Pokémon has reached its ninth generation with Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, representing the series’ first foray into an open world. Results so far have been mixed, with particular focus on the games’ poor technical performance. However, the move to an open world has inspired other problems that, while not alien to the series, are exacerbated by the extra freedom afforded players.
With both games’ maps and minimaps obscured with countless icons, a lack of pathfinding, and no meaningful landmarks, navigation in Pokémon’s ninth generation is, thus far, a nightmare.
While this is partly down to Game Freak’s inexperience with open world games, it’s also part of a growing trend in the industry. Navigation aids, quest logs, objective markers – aspects of gaming with which we’re so familiar – are disappearing. Where once studios like Bethesda and Ubisoft drowned us in wayfinding, now its relative absence is disadvantageous to players. In particular, it’s disadvantageous to cognitively impaired gamers.
Source – eurogamer.net
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