Unpopular opinion maybe, but I LOVE that shit!
I remember the first time I sent out a ping in the voxel-based action-adventure game Outcast (1999). I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen.
There are good and bad implementations, but going to have to disagree with op on the whole.
I’m thinking Splinter Cell had this kind of feature.
Duck Hunt!
The Batman Arkham games kinda do that right? Except it was more of a toggle when you had it on or not?
That's different. The detective mode is actually useful for when you have to clear a room. It's so good that some of the last and hardest enemies in the game are not visible while using it.
Just make it a toggle to highlight shit. On and off.
I used to play games that permanently highlighted interactive objects. I am playing a game, I don't need realism.
If you don't like it, don't press that button
As I'm getting older, I'm definitely starting to appreciate that I just can't see shit. If the game's going for an ultra-realistic environment, then there's just so much more visual clutter that I need help picking things out.
In my opinion, it's just an accessibility feature. Those are always nicer to have than to not. But if you're a purist, or you don't have any problem finding things, then I'd also hope you'd be able to disable it.
💯 Playing through Red Dead Redemption 2 and there is so much detail and it's beautiful.
...but then when I'm trying to pick out herbs and plants and it's all so beautifully rendered I don't know what plants and flowers can be harvested and which are just there to be pretty. Dead Eye is a lifesaver for that.
That desaturated-with-highlighted-items vision is a design choice that does solve a problem even in realistic worlds -- even if it's just to show players something the character can see but is hard for the player to spot.
The problem is that games are designed for it to be used. I hated using Witcher senses in Dying Light 2, but good look finding lootables without it. It’s a cop out solution.
You actively choose not to use it but if you didn't know about such a mechanic, sometimes you might end up like this.
When one guy is playing Morrowind and the other is playing Skyrim.
Recently started a replay of the PS5 BioShock collection (1&2). In 1 the items shimmer to let you know they're there to interact with, in 2 that setting is off/disabled by default and you don't realize it until you go digging through the settings after wondering where all the stuff is/went because you sit 15ft/3m from your TV. Utterly frustrating dev choice on normal mode play defaults.
What I never wanna see again is a game having me hold a button instead of pressing it, for literally anything
Topical example would be apace marine 2
What? And get stuck in places because you didn't see the not-so-obvious object you needed to interact with?
Yeah, fuck that.
I actually love this in videogames. It's a really cool way to interact with the environment and literally see the world through a different lense with a level of control that no other medium of storytelling can achieve.
Maybe this dude should go watch a movie if he doesn't want to interact with things.
I played a student project game a long time ago that based itself around this kind of mechanic. It was a horror game set entirely in the dark, and the only way of seeing was by echolocation - you'd click to send out a pulse, and you'd get brief ghostly glimmers of your environment. Importantly, you couldn't directly see anything moving - you'd have to send out another ping if you wanted to see something in motion.
Given that monsters could hear your pings too, it was a wonderful little game of cat-and-mouse deduction trying to figure out where monsters were with as few pings as possible, remembering their patrol paths in the dark, and so on. Really cool and I'd love to see that mechanic in a full game production.
(edit: apparently that full game exists, it's called Perception, and I'm absolutely giving it a shot!)
Oh! I remember watching someone play this game called The Voidness.
I love the idea of the scanner mapping the completely dark areas!
Oh I remember seeing that in development a while back when I looked up what the BioShock devs were up to. I didn't realize it released!
Another similar game in my backlog is Vale: Shadow of the Crown. Except instead of having a visual flash, the game relies entirely on audio cues to play and is completely blind-accessible. So completely different, but somehow feels like the same realm.
Like most things, there are good and bad implementations and seeing it too frequently can make it become annoying. I love it for things like Alien/Predator style games that are using something from the movies, or maybe a Batman game if used in moderation.
It does get to be tedious when you can only interact with certain objects by using it first and that kind of game play can be annoying. No, I can't think of an example off the top of my head but I'm certain I've run into that kind of thing before.
Dragon Age: Inquisition. I can literally see the thing that I need to loot right there, but I can't pick it up unless I press the little pingy button first.
The first game I remember doing this is The Witcher 2. Not sure if that's the first game to come up with the idea, but it's the earliest example I can remember.
I was trying to think on the history of this feature, since i wouldn’t necessarily count something like AvP's heatvision mode. That's meant to simulate a real thing, even if it works a bit gamey, by highlighting active objects.
Assassin's Creed is the game that, for me, codified the mechanic into it's current form. Hawk Vision or whatever they called it specifically highlighted game objects. I think they even mention that the animus machine is projecting that view to help Desmond see the world how his ancestors would have understood it.
But... I'm going to call the origin as being way farther back. In flight sims, your targeting hud can highlight enemies and targets by drawing little boxes around them. That is the very first instance I can think of where a game highlighted objects of interest for the player's benefit. Most flight sims (or adjacent genres like mech sims) would also label the box with the name of the thing, sometimes with health, ammo, weapon, or weakpoint indicators as well.
Assassin's Creed also came to mind for me as one of the first time I encountered this. Eagle Vision I believe it was called.
I'd say that was different from target indicators, though. I feel those were more because distant targets weren't really visible because of the low resolution at the time, whereas Eagle Vision was more highlighting particular items of interest in the environment that were still otherwise visible.
It was big in Dragon Age.
What about Satisfactory? It has that feature, but it also has alot more pros than cons?
The big differences for me in Satisfactory is that you are not pinging resources all the time, it’s a small fractional of the gameplay loop. Also, it doesn’t have a super obnoxious screen effect, so it’s more palatable to me
Does holding Alt in Baldur's Gate 3 fall under this? It doesn't have any kind of visual effect, but I do often find myself needing to use it to see what can be picked up or interacted with in the area.
Diablo had the same thing back in the day. Pretty much all those loot heavy games are unplayable without it
Idk halo odst did this and I thought it was pretty cool. Assassin's creed also did it pretty well (I've only played 1, 2, brotherhood, and 3)
It's cool if it's done right imo
The only game where I ever found this to be cool, is the one where you literally do that to see because you're playing as something that has no eyes and has to use echolocation.
I like the way Ghost of Tsushima handled open world navigation with their wind system. Instead of a big GPS line or whatever that takes away from the game, the wind blows in the direction of where you're going. Very subtle and works narratively while still being able to find where you're going easily by just observing the world around you.
omg I just wrote a comment about a student project with this mechanic, wishing to see it in a full production and then scrolled down and here you are telling me that game actually exists! Thank you 😁
I played a pretty good vr puzzle game like that, except you had to tap your cane. It was just called blind
Counterpoint:
P I N G
I think No Man's Sky was my first brush with it. In that game the feature is entirely necessary, especially when starting out on survival, but that was ground zero for me.
Earliest game I can think of would be Super Metroid, with it's X-Ray Scanner, which is an upgrade you get partway through the game. It's not 100% necessary, but some of the game's secrets are designed with it in mind.
The Metroid Prime games implemented an FPS version of this pretty well. Really contributed to the atmosphere in some places. Also, while the visors let you see otherwise invisible things, they also made other things harder to see (or, in the case of the scanning visor, you couldn't shoot while it was on.)
Super Metroid's X-Ray is so cumbersome to use, I played it again recently and just wished for something like the tweet complained about.
But you're right, it's not needed, not even on the first playthrough, as no key item is hidden in such a fashion in the game. Interestingly, sometimes it doesn't even do anything, like when your path is only visually blocked by foreground.
Unfortunately, I was playing the Super Metroid / Link to the Past randomizer and had forgotten some locations, so I did have to use it every now and then.
subnautica does this and it's awesome
I hate picking up items. Oh I always stacked the pull in ability in kingdom hearts.
Assassin's Creed? I mean, it wasn't the button but it did have the "vision".
I’m replaying Baldurs Gate for the first time in, what, 20 yrs? EE. As old and basic as the game is, I can either tap the tab key once to flash a silent light up of everything lootable in the room and leave it at that. Or. There’s a button to click on the side bar that just leaves it on all the time.
This is the way. I don’t want to go all Witcher or do that god awful Dragon Age 3 search with that pulse noise. No annoyance. No sprained pinky. Just one click and done.
Looking at you Horizon ZD/FW.
Peter tingle.
