot of the time, these barriers can look relatively silly and lazy on the side of the developers.
For example, within some games, a simple collapsed tree is placed in the path of a player with the assumption that they cannot pass it, but when you are playing a game in which your character has magical powers, it does make you wonder why you can’t clamber over a collapsed tree.
To this day this practice is still being used and can be quite infuriating to players as it ruins the atmosphere of the game you are playing, especially with a simple invisible wall stopping you from moving.
5. Squeezing Through Tight Spaces
This is more of a recent example when it comes to video games, but it is still a relatively irritating practice that game devs are still trying to perfect, and that is squeezing through tight spaces to move from one section of a game to another.
To start off, it is commonly known that game developers use this feature in an attempt to hide loading screens, as it is essentially a transition from one location to another.
However, that doesn’t mean it isn’t a large problem within the industry, as it does slow down players while also getting repetitive after having to squeeze through 20-30 tight spaces within a short amount of time.
4. Allies/Companion Characters
It is always good to have a friend to travel along with you, whether this takes the form of a real-life person or a non-player character (NPC), but sadly, these characters may be more of a hindrance than a help.
Numerous issues always present themselves when it comes to companion characters in games, such as:
- Companions getting in the player’s way.
- Companions not entering a lift when needed, causing the player to get stuck.
- Enemies ignoring the companion, leading to a break of immersion.
- Companions constantly trying to provide hints, which can be both good and bad.
A lot of these issues are becoming less common in games, but there are still some circumstances in which companions are more useless than they are useful, leading them to be a pain of the highest order.
3. Stealth Missions Becoming Repetitive
Stealth missions are a very complicated issue when it comes to gaming, as there are plenty of players who love a good stealth section, while there are also those who despise them, but both sides can easily agree that they are repetitive.
Once you have done one stealth section in a video game, you have basically done them all. With enemies constantly on a set loop, objectives hidden behind numerous enemies, hiding spots that you would easily be seen in if it was realistic, and just simple mistakes that set off every alarm in the section.
There are plenty of issues that game devs always stumble upon when they create a stealth section, and these are just a few. Only a few games have begun to move away from these issues and create something new and unique, allowing players to enjoy stealth missions rather than dread them.
2. Button Prompts Being Messy
Being able to interact with the world in a game is very important, and it is quite annoying for players when a simple button prompt gets in the way of them progressing in what they may consider a good game.
But sadly, even after all these years, game devs still struggle to have working button prompts within their games, whether it be the prompt being in a strange place in comparison to what they are interacting with or the prompt requiring to be held down instead of simply being pressed.
This can be annoying in horror games where you are being chased by an enemy, and a button prompt is what prevents you from surviving a horrifying chase.
This can be especially annoying in games like Layers of Fear 2, in which you are required to open doors manually rather than just pressing a button and the door opening on its own.
1. Different Walking Speeds
This is something that has driven gamers mad since the earliest of games, and that is the fact that NPCs, for some reason, either walk slower or faster than the player character, more commonly slower.
What makes this so infuriating is when a game forces you to either jog or sprint, but the NPCs trying to tell you the story are forced to walk at a snail’s pace.
This causes players to break immersion as they have to force their character to slow down by moving their joystick very slightly. Or if the player isn’t in the mood to stay with the character, they can run ahead. Some games predict this and have the NPC talk through some form of “communication device,” but more often the NPC just talks to themselves as they catch up.
Many of these issues can easily be ignored when a player has seen them before, but a few of them continue to be a persistent issue within the gaming industry and can easily drive a player mad with frustration after dealing with them a million times.
What do you think about this list of features game devs are still struggling to perfect? Are there any other features you feel developers have struggled to master over the years? Let us know what you think in the comments below!
