ALWAYS ONLINE SINGLE PLAYER GAMES

Anything in a menu that you have to do a lot, but still requires multiple inputs to achieve. Think resource management in No Man’s Sky or Dark Souls. Crucial to the game, but breaks your flow over and over again.

@daredevil not being able to pause a cutscene.
Especially since I’ve had kids and often need to leave a game quickly, this has become very annoying.

Not being able to pause and rewind cutscenes. I’ve got ADHD and my attention wanders even if I’m interested in something. Let me rewind to see what I missed when my brain seeking dopamine told me to check my phone.

And being forced to walk slowly in a scene for reasons. It’s not fun; it’s frustrating.

Super long cutscene based story telling right at the beginning of the game. I’ll rarely power through.

@daredevil when I find myself in an ancient cave or tomb that has been abandoned for centuries but there’s a torch burning on the wall and candles next to every treasure chest.

When you get two dialog options and neither is something anyone would actually say.

-The save points just before a cutscene, so if you die, you are forced to watch the said cutscene again and again.

-When characters are discussing, they say what the player is supposed to do. Dude, i’m the one who’s supposed to do so, not the guy you’re talking with.

• Unskippable cutscenes and tutorials.
• Having basic features like split screen, or even the settings themselves, locked behind progression walls.
• This one is kinda specific to Bethesda games but fast traveling to a point only to have to load again because it put me right outside a door that is a load screen instead of putting me just inside that door so I only have to load once for the actual fast travel.
• Not having an FOV slider.
• Constant bullshit popping up on screen. Damage numbers, kill streak messages, onomatopoeias, etc. That shit is distracting as all fuck.
• Games with special currencies you can pay for with real money but can also be earned by playing, but limit how much you can earn by playing.

When I load up a game on just to see what it’s like and it has a bunch of story up front. I just don’t have the patience anymore.

Honestly I am so over tutorials/slow starts. If it takes an hour of cutscenes, bullshit exposition, walk forward, jump three times… i don’t have the patience for it anymore.

A nice post prompt, OP. To start, and to riff off yours, I’d say games that don’t have a run option, and insist on a milquetoast in between of “fast-walking.” Here are mine that I can think of from some of the most recent games I’ve played:

–No third-person viewing option in an RPG; e.g., Cyberpunk 2077. After readily having the option in my hundreds of combined hours in Skyrim and FO, it felt preposterous not having the option to view my character at will. Crazy.

–Needlessly loud start menu music or fx leading to the title screen

–I’m doubtful there’s any sort of terminology for this, but, mission-style games that don’t make any attempt to establish a linear, interlocking world. E.g., Nioh. It’s very souls-like overall, but I really wish this aspect of the game was more like a From game in this regard.

Might edit in some more if this post stays active.

Sequels having less features than the previous game without being a complete enough experience that you could ignore it. If they got rid of a lot of shallow features to focus more in-depth on others, that’s understandable.

open world physics that only happen to work where they want it to

@daredevil oh and also cutscenes every two minutes.
I tried to replay Max Payne 3 recently and it’s intolerable. You never get time enough to get into any kind of flow. Even though the actual gameplay is fun, I put it down after an hour or so (and about thirty cutscenes up to that point). 😩