Theyre allincreasingly starting to look the same.
A lot of sequelsbarely iterate on their tried and tested formulas.
Others iterate too much andlose the spirit fans love about them altogether.
Theyre too big, too disrespectful of my time, and too eager to nickel and dime me.
Im tired, guys.
But you know what I havent complained about yet?
God, Im tired of menu design in triple-A games.
Im tired of endless scrolling just to do the simplest of things, especially inAvowed.
There has to be a better way.
Menus Have Too Much Information To Capture
I understandwhymenus might be tedious and complex.
As they say, if it aint broke, dont fix it.
Explain this to me.
You know that meme about howevery game is either a menu game or a parkour game?
Menu games are less dependent on reaction times and more reliant on strategy and item use.
Parkour games are more reliant on quick reaction times and tend to be less built for contemplative strategy.
Obviously, this is a reductive binary, but thats the fun of it.
I play menu games RPGs and such.
So when I talk about bloated menu systems, Im mostly referring to RPGs.
When you imagine an RPGs menu, what do you picture?
Theres probably a journal tab, with multiple subsections separating main quests, side quests, and maybe collectibles.
Theres an inventory tab with subsections for each item bang out.
Then theres a tab for you to customise your characters loadout.
Theres one to customise their abilities, maybe even a second for skill point allocation.
Avowed is a game reminiscent of old school RPGs, and therefore has an appropriately old school menu system.
Its driving me nuts.
You could indeed chalk this up to me being stupid I very well may be.
But the problem extends past just Avowed.
It shouldnt be this hard to do a thing so simple… and yet.
An actor from Monster Hunter Wildshas also saidshe gets confused by the game’s menus.
Menu games, man.
What Does A Good Menu Look Like?
If youre noticing something right off the bat, its probably because its annoying.
I had to dig for examples of menu design that doesnt upset me.
This method was inspired bySystem Shock 2, and has since been replicated in games likeDredge.
you’ve got the option to also more or less eliminate menus altogether.
This is very obviously recency bias, considering IvejustreviewedWanderstop, but I liked the way it handled menus.
Inventory was managed separately through scrollable menus tagged to different buttons on the D-pad.
I would even sayBorderlands 3s menu is fairly easy to navigate, despite having quite a standard format.
Its a more visual and spatial take on the quest log system that I appreciate.
Some people thinkSkyrimis the epitome of good menu design.
More power to you if so.
That simply isnt what I want.
Im sick of big, hard to navigate menus.
We need to find a way to handle menus that isnt a chore.
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