I’m not spending $30 on a game that runs poorly on the hardware I have available to me (Xbox One S) to check to see if I like the game’s map. I’ll rely on screen shots and discussions, thanks.

I feel as though a lot of these problems, as you mention, are better left to just learning by playing. How much hand holding does a game need to provide. I’m all about usability (it’s my professional field), but at some point you need to let players learn by playing.

I have hundreds in FBR, as well, between launch and January when I stopped playing (before zoom was implemented, which is one of this article’s main requests, which... it’s there?).

I mean, FBR also uses the same color for its buildings and their shape and orientation so you can parse that same info just as quickly.

Yeah, I stopped in January. I didn’t know it was added. That makes this whole article even weirder to me.

Didn’t know that. I stopped playing in January. Good to know!

A game with a more realistic aesthetic design utilizes a more realistic-looking in-game map? Fascinating.

So dismissing zoom, as that’s been covered...

It doesn’t even look like it’d pass a color contrast legibility test. If you find white on tan text legible/functional, good on you. I can’t help you.

It clearly marks points of interest, legibly indicates the size and layout of said POIs, marks major roadways between said POIs, and is even color-coded to help you determine what areas you may wander into if you don’t use the map or refer to it glancingly.

Typical of Kotaku nowadays. This is more like, “Things I’ve played recently that - oh shit! - happen to run on shitty computers.”

The lack of the Portal games disturbs me.

Platted recently. Tried my hand in a single multiplayer match. This sort of stuff should have been in from the beginning. Doubtful the new PVP mode will be anything to write home about.

If you can’t tamper your excitement and wait a bit, then I don’t know what to tell you. Not everything needs to be consumed ASAP. Especially single player experiences like this game.

You “can’t afford” to wait to play a game? Many games commonly hit 30% off within 2 months of release. If game communities are dead within 2 months, maybe the game isn’t worth playing.

Yet another example in a growing list of examples as to why you should almost never, ever buy a game for full price upon release.

Without reading the article, but having read a number of Kotaku’s “turn stuff off in map games” articles already, lemme guess... it removes a bunch of on screen clutter, it hides a bunch of (arguably) helpful info, it makes it easier to explore “naturally,” and when it does have stuff on screen it’s clean, responsive,…

I stopped playing 2 months ago and there had already been tons of cries from the community requesting nerfs and Epic was saying they’d fix it “soon.”

I’m the same way. My thing is if the game is good/fun enough, I’ll give it a shot. And yeah, the achievements can’t be too grindy.

Yes and no. Many are system-level. PS4, Steam, and Xbox achievements/trophies are provided to you by the system/service they’re on. But games can have achievements within the game itself (like Mad Max’s) that may very well “trickle up” (so to speak) to a system-level one, but many go unnoticed by the system at large…