*S*T*A*R*F*I*E*L*D* / Starfield

I find hand-holding in games often turns into dragging me kicking and screaming by the nose, which I detest, but I don't think Bethesda's games are terrible in that regard as there's always room for getting distracted and having random adventures whenever you want. It would be neat if there was a setting to just get a map marker to the dungeon or general location of quest objectives (ideally with text/dialogue being better at giving hints and directions).

I used to skip the GPS on GTA5 because it became a crutch and paid less attention to my current location or destination and just at the little yellow line on the minimap.

I'd like to say I do that in D4 but sometimes the overworld traversal suck balls and is so easy to get lost so I pin everything and follow the guide.

Bethesda’s dungeons are entirely linear corridors though. I remember a great deal of them in Skyrim being a loop that would drop you back at the entrance, which I thought was clever the first time but then it happened again and again. The clever ones give the illusion of exploration but it’s still just that, a corridor.

I remember I got excited when I found a place that was called something like Shalidor’s Maze, because I was desperate to use my sense of direction, and it turned out to be just another entirely linear path. Lately I read people were shocked and confused by the layout in System Shock Remake because they can’t slide through it like shit through a goose.

I like the idea of just wandering off and exploring, but I don't like the feeling that I might be wasting hours of my time.

All games demand something from the player, and I don't want to be guessing at what I should be doing, and how I should be doing it.

I think it's important for a game to establish what your goals are, what you can and can't do in the world, then send you on your way. I can't think of any open world games that get this right, and it's definitely fertile ground for innovation.

The best example I can think of where a game get this right is RDR2 and it's treasure maps... Although not central to the game, it gets you looking around at the world, exploring, memorising scenery, and gives you simple satisfying goals to achieve. Whilst looking for treasure you naturally find other things to do, and the game organically opens up.

The really irritating think about the GPS in Cyberpunk is that without it you can regularly waste time trying to find the right path to the one highway that will get you where you need to go. I tried ignoring the map entirely and just following the waypoint marker, but you regularly end up completely lost or in some dead end. Trouble is, when you use the GPS and path finding, the game routes all repeatedly go through about 3 or 4 locations. Which is pretty dull.

I think it's one of the things GTA absolutely - incredibly - nailed first time. There is always some intuitive way through most areas of the map and yet the cities don't feel contrived to facilitate the player. The main noticeable one is how the NPC cars are separated on highways exactly one car's width apart, conveniently so you can always thread the needle. But I'll let them off for that because burning down a street and pranging off every other car would be awful.

I think i’m getting to the point where I get less and less out of videogames sadly- I reinstalled No Mans Sky this week, played through a few hours and just thought I can go anywhere and do anything…. but I’m not sure I want to, I don’t feel like there’s a point to this
It might be seasonal, I’ve so little drive to play games when the weather is nice, hopefully it is and I’ll be back hunkered down when its 0 degrees C outside again.

And because different areas of Elden Ring have different difficulty levels it means there is a correct order in which to navigate the open world it just doesn't tell you what it is which is a bit frustrating. At least I don't think.

I think you need a certain kind of brain to be able to do that.

I will admit I struggled for 40 hours on Dark Souls before reading a guide and learning I was wa splaying it all wrong. But so think that’s the point of those games? Part of the reason I don’t like ‘em.

Although I did stubbornly restart it and beat it. So I am a bit of a hypocrite.

Souls games need patience and a love of striking one’s own balls with a lead cactus.

Souls bad

I save that for masturbating.

I don’t care about 1000G or 100%ing a game, but I’m in agreement with dave that looking at a guide ruins the experience. I’ll look in nooks and crannies to see it I find anything, but if I miss something, it’s fine.

I think it’s even more baffling to use guides in Souls games, since their whole thing is git gud. How are you gitting gud if you’re following a walkthrough?