551 Stacks And Stacks And Stacks

Collecting has always been a core component of video games. It probably satisfies some primal urge of survival that I know nothing about, really. But it’s probably a real thing!

Lately it feels like everything is in stacks. Everything in games is stacked, because everything is collectable, and we need ways to organize mass amounts of things that we collect. But why? Why do I need 20 ingot steel bars to craft a helmet, when in reality it would only really take one or two. And who could even carry 20 ingot bars at once, anyway?

Obviously I understand this is just a system designed to allow me to collect things, and is likely a large source of the fun (“fun”!) derived from playing. (See tomorrow’s post Blacksmith, where I talk about what it would be like to get rid of all the stacks). But that doesn’t mean that it needs to be this way.

I’ve seen a few games recently (and I’m sure many in the past that I’m not aware of) that don’t use or very limitedly use stacks. Subnautica is one, and while watching streamers play this, I always hear complaints about carrying capacity. “Ugh! I wish I could just stack all of these fish carcasses in my inventory so I didn’t have to keep returning back to my base.” Hmmm..

So there is a disconnect between the common “loot collecting” system and no-stacks. Or really I guess, there’s a deep connection between this type of system and using stacks.

[ Today I Was Playing: Borderlands 2 ]

#game-opinion