"Gotta find that item"

30 seconds later

"Hmm, that items gotta be around here somewhere"

30 seconds later

"I can't be messing around right now, gotta find that item."

Be sure to pre-order the Ultimate edition to get the exclusive limited edition gold-plated revolver.

Also, we dulled the color palette.

Not sure about that one. 2008 was firmly inside the "make everything brown for realism" era of videogames.

did we get a new bioshock or dishonored this year?

While I do wish they’d keep the visual styling, I personally feel we should aim for a less cluttered HUD in games. There are so many games where it feels insanely satisfying to rock HUDless and just feel like you’re in direct control of the action.

If you can integrate your HUD into the lore to make it part of the story, you get bonus points.

5 seconds later

"Hmm, I wonder if the item is in the location it's in"

Hey, make your menus as colorful as you want, but hardcore gamers, as in those who are vocal about their opions, completionists, and gamers who use mods, will pretty much always take the ingame HUD in the newer version.

I don't get it. 2008 was the time where most games had a puss filter and i don't think bloated ui has ever been a plus.

You know, you're right. We sort of went from dull brown to dull gray since then - at least for first person shooters.

Mayber "darker" is a more apt criticism than duller.

I remember when I was in college for game development. At the time Mirrors Edge was in development. My instructor for UI made us study it as the perfect example of a good UI. The dot wasn't so much a reticle as an anti nausea measure.

This was also a time where UI layers were occasionally just made in Adobe Flash (I think it was just after Adobe bought out Macromedia) so having a UI with crazy out of theme colours and issues syncing with the rest of the game was a real problem.

Designers felt the UI layers were often clunky, mechanical and in the way damaging the immersive experiences that had been becoming increasingly more "life like". It also saves a lot of localization cost.

I didn't end up in that industry but it seems like this became the norm for quite a while. Though I am starting to see better accessibility in game UI's games depending less on audio or visual only feedback. Which is good as we are all getting older.

You would find more colour in the mud at Passchendale.

laughs in quake

Wait, it's just brown?

Always has been

Prince of Persia (2008) – Epilogue DLC

The base game ended on a highly impactful, emotional cliffhanger where the Prince chooses to save his lover, Elika, at the cost of unleashing an ancient evil upon the world. It was an incredibly bold ending. However, Ubisoft decided to sell the game's actual conclusion separately as the Epilogue DLC. Worse still, the DLC managed to completely undo the narrative tension of the base game, making Elika upset at the Prince for saving her before she abruptly leaves him. To add insult to injury, the DLC was never even released for PC players, leaving them permanently stuck with a cliffhanger.

This was also a time where UI layers were occasionally just made in Adobe Flash (I think it was just after Adobe bought out Macromedia) so having a UI with crazy out of theme colours and issues syncing with the rest of the game was a real problem.

This was the reason early Skyrim mods rarely had custom UI*. Skyrim's user interface is done in Flash and making even minor changes is a huge pain in the ass.

I believe Skywind and Skyblivion both ran into problems implementing features from the old games due to this. Skywind actually had to scrap an entire feature set (their original implementation of enchanting, IIRC?) very late in development because the feature's developer left long ago and didn't share their Flash project files, meaning the team couldn't change it to work with later mod builds.

* I think there are modder-created UI libraries to make it easier now, but it was a huge problem back in the day.

It works for Demon's souls because it's a dark fantasy game and the new graphics absolutely nail that vibe.

I think the hud is a lost art, most games needlessly add icons and healthbars when alot of that info could be displayed in universe. For example the halo assault rifle has a ammo indicator on the weapon, or DeadSpace's famous suit (RIG) with the healthbar integrated on the characters back. There will always need to be some info shown to the player especially in a RPG or Survival game but regardless of how stylized it is doesnt make it good. I think the right looks better, it just looks worse when theres not an expansive world to explore behind the hud. I just want to see the world the devs built and the mechanics the game has to offer.

Hud elements should always be easily moddable editable or toggleable.

Real YMMV situation.

Some UIs added a lot of flavor and atmosphere. Others got in the way of the action or garbled the display in a way that felt distracting.

WoW famously had an interface that could easily consume most of the screen during raids. Elder Scrolls IV: PC port's interface was notoriously text heavy.

The edgy DmC reboot did the same thing, though I think the DLC was included in the Definitive Edition that was released later for every platform.

The other part of it is that it's much easier now to dynamically render UI elements when necessary, which removes much of the need for a HUD with dedicated portions of the screen for information.

On that note, I did get a good laugh from the addition of the ammo counter on the Needler.

Skyrim’s user interface is done in Flash

Still true for starfield, mind you.

On the flipside a game with a well made HUD nowadays immediately grabs my attention. As soon s I saw the blue butterfly select indicator in the Lies of P demo I knew these people were cooking.

On a side note this also convinced me to play Eternal Strands another game I love dearly.

No wait I like this. Kinda. Less UI in games please!

Game not included

Also, include these dialogues in a game where there are hidden collectibles, so you have to hear that fuckass dialogue repeat while trying to make sure you don't miss anything, only to accidentally take the correct path instead of the secret path with the collectible because the secret path was more obvious than the main path so you guessed that the most hidden one was for the collectible...

I'M COMPLETELY FINE

Ugh, of course it is. What's one more outdated component in an engine that's just a quarter century of hacks duct-taped together? I wouldn't be surprised if Bethesda are still battling technical debt from its NetImmerse/Gamebryo days.

The brown thing is a myth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTjGDkDI49I

And then, there is Control

I love it. I mod out my UIs to be as minimal as possible. Especially games like Skyrim. No map, press button to pull up compass. No numbers or letters on screen. A small health, mana, or stam bar comes up only when not full.

I like what they do with Monster Hunter Wilds UI but ohh boy, it's one hell of an uncharismatic UI.

Edit: add in rise for modern comparison

One downside in Rise is the switch skill, it just slapped right at the middle of the bottom screen.

My thoughts too. I often try to remove some/most of the UI if the game allows it just for realism and so that I have less distractions

Deadspace one is a work of art, health and ammo display is an in-universe thing instead of a hud for the player.

Fallout 4 does have a bug that I first encountered in Morrowind.

That's from reusing the Halo Infinite needler model, though why that one had the ammo counter is beyond me.

It's fine so long as they don't just move it into some pause menu I'm then forced in and out of constantly to get information.

Interesting video, but I disagree that it proves that the "brown thing is a myth". I was around back then and it was definitely a thing that was also being heavily criticized.

The thing is that with the methodology that guy employs, I guess it wouldn't really be visible. The "brown game" aesthetic, while definitely a trend, wasn't the only trend during that time. At the same time, you had the explosion of colorful Nintendo casual games on platforms like the Wii and DS. Many of those sold extremely well, so they'd be overrepresented when you only take the top 20 bestselling games of each year. Same with sports games, those never really change much, but they'll show up heavily on every top 20. But with games that wanted to seem more "mature" and especially genres like first-person shooters (like in the meme), the trend was very real.

Nearly every game I've worked on since the mid 2000s has started with someone saying "this time it'll be hudless"
We do a bunch of work on some kind of HUD replacement, and then testers and focus groups come back with
"I couldn't figure out where to go," "I couldn't see the enemies," "it's very confusing."

You need to do the art very differently to make a modern game readable without UI. To a lot of art directors and focus groups, UI is less immersion breaking than the art changes that readability without it requires.
Not saying it's impossible. Just requires a mind shift that AAA appears unwilling to take.

Even the menu for the map and inventory was physically projected in front of Isaac, as well as all button prompts and tooltips. No HUD whatsoever. Deadspace is a masterclass of diegetic UI

one of the things I like about vr games is generally less ui and if you really need stats you'll probbly have some watch type thing or even a tablet you can hold up to look at. you can count the bullets you shoot and load and if you fuck up the number it would probably happen in real life too.

I wish ALL games did this.

Too bad for you.
It's also an echo chamber if you only consider the games you played are the only valid options.
Best selling is best selling and represents the general consensus. Whether you like it or not.
If you only consider a platform or a genre, you are narrowing the scope. Which is not the point of an industry average.

Same. I want my Skyrim to be more like morrowind

This is what my brain feels like when i havent reloaded after killing an enemy.

It’s also an echo chamber if you only consider the games you played are the only valid options.

I mean, you couldn't be more wrong lol. I played the colorful Nintendo games back then and mostly hated on all the brown PS/XBox stuff (unfairly, there were some gems among those).

If you only consider a platform or a genre, you are narrowing the scope. Which is not the point of an industry average.

Using just the top 20 narrows it too. But my point is more that an taking an average doesn't prove whether a trend existed or not. And somehow I don't think that the creator of the meme was thinking of Nintendogs and Wii Sports.

I’d be interested to see a demake of a modern game on the PS1 or something that packs as many modern QoL improvements as possible into it.

It's perfect, assuming there are a similar number of audio cues too.

I really like that about a lot of Helldivers 2. There are screens on workstations that you need to control and the screens show what you need to do. Not a popup in your HUD. Also, there are ammo counters on a lot of weapons visible in first person mode, and a lot of other details to give you hints about your status without having it in the HUD.

And the right is way better. Minus the color thing.

If I wanted a menu simulator, I'd play an RTS or MMO.