We've all had that moment where a feature felt revolutionary when it dropped, then five years later you boot up the game and wonder what the hell everyone was thinking.

Could be a camera system that made you nauseous, a crafting grind that ate your soul, a dialogue wheel that pretended your choices mattered, or some gimmick controller feature that was fun exactly once. Sometimes the thing that defined a game becomes the thing you can't stand replaying.

I've seen plenty of systems that looked slick in trailers but felt like punishment after the first hour. The worst ones are the mechanics that get cloned by ten other games before anyone admits they weren't that great to begin with.

What's a game mechanic that seemed genius when it launched but now feels outdated, annoying, or just plain bad?

54 minutes ago, Cloud said:

What's a game mechanic that seemed genius when it launched but now feels outdated, annoying, or just plain bad?

I thought the game syphon filter was great back in the day --- sucks now. The machanics are horrible. Same with Duke Nukem: Time To Kill