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Let’s be honest, Cuff was obnoxious.
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2023 has been and will continue to be a year full of great titles. There’s a lot of anticipation surrounding many of the games of the year, and genres of all types are getting great games. One thing that no one expected was the sentient gaming accessories that are annoying.
For some reason, developers recently thought that the next big thing was things that could talk. Games like Forspoken and Atomic Heart were massive drops for the year that included inanimate objects suddenly becoming aware of the world. Even December 2022’s release, High on Life, included obnoxious, talking accessories.
The problem is that, despite seeming new and updated, this is a system that’s been in place for decades – and it’s always been annoying.
Talking Sidekicks (Or Items) Aren’t New
Games have long included partners or sidekicks that fill gaps in the game with talking. Take Spyro as an example. Sparx the dragonfly consistently followed the small purple dragon (originally just indicating health), and Sparx eventually played a big role that included speaking and story.
A more recent example is Genshin Impact. Paimon floats around you, accompanying you wherever you go. At times she’s instructing you on what to do, and at others, she’s filling in the downtime with narrative and comic relief.
The kicker? Everyone hated Paimon. She was a meme for quite a while in Genshin Impact’s early days, and many were annoyed by her mandatory place in the game.
In general, talking sidekicks are seen as annoying by most players. So what were developers thinking with inanimate objects suddenly springing to life?
Why It Doesn’t Work Most of the Time
High on Life, while coming out late in 2022, did things a bit differently. Considering the game doesn’t take itself seriously and feels like it’s on a massive acid trip, a talking alien gun doesn’t sound so insane. It matches the world and feels realistic to the rest of the game, so it didn’t draw too much attention to itself.
While Forspoken and Atomic Heart aren’t exactly the epitome of realism, they take themselves seriously. There’s no rule saying that a sentient accessory can’t be serious, but they just don’t mesh well in either game. Atomic Heart doesn’t even try to make it serious, instead creating a delusional and incredibly problematic upgrade machine with some of the worst dialogue in gaming history.
Forspoken got a bit closer with Cuff, but the accessory still wasn’t a hit. Developers seemed to know that a talking piece of armor wouldn’t go over well with audiences, and they included a setting that deals with how often the device speaks (it’s one of the top ten tips for actually enjoying the game).
Sentient gaming accessories are annoying, but they didn’t tank any of the games on this list. In fact, some people liked the companionship or the humor they got from these objects. However, that wasn’t everyone’s view, and it wasn’t even a large majority of them.
How do you feel about sentient gaming accessories? Let us know below in the comments.
