Im not entirely sure if the issue is completely the menus or if the trend of making most recent games require rpg elements is at fault.

I understand menus are cluttered. But I would like to take a specific bone to pick with some of Sony's games. Please give me an option in games like God of war Ragnarok and horizon forbidden west to stop yelling the answer to a puzzle within 1 minute. I'm glad it is there for people, just give me a toggle

It's also frustrating to have "branching skill trees" but have 90% of the options being filler skills only good for people who min-max while only 5-10% being stuff that are actually useful in gameplay. But because having an expansive skill tree is embedded in whatever algorithm they use to make games these day, you still have to sift through all of it just to find that 5-10% of skills.

Also, I'm 3 meters away from a 55 inches tv but somehow half the games are unreadable because of how small and poorly designed everything is in menus.

Every day the triple A market get closer and closer to cookie clicker

It smells like a design-by-committee thing where the game has to have as many features as possible and the only way to manage it is through endless menu surfing.

Shoving crafting and rpg mechanics into everything...

I love how this video ironically ends with an ad for a tactical shooter game that's filled with menus.

This reminds me of an interview I saw with one of the developers at Guerilla Games. When asked what could have been improved in Horizon Zero Dawn, they said there are too many types of resources to manage, and it could have been more streamlined. Fast forward a few years, and Horizon Forbidden West has WAY more resources and fiddly craftables! I wonder if this is less of a design trend and more a result of overengineering to try and cater to as wide an audience as possible.

The root of the problem, IMO, is games going for quantity of stuff for the sake of it. Somehow, developers (and reviewers / gamers) think that a game with 7214 different weapons has to be better than a game with 5. Or that increasing the number of skill trees or crafting resources or upgrade options is the same thing as adding more depth. So often you even see those numbers in how games are advertised. But adding more useless variations of the same stuff is rarely good. It adds clutter that does very little to enhance player agency or decision making, but bloats the game and clutters menus. If I have a handful of collectables or item slots, I can keep track of them mentally and care about getting a new one. If I have dozens or hundreds of them, I simply disconnect from that mechanic entirely, and only occasionally check in on it when I need a boost to my stats. And dread having to do so. Even in RPGs that are about loot, this has become crazy. Everspace 2 is a great game, but it has 80+ different crafting resources. Most of them only have a single use. Why on earth the devs thought it was important to distinguish between tier 1 of sci-fi metal 72 and tier 2 of sci-fi metal 71 is beyond me. The art of streamlining has been lost as computers became powerful enough (and UI designed improved enough) that it was possible to add infinite amounts of clutter.

When crafting became popular I was excited, now I wish not every game would feel like it needs to do crafting.

Ever since I played Metro Exodus I started rolling my eyes seeing useless loot systems and cluttered menus.

I started out my career as a web developer. I’ve since moved onto game development as a gameplay programmer. The same way our UI team over in webdev talked about menus is the same way my colleagues talk about menus for games when they’re fundamentally different mediums. Menus are easier & cheaper to produce. That’s why they’re so cluttered now. It’s a way to cut corners & save a ton of money. Implementing character progression through visuals, audio what have you is EXPENSIVE. This isn’t going away unfortunately.

As implied, I think menus are a symptom, not the core issue. The issue is 'engaaaaagement' and how every big game is full of needless manipulation to increase playtime so investors get to see number go up. Specifically, I'd say the menus are there most of the time to support all the extraneous loot so you can keep track of the 5 different types of items you need to craft that 1% stat increase armor.

I think the problem is quantity: when crafting mechanics in a game are used to craft 8 weapons throughout the whole playthrough, it's immersive, cozy even. When it has 372 types of crafting materials to craft a list of 10.394 items, we have a big problem. Also, that's what I call a cold take.

remember in old games, when you, after a long slog finally get a new item, be it a weapon or an Armor upgrade which actually meant something, didn't even need stats to see the difference? now we get instant gratification by constantly getting new micro upgrades(which can be bought with a premium in game currency obviously), requiring us to look at the mouth watering useless item in a menu to equip it, and don't forget about the numbers going up that is also very pretty. all this in order to keep player engagement high and revenue going up.

Control! I really wish it didn't have loot!

I feel like this covers a symptom of an overall sickness. It feels like most of AAA games now feel like they need to be open world rpgs. This is one of my biggest annoyances with this trend. I’d love to go back to early 3D platformers(Sly Cooper, Ratchet and Clank, Jak and Daxter, Spyro) and play in an semi open world with a tight story that feels like I’m constantly being pushed forwards. I know Borderlands was mentioned in this video for doing loot right, but I also feel like it has an amazing balance between the open world and the story.

I didn't mind the gear management in GoW or Horizon FW. They both have a fixed number of weapons that can be upgraded. Many of which only fit 1 playstyle. Picking one and sticking with it is totally viable. Conversely, games like Nioh have enemies that explode into loot piles, and you have to decide weather the spear with +1.3% spirit is somehow better than you current one that gives 15 more damage while falling.

I love the micro and macro style analysis that you guys do, instead of limiting critique to specific games. It gives you a lot of credibility as reviewers when you prove that you understand the components that make games work!

You accidentally made me realize part of why Helldivers 2 feels so fresh--when you're in-play, you basically never leave the action for a menu thanks to the unique stratagem system. There is loot and there are menus, but both are incorporated in ways that make them feel more optional and exciting than rote and demanding.

My favorite part of the Doom franchise is when you kick in a door and start fiddling with a spreadsheet.

Tears of the kingdom had way too much menu. Why was there no favorite option for fusing weapons/arrows.

It's so wild that so many games are all trying to be the same game, while ignoring all of the huge smash hits that succeeded by being their own thing.

the Dad of Boy duology would be so much better if they had the Original Trilogy's Level-up menu screen also is funny that they have Brok & Sindri talk while you upgrade because they know it takes too long, but at the same time their dialogue is distracting while you navigate the menus

Anyone remember GoldenEye:007? The one where you bust out your watch to access all the menus? You mostly used it to do objectives, so it fit right into the whole James Bond schtick and it felt SO GOOD. Plus it helped curb speedrunning a little, since you had to let your guard down to use the watch.

100% right - 'inventory management' is a mini-game all on its own. Yeesh!

While I agree with you that the unnecessary complex menus and "RPG-like" elements were one factor in my dropping off on both recent GoW games, to me, it was the absolutely egregious use of the secondary characters completely SPOILING every goddamn puzzle room three seconds into entering them, that really killed it for me.

I'm sure something else did it first but the Sea of Stars example was done by the Super Mario RPG. It has gear too but levelling up is just picking between 3 options to level a stat.

As someone that has played God of war 2016 and Breath of the wild, I think a lot of issues would be solved if the gear was already at max when you acquire it. I don't think a player will want to experiment how a certain gear will change their play style when you need to upgrade everything at least 3 times to not be instakilled with one hit.

The only time I ever tolerate menus is in games like CoD or Helldivers II. You pick your loadouts, you pick your buffs, your perks, all of that and you get your ass into the mission. It's even better with the latter, because then while you're out and about, everything's diegetic, from your stratagems to the compass. It's simple, but sometimes, that's all you need.

Dead Space 1 is a masterpiece regarding to menus

I feel like this along with a lot of modern AAA design is the transition of games that feel like their designed by a committee to games designed by multiple committees that don't talk to each other. Like I am guessing that half of these menus are because their is a team that does the RPG elements and so they spend all their time making those as deep and fleshed out as possible despite that fact that works against the overall game because their job is only to focus on the bit that they work on.

The thing which I've been saying for a while is the main problem with AAA design is that they've trapped themselves with their own propaganda. There are things that can only be done with 400 people and $100M to spend. Next-gen photorealistic graphics. Huge amounts of writing and especially voice acted dialog. Massive worlds. Sprawling interconnected mechanical systems. Massive open worlds filled with handcrafted locations and scenes. The AAA industry, in its desperate quest to avoid an unwinnable battle with the endless sea of indie titles, has pushed a narrative that those things are the markers of quality. And they've been pushing that narrative for so long that the standards have reached a point where not even a AAA studio can make good games while meeting them. You know how purple dye used to be extremely rare? The modern AAA games industry is like if rich painters started claiming that purple was how you could tell if a painting looked good, and then they kept on one-upping each other in how much purple they were putting in until they reached a point where they couldn't actually draw anything because the only way to be taken seriously was to slosh a whole bucket of purple paint over the canvas. Menus are just yet another example of that, because systems too bulky to integrate into the game seamlessly require menus, and if the choice is between good design and more systems, AAA studios will always make the same choice.

Thank you for this! I'm currently chipping away at Horizon Forbidden West and I'm absolutely annoyed with the character progression trees and the sheer number of bloody weapons Aloy is carting around. I didn't understand why they didn't give you ONE weapon of each type and let you craft whatever arrows you wanted at that time. But no, hang on while I pause and swap my hunter bow to a fire hunter bow for this one enemy before I swap back to the regular one - literally pausing the combat to do so in a menu both times. Its been awhile since I played the first game, so I don't remember it being this bad before, but my gut says the RPG elements are significantly more present in this one, and it's absolutely hurting my immersion this time around. I don't want to fiddle with stats in an adventure game to this degree.

This is absolutely because of the "what do we fill the world with" problem. When it's Apples of Idunn or weapon skills, or even when it's money, no problem. When upgrades need you to go hunt down special bosses, that's all good too, just don't ask me if I opened enough crates of Boar Hide or whatever. It's one level of abstraction too far and doesn't ask the question "is it fun?"

_Tomb Raider_ 2013 was when I first noticed this. I've always loved Lara's adventures but I was constantly stopping progression to find material to upgrade gear and skills.

"Get out of my show". Love that little crossover bit.

Zelda did something very right in BoTW and ToTK that I only recently noticed and appreciate: If you open the inventory after picking up an item, it jumps directly to that item so you don't need to hunt. ELDEN RING, PAY ATTENTION!

I can tell you exactly how many hours I spent in menus in Dragon's Dogma 2. Steam shows I had 59 hours played when I beat DD2. The in-game time counter showed 47 hours. To wit, I spent roughly 12 hours in menus throughout my first playthrough. Yuck.

My main issue with Forbidden West was that I always felt upgrading my blue lvl 15 bow was a waste of time because in 5 hours I'm gonna get a purple lvl 25 bow and I can't get the crafting materials back out of the blue bow then. Also because the upgrade just gave tiny stat boosts. At the same time the game didn't give me enough weapons to cover all the 7 elemental types in a way I wanted in my loadout. Zero Dawn had the better elegant balance with like, 3 tiers of meaningful progress across about 8 weapon types.

What's even worse is when the game puts an unnecesary ammount of effort into trying to make the menu immersive or interactive. Animations, sounds, whole ass cutscenes, just to navigate inventory or skills... it's cool the first 7 times, and then just gets annoying forevermore. I want to go in, do what I need to do and get back in the game, not watch the same "isn't this cool" animation for the 150th time

honestly want to find the guy who pitched GOW "no camera transitions for immersion" and have them sit through all the menus while an extemely indecisive person reads through each and every option

Thanks for making this. I think about this often but couldn’t quite put it into words how games have changed over the past 15 years or so. Feels like after Minecraft came out, all game developers collectively decided that their games MUST include a massive inventory of items & BS crafting mechanics

i assume they have data that it improve overall player engagement. but i agree, not all game need to be rpg that bogs down the action and break immersion

I've been screaming about endless menus for over a decade. It has destroyed so many games for me when I realize I spend a third of my time in menus.

See...I like menus and gear screens and all that kinda stuff. And I like the RPG elements. Maybe that's because I like RPGs, in theory, but don't really have the time or patience for real hardcore RPGs days. So I like having some of the elements that I enjoy integrated into games that don't require such a huge time commitment or have an enormous learning curve. I like having things to look through with information about the game and the characters and the items. And I like having gear choices, not just scripted points in the game where you get character upgrades. I don't think narrative focused games necessarily need to have dumbed down gameplay or challenge.

Hogwarts was last year's epitome of "a difference that makes no difference is no difference"; loot there should have just unlocked cosmetics (because Fashion Souls is the end game for all third-person perspective games). State of Decay has that same endless cruft of garbage where weapons trivially differ outside of sometimes imperceptible cosmetic changes. The Cary Elwes game, A Bard's Tale (2004) handled loot very well in the sense that it didn't get in the way of gameplay, even if it made no sense in terms of the game. When finding an upgrade, it was auto-equipped and your old junk immediately transmuted into gold.

I initially misread this as "stop with all the memes" and was extremely confused for a good thirty seconds.

Preach it brother. I quit both gow games because of it. Went back and played the first on story mode and didn't change my equipment once. Such a difference. Especially in a game that's literally one shot from start to finish

Folks have probably already said this, but really love the opening musical riff for "Unpacked"

it sounds a bit cringe, but what I love about you guys is that you just *get* gaming, you know? that games are great because of their interactivity, that's what sets them apart from other media that stopping the player from playing the game or making them do something that isn't fun is bad! I'm so glad this channel exists

And PLEASE bring back words, not ambiguous icons.

The extent to how convoluted RPG/equipment stats are in games, is akin to math homework. Attack +6, Speed -3, 10% more damage if enemy is poisoned on a Tuesday wearing a sombrero… I want to rack up combos, not do calculus.

I was waiting for a BG3 mention... I know a lot of DnD players loooove spening time on their tables and stats, but I got so frustrated having to deal with menues for all of my team, time that I wanted to spend exploring, fighting and most of all interacting.

Idea. Offer auto skill options for those who don't want to spend time doing that. Early on, give the player a simple choice (e.g. "I wanna hit hard in melee", "I wanna be a sniper or "I wanna focus on talk no jutsu) and the game levels automatically for you. There could even be a community skill feature where you can easily import builds of other players.

FF7 Remake/Rebirth is an interesting example, because its a remake of an rpg where menuing was important, and its arguably even more important in the remakes. Materia builds were fun in the original, but the game rarely pushed back, while encounters in Re will absolutely stomp you if you go in without a plan. It still feels like a an evolution of ATB combat, even with all the extra action trappings. Its more down to the "vapidity" of the mechanics, how much they matter. I'm here for it if I'm making decisions about if I want to deal with specific enemy mechanics, as opposed to getting a 5% bonus to ass-scratching.

There is also the forgotten art of "Connected Menu". You know, you need to equip armor? No, you cannot click your armor-slot and pick available items, you have to go to inventory, armor section, and then select item to equip. Now you want to improve it? You cannot just click your armor-slot, you cannot do it from inventory, there is separate enhance/crafting system you have to go to. All menus must be strictly trees of selections, and if enhancing is in the forge, no other menu will let you to enhance your items. No shortcuts, no alternates for people who like different kinds of menus.

Don't forget Elden Ring, and the sheer amount of pickups that you can't use unless you craft them into something else. It sure would have been simpler if they had just put those crafted items into the game as pickups, instead of forcing the player to craft them.

AAA games tend to have so many systems now, I don't know how you'd get away with having less menus, but it would be cool to see more developers try.

This made me think about my time with god of war and starfield where i found the menu time extremely tedious. Then i compare it to paper mario games where you spent a good chunk of time in menus but it felt so central to the experience. Those games did a similar "increase health/mana/inventory" leveling scheme that was fast and easy. It really was great. You could make it as simple or as complex as you wanted. It was always easy and fun to manage.

+1% to X is just a waste of my time. I have to go to a menu multiple times to not only equip or buy that thing but also to potentially see if I even can swap it out with the next thing. Stop wasting my time.

This is one of the things that I found the (3)DS and WiiU were really good for: Not necessarily the management of overly-detailed RPG mechanics that are being shoehorned in because the design committees say people like them (and people do like them, but there's a fine line between adding character customization and growth that enhance the sense of progression and just sticking loot score in for the sake of having it), but for taking simpler menu interactions and turning them into something that can be handled on the fly is *huge* for maintaining immersion and momentum. Wind Waker's HD remake on the WiiU single-handedly turned it from being an okay game to being a serious contender for the best 3D Zelda in my books, simply because I could just glance at the gamepad to see the map instead of needing to pause every time I wanted to see it. That meant the ocean navigation and exploration that were some of the game's biggest strengths went from being something that interrupted my gameplay to being something that just happened smoothly and intuitively. It's not necessarily going to solve menu interactions that force you to stop and make decisions, but I think there's real potential for games to start taking advantage of second screens to streamline simpler menu use, whether we're talking second monitors for PC games or integration with phones for consoles (which is probably a more viable option than trying a WiiU 2.0).

Nick’s right about how there’s genres of games where spending a lot of time in the menu is expected of them. Turn-based combat and old RPGs did that a lot. But at least they had the benefit of whenever you reached a new town, you’re expecting better gear to upgrade your character with, so you don’t have to jump in every 10 seconds.

When I saw that Hogwarts Legacy had separate menu areas for "Inventory", "Gear", and "Collections", I knew things were getting out of hand.

This kind of topic always reminds me of Egoraptor's sequelitis video about Castlevania, way back in the day. Specifically the part where he described Castlevania 2 as killing monsters, to collect hearts, to go back to town, to buy an item you need to progress the game. Whereas Castlevania 1 was you kill monsters who are impeding your forward progress to the next part of the game.

As someone who is really into cRPG I'm glad that people from the other side can also be annoyed that every. single. game. is a "RPG" now, since it just means numbers going up - also menus + controller = extra clunky compared to mouse + keyboard

The Elden Ring, Borderlands and Diablo example makes it perfectly clear, that this is a personal thing. I enjoyed Ultra Hard for the 2nd Horizon game. And I came to the game because of it. And others want to play Elden Ring for the lore. AAA games need to cater for the largest audience possible, and that includes people who want to stretch the systems to the maximum, or only that want to enjoy the story. Story Mode and such exist for exactly that reason. One could argue that disabling the menus in Story mode would probably even further your desired appeal, but then again, would increase work load for the studios.

Absolutely with you on this. The original Final Fantasy VII was bad enough, forcing you into the menus to constantly swap Materia around. The remakes double and triple down on this. Oh, and kudos on the Yahtzee cameo, made me laugh.

Stop mouse navigation when using a controller.

The issue is none of the games listed (God of War being a major one), needs to be an RPG looter game and is for some reason.

Instructions unclear, made a game entirely out of menu surfing.

this is one of my biggest pet pieves with games in the last decade or so as well. I really like Rise of Ronin but the itemization is so fucking uselessly huge. I have auto-sell on for the lowest 2-3 rarities already and my inventory is at something like 700/2000 items and I'm just not looking into it because it's just a chore.

There is some fun to be had in customizing a build in these games, but I think the problem is entirely quantity over quality. For a comparison example, let's look at Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart vs Ratchet: Deadlocked. In Deadlocked, your weapons go up to level 10 in normal mode, and each level boosts the power and grants a mod slot. You can mix and match your mods so a weapon has boosted fire rate, ammo capacity, auto-target accuracy, knockback, AoE, money generation, even healing. The mods stack, and each individual mod is a noteworthy increase for the weapon. It takes a few seconds to set up, and all you really have to do is unlock the mod slots (and once you're in challenge mode, you can buy spare mods for bolts, so there's eventually unlimited customization). In Rift Apart, your weapons level up from use, but they also have an upgrade grid where you spend raritanium, a separate resource from bolts, to get very minor upgrades. You tend to need more than one upgrade to notice the difference in effect (except +1 ammo cap, but *bruh*), and all the major upgrades require you to pick up every upgrade around them, which means buying 6 to 10 other minor upgrades in order to get one upgrade that, on its own, is significant. The first example allows for the player to mess around, move some utility upgrades between weapons, and see what happens if you make a rocket launcher fully automatic. The second is an unnecessary upgrade grid that could have just been implemented in the weapon levels, and/or be cut down to three or four upgrades that are major bonuses instead of single digit increases.

Gotta say: I'm loving all the show intros in the new channel. Top marks.

-Think i'll try out that new God of War game _menu pops up_

Starfield... and why can I pick up desk organisers and succulents? Ohhhh...that's how I decorate my penthouse in Neon

I was quite happy with how FF16 handled this. Clive gets a weapon slot, 2 armour slots, 3 accessory slots. No fucking around with "ooh this is +0.5% slashing damage, much better than my current +0.3% piercing damage" - just bigger number unga bunga. Having said that, most of the accessories were a bit dumb in regards to stuff like "this specific ability no recharges 0.5s faster", cause that will always lose out to shit like "15% extra EXP" and "flat 5% damage increase", but hey. No fucking around with party members equipment. Dumping points into upgrading eikon abilities is exactly the amount of shit I care to give (given the rate at which you unlock them).

Agreed on this one in sense that I don't understand why there should be "RPG elements" which imply in reality only tons of useless gear and "skill points trees" in every modern game. I played games for decades where those were not a thing. And I enjoyed them. There was progression. You would unlock new ability after boss fight or at some point in game, but it was happening in game. No need for menus shuffling, bars filling and deciding "where to put my skill points? Into +1% swing speed or -1% damage recieving"

Yes! I hate when I'm looking for a good story, or just a good flow state, and instead I'm basically stuck navigating excel spread sheets using a playstation controller. Sure, the spreadsheets in videogames have fancy skins to make them look nicer, but they're less user friendly a lot of the time because they don't have the same functionality of an actual spread sheet. It's like the worst of both worlds

Tim Rogers quantified his exact time spent in FF7R menus (as well as everything else he did in that game) for the Action Button review. I recall it being a significant amount of time.

Story mode, or as i call it, “sorry I’m a dad now, I don’t have time to learn new game systems anymore” mode

One of the aboslute best changes between Mass Effect 1 and 2 was the removal of all the damn weapons and armour and upgrades you got. So much simpler and more enjoyable in 2 and 3.

I'm honestly floored the affinity system from Megaman Battle Network 2 and 3 has never come back. Play aggressively? Buster style. Use a lot of abilities? Custom style. Defensives? Shield style. The game molds to your playstyle and encourages you of trying new ways of play. Three makes the even smarter decision to give you permanent upgrades that you can use cross-style such as the coveted BugStop from mastering bug style which allows you to completely disregard the rules of the puzzle and place pieces wherever you want at the cost of just a few slots. Yes the ability comes back in future games but honestly in those it's basically just a progression check since you can get it just by playing normally. It's nowhere near as cool as specifically playing wrong and suffering a ton of downsides so that you earn the immunity to them.

As someone who has been able to call themselves as a gamer for 35 years and has taken a particular liking to the RPG genre, these menus haven't been bothering me at all. In fact, when the game has a robust talent tree system or something like that, it makes me giddy.

I think modern game developers have forgotten that good gameplay is supposed to be your reward for making progress through a game. You know what your reward is for completing a level in Halo? You unlock another level. That’s a reward. You know what your reward is for beating a boss in the old school God of War games is? You get a new weapon to play with. That’s a reward. You know what your reward is in most modern games? You get a sword that's identical to the one you used to beat the challenge, but this one is +1 and has orange particle effects instead of green. Getting a new level is a good reward if you made a good game. Getting a new weapon is a good reward when all the weapons are unique and interesting to play with. Skyrim literally has skill checks that reward you by cutting content. If your reward for succeeding a skill check is that you DON’T have to do a quest to progress, that’s probably a sign that you need to reassess your quest design to make it actually interesting.

Love your game analysis. One suggestion, could you put the name of the game currently being shown in the corner somewhere? Not everyone knows every game and might be interested what you are showing. Thanks!

Lets not forget that annoying DOT to tell you "Look you dope, take a look at this garbage you got. NOW!" I dont care, I really do not care one bit.

I'm a Grand Strategy enthusiast, I can move my why around menus. But I feel your pain, if I wanted to look at menus for 90% of game, I have my own Paradox branded drug.

What was especially irksome about the God of War games' constant menu surfing is that they went through so much effort and there were so many concessions and so much hubbub for their "one continuous shot" approach. It goes through so much trouble to laboriously ensure there are no hard cuts and to take its time with everything, but it's so hamstrung by there being the meta hard cut via constant menuing to rifle through equipment and upgrades.

Imagine it's 1950 and you start talking about "generations" of cinema. It feels big and different because we're in it. It's hard to see the large trends when we've barely scratched the surface.

I'm one of those weirdos who likes clicking around in the menus. I just find something soothing about it.

4:54 "I just wanna look cool, adventure and destroy a bunch of shit when I'm doing it" That's what I said to my guidance counselor Freshman year... they kicked me out and made me go to a special school... so, I guess I levelled up or something

I wonder if the menus, inventories and such have a connection to all of microtransactions and cosmetics

I really enjoyed this, even if I don't entirely agree. Odd as it may sound I find the gear grind in games like Borderlands actually *more* annoying. Maybe it's because I'm a long-time table-top gamer. But I enjoy buildcrafting and tweaking in most of my games. I love thinking that if I try this armour set and buff that stat I can be more kill-y. For me the fun is as much the game outside the game. But, to each their own. I do get where you're coming from. Even if I'm in a different menu screen. :p

Shadow Warrior 2 was one obvious case where it was pretty pointless. Having so many options for customizing the large arsenal of guns was good, but it being done via gems that accumulate more and more over playtime, was not. All of this could easily have been attached to the guns themselves, thus minimzing the time needed to engage with the upgrade process. Especially since the vertical inventories were obviously not built with the ever-increasing number of gems in mind.

I never considered it a form of ludonarrative dissonance, one accepts it is "because video game," but I will stand by the idea that a 1% reduction to stagger is not a treasure worth pursuing. I think this is the difference, those "better done" upgrades were either minor and out of the way, or large and symbolic. You didn't have to actively give a shit about a 1% damage reduction, the game just said you were stronger and you kept going. Conversely, if the game took the time to give you a rocket launcher you could reasonably expect it was a real, tangible upgrade. You didn't need it quantified, "I have two rocket launchers now." was sufficient. And for what it's worth this was true of RPGs as well, the obstinately incremental nature of these things is a modern abomination, not a requirement of the genre.

Thank you, yes! I’m grateful for changes to NMS so that I can focus my og save to exploring rather than grinding and in & out of menus

I wouldn't mind seeing immersive games with no HUD, no menus (beyond quit/resume when pausing), no maps and no title screen. It just fades in and off you go.

For whatever reason, studios think they NEED to have player choice and RPG elements in EVERY game, or it simply isn't "video game" enough.