With a title like that I was expecting something more than making some items weightless and giving you the ability to send stuff to camp and disassemble from anywhere. I mean it's nice but, these are all features other games have already done are they not?
this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2025
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Those games didn't pay Kotaku for a fluff piece.
They are, you're correct. I don't think it would work in every game either. Inventory management can be a powerful tension and choice device and getting rid of that isn't always a good thing.
Extreme inventory QOL often just turbo charges hoarding behavior and makes individual items feel meaningless. Just pop it in the bag, who cares, it's all weightless anyway!
Don't get me wrong, sometimes easy inventory is great, but I think inventory management gets a worse response than it deserves a lot these days.
/rant
Inventory management can be a powerful tension and choice device and getting rid of that isn't always a good thing.
Do you have a good example? Inventory management has always been tiring and annoying for me
One example I like is Dredge. If you took away inventory management from that game, you would basically destroy its whole economy and progression system. It would also get rid of the interesting way they make having tons of equipment mean you can't carry as much at once, creating a tradeoff.
I think one thing people get mixed up is the limitation side of a limited inventory -- which is often a good thing for creating choices, tension, and pacing -- and the physical action of sorting and arranging an inventory. This second one is a perfect place to streamline in my opinion because while the limitations on inventory create meaningful choices, having to spend a while rearranging your stuff to fit something in is very rarely good gameplay. You might already be making this distinction, but I wanted to clarify that just in case.
Inventory size/weight capacity is essentially a resource to manage, and I'm a big proponent of resource management in games (and this is coming from a designer who tried to get rid of and streamline resources for years -- it has some major downsides).
Dredge was incredible. I got the good ending by mistake.Do you know if the dlc is worth it?
The first one, the icy one, is just alright. It gives you another area basically that's about as much content as the 5 base game areas. The new one the iron rig is pretty fun, though I thought. If you really like dredge I'd say get both.
Ty! Haven't played dredge yet, bht I'll get to it one day
In Avowed they focus on management of weapons and armor as a tool for discretionary encumbrance. These items directly effect gameplay and therefore matter more to the player.
The smaller items that are all weightless effect gameplay indirectly and would make managing encumbrance a bit more convoluted.
Seeing as Avowed is more of a boiled-down rpg than what it is directly compared to (Skyrim), that extra time spent managing trivial items in an inventory just seems like a waste when the game itself is really trying to be a streamlined version of meatier rpgs.
Great points! I think you're spot on that a streamlined RPG would benefit from easy inventory management. I'll have to learn more about the armor and weapon system you talk about cause I'm curious to hear how it works.
Yeah it really just works kinda like i said, but the game also does a good job of organizing items so you can easily tell if you have more than necessary.
Another example of streamlining is the stamina system. It is limited in a fight to create a sense of balance and progression as you upgrade it... But when running around the world it is unlimited.
This is nice because it does not hinder traversal and imo worrying about stamina as i explore takes more away from the experience than it adds to it.
That's interesting about the stamina. I agree that having to constantly start and stop sprinting isn't a great solution and it's never felt quite right to me either. The only games where it feels like it adds anything are ones where running out is dangerous. For general exploration it's kind of a chore.
Elden Ring gives you an unlimited inventory, and every item has layers of lore.
It definitely works for some games to do it that way!
I was going to say the same thing. A "send to camp" button, scrap button, and most small stuff is weightless, is the sum of the articles praise.
For sure a nice quality of life feature if the focus of your RPG is elsewhere, but there are games where the choice of what to carry and keep is a driving part of the gameplay.
Downvoting because that link has more ads than content holy shit.
Are you not using an adblocker in 2025?
To be fair, the entire thing is an ad disguised as an article.
Clicking a link directly through an app in iOS is still eye murder.
Sounds miserable. Why would anyone choose to browse the internet that way?
You don’t browse that way. You browse the fediverse through an app like Voyager and the links you click go through the native iOS browser, without any ad blocking. You have to copy paste the link into your chosen browser to actually have ad blocking on iOS.
On Android, you can choose which browser is used by default to open web links. Is that not an option in iOS?
You can set a default for opening links outside of an app. Like, i can set an app (if there’s an option) to always open links externally and it will open in my default browser. Unfortunately, from my understanding, apps are required to use default safari when opening a link in-app. It’s really inconvenient to open every link I click in the voyager app externally so I just open links in reader mode as default.
Technically all browsers are safari on iOS but apps like chrome, Firefox, etc. only use the shell.
Ah, that's unfortunate. I guess the onus should still be on web sites to not be a tire fire, rather than expecting users to adopt workarounds.
the links you click go through the native iOS browser, without any ad blocking
That's the "that way" I meant.
I generally browse the fediverse in my default browser (or a progressive web app) and open links in the same browser. Browser has ad blocking. The network has DNS-level ad blocking. Opening websites like kotaku raw like that seems absolutely insane.
I agree. I don’t keep track of what sites are horrible cause I don’t see them usually. But when it hits you, it’s shocking just how unusable the raw internet has become. Some sites I are fine but sometimes I just got copy paste to actually read an article.
Always downvote kotaku. I thought I had a filter to block posts featuring that shit rag.
Lost me at "It's a really good game". It's an ad
Interface looks very similar to SkyUI 🧐
Those features though, I hope other RPGs consider them carefully:
- You can send items from inventory to your home base with a single click
- Consumables don't weight anything so you can carry infinite potions
This is just way too casual/reductionist imo. At least make some mechanic that justifies sending items. Like an item teleportation spell or something. Imo it's okay if some RPGs will be as convenient as this, but asking for every RPG to be like this is just too much.
Its not casual enough to me. I hate inventory management and prefer to get to the game. I like a collection system were once you have it you can always destroy it and re-recall any time you want. Its fine if you have to go home or stuff with it. For perm things anyway. For consumables I like the way elden ring did it where you unlock a capacity and then choose how to dole it out again in a collection way in that once you have unlocked a potion its an option.
Sure, I sometimes prefer simpler systems too. It depends on what I want to play currently. I'm more trying to say we need all kinds of games. Imo, complexity and flexibility of all those systems, like character stats, perks, inventory, etc - is what makes "RPG" an "RPG". If you take a bit of it away it becomes an "ARPG" like "soulslikes" and other similar games. If you take even more of it away you get "slasher", "3d platformer", etc. I'm a big fan of ARPG and 3d platformers like Spyro or Soul Reaver, but it's totally different kind of games.
I mean some mmo's do the collection thing although I find a lot of that is do to more and more stuff every year making it a necessity. I see what you mean. Games need to be out there for everyone but man I was never like. Oh man I love how much I have to manage my inventory in this game.
Oh man I love how much I have to manage my inventory in this game.
I'm currently playing Skyrim and I kinda dislike fast travel after Morrowind. It felt more interesting to figure out the best way to quickly travel from point A to point B because that involved mark/recall, mage guild teleports, propylons, silt striders, boats, etc. It was interesting logistics mini puzzle, and some of it you had to plan before traveling somewhere, (like the best place to cast "mark" spell). I guess inventory management can be like that too, it can come in different forms like having to play tetris with inventory slots in systems like Diablo, or balancing carry burden between companions in your party in games like Skyrim, or deciding between extended herbalism bags vs smaller general purpose bags in games like World of Warcraft.
Travel I get more. The scenary can be cool. That being said I like the overland to be mostly optional (I mean I get having to unlock as you progress). I do have my own oddities. I usually like to play magic user type characters so I would always preference moving by mage guild or church over beast transports even over using a more efficient method so I get people having their own things they find fun. It was always in my head like. Im gonna teleport because I have magic. I don't ride horses. Neverwinter online had a neat mount system were you could have like magical disks and such as alternatives. I did not like that game overall though :)
Well, that article succesfully turned me off even trying the game… It’s a list of immersion breaking stuff that makes it impossible to forget it’s just a computer game…
I don't like it, it's cheap and too casual. It's fine in some games, but I prefer most of my RPGs with as much immersion as possible. If you're going to do this, I expect you to have Magical Backpacks all around, and it would be even better if they behave like an actual item you can lose/get. I like how Chinese Xianxia solved this problem in high fantasy worlds: magic items with subspaces to store things are super common and even low tier bandits hiding in the mountains might have one or two lying around. Every system in an RPG should be designed and tailored to max the possible immersion you can get from the game. Don't make something just because it's convenient, make it something that adds to the experience and the lore of the game.
Every system in an RPG should be designed and tailored to max the possible immersion you can get from the game.
Having to deal with inventory management doesn’t always improve immersion. Inventory optimization doesn’t immerse me; rather, it gives me a puzzle to solve.
There are ways to make inventory management fun, and there are ways to make inventory optimization that actually matters. But I guess you could call it a puzzle, a very light puzzle, in the same way you'd have to think how to pack stuff for staying two weeks in a single medium-sized luggage. And I don't see how that detracts from the gameplay at all. Having to solve problems in a game is hugely interesting to me (and to many many people).
Usually the point of having limited storage is to convey the intention of the game designers that you shouldn't be hoarding every item you come across. In the same way, if you have unlimited storage, it tells you that you should be picking up everything. Conceptually, I'm fine with both, but making the player make choices that matter is way more interesting to me, and makes for a better game most of the time. For example, Extraction games are a clear case of how inventory systems can actually become a core part of gameplay, and it's obvious that those games would be less interesting if you just had infinite storage. ARPGs are also a big example of this, it's made so that you have to pick and choose loot before coming back town, and the game wants you to come back town, it's an important part of the gameplay loop. Outward has one of the coolest inventory systems I've ever seen, and it's super simple, just by having your stuff inside an actual backpack on your back, that affects combat, and can even be damaged, and you have this nice assortment of different bags to choose from, with different looks and traits. CRPGs have limited/realistic inventory systems where you have to spread loot among your party members before having to go back to civilization. Survival/Survival Horror games are heavily dependent on the fact that the player has limited inventory to create scarcity and make the player make choices.
Again, casual inventory mechanics have their places, but saying it should be in every RPG/Game is just wrong. Can you imagine a dark/low fantasy RPG where you can just have unlimited health potions in your backpack? The premise is instantly ruined.
The packmule in Dungeon Siege was a good integrated inventory mechanic.
A good game knows to explain game mechanics with lore. Games that break the 4th wall and by knowing they're games tend to struggle to be immersive. It can really obliterate environmental storytelling too.
You can't drop items in the game and you can't see item comparisons. Surely, this is less about design choice or more about band-aiding their archaic inventory system?