/games/ - Games

I was playing fallout 3 with most of the ui disabled then I played wow in similar conditions and then went back to far cry 2 and came to the conclusion that having a minimalistic ui doesn’t necessarily mean that a game is minimalistic in nature. Why I feel like that’s wrong is because it can end up harming how fun(at least for casual gamers like me) games can be

Minimalistic UIs are preferred because of two reasons, they keep the players screen generally clear of distractions and show information that’s relevant but with diegetic UIs they take a step further by integrating elements of the UI directly into gameplay. I find the minimalistic approach is bad for games coming in the future because it doesn’t fix one problem, how complicated a games systems are. In far cry 2 there’s barely a UI because the game fundamentally isn’t complex in nature and that means the developers can use the games base mechanics to their fullest to create a memorable experience. A minimalistic UI wouldn’t work for a game like world of Warcraft(or just any mmo really) because there’s so many systems interacting with one another all at once with little responsiveness from the game world to tell the player what’s happening especially in moments where such responsiveness would be fervent. Because of this it’s easy to find yourself in constant need of several tabs onscreen at all times and as a result the gameplay of world of Warcraft just isn’t as deep gameplay wise as you’d find in games that came after it.

In my opinion it’s great that games like the last of us, rdr2 and the Callisto protocol have done more to ensure games become more responsive to the players actions. I hope as time passes a greater transition to diegetic UI and minimalistic game design will be found among major studios and also the possibilities of games without UIs can come with it for a much more immersive and in depth experience for gamers like me

That’s all thank you for reading