Me: It's philosophically wrong to associate the work of entire dev teams and studios with single individuals; this elevation of Great Men at the expense of their workers must be left in the dustbin of history
Also me, when a bethesda game shits the bed: Dammit, Todd!
Saved it to drafts, never to see the light of day.
Game devs have a habit of doing things "just because", without real intent behind them. And I'm a sucker for when creatives are inventive with their given artistic medium to get the most out of it under their constraints.
There are totally understandable reasons for some of these decisions, like time / resource restrictions (a game has to release).
That said, it often seems to be more a lack of consideration, lack of unifying direction (or inversely a unifying direction without purpose), or a cultural tendency to lean into dogma like the pursuit of high-fidelity, "rule of cool", or "other games did it this way".
This thought has affixed itself in my mind because I've been remembering late nights having long conversations with someone about this, especially in regards to level design.
Too many games lack level design with clear visual lines, contrast, or lighting to guide players. You can do some really cool, subtle things like having the path back to your base be wide and clear, in contrast to the side-paths being narrow and cluttered. Combine that with lights, ensuring maximum sight lines on the main path back, and maybe a visual breadcrumb like a torch - and you have a navigable level.
Instead, video game levels are frequently laid out with equal weight given to each path, and the visual clutter is uniformly "high fidelity" across them all (full of visual noise). This makes it hard for players to backtrack and causes them to get turned around easily; there isn't a distinct, intentional visual landmark.
Many games have a problem with putting too much detail into everything in their levels in general, pursuing extravagance in every corner. This oversaturates the world, dampening the impact of key visual vista moments. Worlds should be allowed to have plain areas and dull moments to highlight the punch of those exceptional moments. On purpose.
