Everything has this modern minimalistic look nowadays, not just in games. All websites, phones, TVs, cars etc look the same. I wouldn't touch any fucking modern game so it doesn't really bother me, but yeah its terrible.

>>1389 With games it frustrates me more because unlike those other things where it might have been mandated by the higher-up suits to boost the sales, and there's no inherent artistry in phone or website design, with vidya it's a conscious decision to make your game worse and less unique, coming from the creators themselves. I guess because more and more of your typical Apple-buying cattle crowd gets into "game design" and pushes for this cancer. And japs then copy the gaijin verbatim because those games sell with the similar normalfags.

I don't mind "minimalistic" UI if the game is minimalistic to begin with or to kick out most of the possibly distracting elements in a view with many depths of layers. Two examples: GTA IV in Online mode only had 4 things and one in each corner, area name when prompted, weapon & bullets, small map and notifications of important actions when prompted too; all small enough to have a wide view. Forza Motorsport 3 is still one of the best made clean UI interfaces and mind boggling it could never be replicated in terms of polish after 10 years, the customized car previews even look pre-rendered due to how good it was. Minimalistic no-identity UI inside a stylized game like Zelda, Mortal Kombat or God of War i find very little justifications to do that tho, seem like placeholder assets that were never replaced to me. The more people you put in a project the more chances you have for someone to not like something so it all dumbs down to the common denominator thing that makes people the least mad, at least if you don't have a unified creative head team calling the shots, in corporative game making that exists but it's only symbolic, the real bosses there are the HR fags and the timekeeper managers. >Apple-buying cattle crowd lol, it can fall down to that too, some fags think some of that stuff distracts rather than add to the vibe. And like many problems it is the context, the area where many games are made, Silicon Valley, is the biggest Apple cattle grazing area in the world so it's like putting some fruit near the bad fruit and expect the normal ones not to degrade. Or should i say apples?

>>1391 >or to kick out most of the possibly distracting elements in a view The minimalism of UI isn't really in the amount of objects on screen, a lot of games dating back even as far as the 4th gen would have HUD elements disappear until summoned or prompted, or have very few objects on screen entirely. So this isn't really an issue that the modern games decided to "boldly tackle". This minimalistic plague of today is a deliberate design choice to strip any identity and style away, replacing it with this sterile, standardized and uniformed cross-media look to signify the total control over all of media. I'm not really a tinfoil kinda guy, but it does feel like some commie "no excesses" type of subliminal bullshit, with plain basic fonts and geometric layouts, to keep the masses nice and unimaginative, ready to receive the "correct" information across any medium in a style they're used and highly susceptible to, clapping their hands as they recognize things. >Forza Motorsport 3 Such type of UI thematically works with vroom vidya due to inherent soullessness of machines and I've seen it in many a racing game. Perhaps it's one of the places where it leaked out when your "gaming university degree" designers started looking for clean minimalistic UI examples. >the area where many games are made, Silicon Valley, is the biggest Apple cattle grazing area in the world And coincidentally all progressive leftyland.

The first game I remember having a noticeably out-of-place "minimalistic" and monochromatic UI with bland, modern-looking fonts was Skyrim, so I'm blaming Todd. It works fine in games with futuristic/sci-fi settings (e.g. Half-Life 2), but it doesn't work at all with fantasy/medieval settings. It's probably so prevalent these days because it checks all the "accessibility" boxes, but I typically find flat, minimal UIs less intuitive and more cumbersome than stylized UIs that pop out at you. That goes for all software, not just games.

>>1394 Though I would like to blame Todd for everything myself, this cancer started way before Skyshit. GTA 4 was already trailblazing in that direction. >It works fine in games with futuristic/sci-fi settings Even in sci-fi you still want some style. Like in HL2 they went for a unique font and color to tie it all thematically with game's usage of orange/yellow tones, evoking the bio hazard vibe. >I typically find flat, minimal UIs less intuitive and more cumbersome than stylized UIs Makes sense since every window, map or button looks the same and is harder to see due to translucence and thin lines. I mean looks at that God of Soy HUD, you need to squint to see anything even in HD.

>>1394 Especially Skyrim is ultra bad. So bad that the top mod downloaded tries to fix it. But you can't polish a (minimalistic) turd, it's artstlye is still minimalistic bullcrap.

>>1393 >The minimalism of UI isn't really in the amount of objects on screen It isn't but it was an important factor in IV, explosions didn't rock or add a quick filter in the screen either like modern games, let alone the also quick change of tones/highlights when a target "dies" out like V had which makes things annoying along with the music stopping after several wanted levels. It was minimalistic in terms of not being obstructive nor distracting. >This minimalistic plague of today is a deliberate design choice to strip any identity and style away Yes, hence the "dumbs down to the common denominator thing that makes people the least mad" i mentioned. I agree, but i also think some people are lazy bastards, designing a quick minimal UI takes less reunions and less convincing a silly head designer who in theory should be the one designing such visuals before a single line of code is written. >to signify the total control over all of media I can also buy that but it would take the discussion far more into the uber ideology made to make people bots and foreign to uniqueness. Your commie commentary closes in hard to the subject but again some people are just lazy or want to avoid crossing dumb project leaders. >Such type of UI thematically works with vroom vidya due to inherent soullessness of machines Disagree, many games about cars ooze with style, FM3 style was about the showroom aesthetic, boundless cleanliness, a void with machine perfection (from our own eyes/choices) as the center, the sub menus are clean but the main menus are panoramic views of nature to project the viewer back into the real world so you don't get eaten. Music also reflects this ideology but that's another story. >And cohencidentally all progressive leftyland. FTFY

>>1405 Is it similar to Morrowind/Oblivion UI?

Minimalism isn't bad, the problem is that when there's a design trend everyone jumps on it instead of using whatever style benefits the game I'd say the main appeal if minimalism besides "everyone else is doing it" is that it's usually inoffensive even when done poorly and just ends up looking forgettable, while elaborate UIs if you fail at making a good looking one everyone will notice. It's hard for minimalism to be memorable but it's also hard for it to be glaringly ugly (though not impossible as skyrim proves). I don't think there's some soul removing conspiracy in play, just laziness and lack of ambition from the designers and probably higher ups wanting their clean UI like those other games that sold There's some games with UIs that are minimalist but full of soul and memorable like early wipeouts. The difference is designers have a shit and put a lot of love into the UI instead of using minimalism as a crutch >>1390 >unlike those other things where it might have been mandated by the higher-up suits to boost the sales Pretty sure the same happens to vidya

>>1410 We're not really talking about minimalism being in any way inherently bad as an artistic expression. Obviously it's perfectly valid and there are a lot of iconic examples of it, especially from Japan who in general often gravitates towards it. We're talking more about the standardized modern "corporate minimalism" being forced upon everything nowadays without any rhyme or reason. >Pretty sure the same happens to vidya To an extent, but vidya is a complex medium without any one obvious "appearance" unlike let's say a car. So mr. Shoa Shekelberg doesn't have as much of an impact on how it will ultimately look, that has to come from the devs themselves at some point.

>>1406 >Disagree, many games about cars ooze with style, I was talking about the car themselves as objects.

>>1412 Sorry, went a bit overboard there, although some expensive cars still are made with eccentric baroque interiors sometimes. Certainly not "organic" as architecture or general art style tho.

Also kind of a UI thing, but I miss the save/load screens. Even the most minuscule utilitarian thing like that used to be unique and personalized for each game, keeping you in-universe for every second. Nowadays everything either saves through the generic console's save menu and insta breaks the immersion or just riddled with autosaves. What an unnecessary loss, especially since there are some games that still used unique save screens so it's not a technical limitation, everyone was just getting progressively more complacent.

Coolest UI?

Though nowhere near as bad as Soyrim but even Bloodborne and DS3 were already afflicted.

>>1408 Sadly no. It just uncluters and de-consolifies the ingame menus, the artstyle stays the same. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the limitation for modding the UI, thanks Todd.

>>1573 Fuck that sucks. So you can mod all bunch of shit into the game but UI is unmodable? The absolute state of Soythesda.

>>1577 That Bethesda games are super modable is wrong in itself, I have yet to see a mod that revamps the very, very bad melee combat and replaces it with directional combat.

>>1454 Don't forget how dev's back then sometimes chose to directly bind saving into the virtual world, by sleeping, using a phone or even just walking over an icon. That wasn't even forced upon us by technical limitations, but it was decided that way to not pull the player out of the game and break his absorption in the virtual world. Two more recent games that did this that come to mind are Kingdom Come and Alien Isolation. Particularly Alien is widely praised for it's immersion and I thought KCD was immensely captivating, funnily it also has an unique UI.

>>1595 I didn't say that they were super moddable, just that you can mod all bunch of shit into them. Like you can add character models that don't look like dogshit in Soyrim but can't make a basic jpg UI swap? Retarded stuff.

>>1598 Texture, model and lighting mods are there aplenty, true. I believe there weren't even official mod tools available until 4 years ago, so no surprise for the lack of mods that try to tackle the 'under the hood' stuff so to say. When looking through Nexus trying to find an UI mod they are all the same simplistic style, grim.

>>1573 >>1577 >>1595 >>1598 >>1599 Official mod support for Bethesda games is provided by game specific versions of the Construction Set (or Creation Kit for Skyrim). The Creation Kit was released in 2012 and allows the user to modify ESP and ESM files, which are modules that contain characters, weapons, landmasses, quests and so on. Anything defined by plugins is modifiable though this generally doesn't include core game logic (although scripts are used throughout the series to achieve various things) and there are certain limitations. Skyrim Script Extender is a hack that modifies the game executable in memory to provide extra capabilities for scripts to use and even has a plugin system of its own. Files stored in BSA archives or loose on the storage device can be modified and replaced too, this includes various UI elements which like many AAA games are built using Scaleform, a subset of Adobe Flash specifically designed for UI development. In theory it would be possible to change how the UI is styled, however SkyUI is the dominant UI mod for various reasons and they decided to stay with the vanilla aesthetic.

>>1596 >Don't forget how dev's back then sometimes chose to directly bind saving into the virtual world My favorite thing is actually limited save "currency", like ink ribbons in RE or in Breath of Fire 5, when saving is actually made an integral part of the gameplay itself. That was some good fucking shit.

Yup, feels like I'm playing a WW2 game.

What was the rationale for doing this in Resident Evil 2 (2019)? Even though I like the game I remember being appalled by how naked and featureless the inventory was. The original game and even the remake of the first entry had so much style and character in something as simple picking a weapon or rotating a book. Did Capcom just think that no one would notice?

Found some old webms about car UIs, related to an earlier conversation here. >>1515 A candidate has to be Gran Turismo because they were constant with it in the first entries. >>1596 >I thought KCD was immensely captivating It was very good but it had its quirks, for example you always had a crosshair until you pulled out a projectile-based weapon which made the game hide it for the sake of it yet swords and fists have it. It had some really strange decisions amidst many good things, and a controversial opinion but i found it had way too much content in some places like reading every crossroad post (like 200 of them) and secret stuff in the wilderness which promoted exploration but that game has heavy wilderness, it's empty dense forests with ease of getting bored or jumped hard due to its absurdly game breaking ambush turks. >>1661 >Did Capcom just think that no one would notice? They know they are going to eat anything up at this point, the standards are low.

>>1662 And here's Forza ones, at least the ones i am fond of. FM1's OST is a subject i might touch upon later, nostalgia fuel and something really hard to forget both in application and style. Also a racer for the Dreamcast, Tokyo Highway Challenge 2, a chillax experience if it wasn't for the strange steering system at times.

>>1661 >Even though I like the game

>>1661 >What was the rationale for doing this in Resident Evil 2 (2019)? That it's a a shitty modern remake that ticks every checkbox for a nugamer?

>>1664 >>1666 I won't apologize for liking the game but I will not act like there is a lot of content missing from the game that should have been there to begin with. They botched the A/B scenarios, there is no multiplayer, PAID DLC COSTUMES IN A SINGLE PLAYER GAME, missing enemies, and of course the inventory. I am going to learn my lesson and just stick to the classics.

>>1667 >I am going to learn my lesson and just stick to the classics.

>>1663 The User Interface in the second video is rather minimalist, but I really like it. It has nice subtle animations. That's minimalist UI done right in my opinion. It also fits the car theme, as it conveys a futuristic-technical mood. Such a UI would not fit a medieval fantasy game for example. Thanks for keeping the video size small.

>>1663 Though nice, you definitely get tired of seeing these after a few.

>>1601 So... Mods won't fix it, because, modders have shit taste?

>>1601 >>1692 I looked into it and found out that apparently SkyUI has some sort of theme support. Check this out: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/35568 A bit bright maybe but you could fix that pretty easily in GIMP or something.

>>1695 Much better although the stock font still ruins it.

>>1695 Holy shit, hope.

>>1696 Funny you should mention that: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/386 https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/14356 Oldrim font mods are compatible with SE too.

>>1698 That's a major improvement. Now if only the game wasn't shit, but no mod can fix that.

Why do modern games even have life bars? Not like you can die.

>>1727 It's for the illusion of gameplay.

>>1730 Pressing forward is enough for a normalfag.

>>1727 You're lucky to even get a health bar, much easier to use regenerating health so the developer doesn't have to think as much about game balance.

>>1515 Synthetik

Sometimes we also get the reverse like the cluttered shitty mess that is Company of Heroes 2, that shit makes me ill and even CoH3s Alpha which is barely finished and minimalist as fuck due to that, looks better just because it doesn't fuck up your vision or draws your attention to everywhere but the fucking game.

>>1764 >perfectly good UI >shitty mess

>>1766 Cluttered fucking mess and you have yet to click any unit

>>1769 >this >cluttered Have you played any other RTS, son?

>>1770 Cleaner than CoH2

>>1770 As much as I like Age of Empires III, I never liked how unnecessarily chunky the interface felt.

>>1795 Isn't it kinda part of the deal? I can't really imagine a proper RTS with a "clean" interface.

>>1795 I'm talking about how much of the screen the interface feels like it takes up. I'm not sure whether it's actually that big or if it just feels that way to me.

>>1799 Back then it was a way to make the game run better by limiting the screen size in a clandestine way.

Minimalism shouldn't be automatically associated with lazy modern shit. It is a perfectly viable art style.

>>3146 This, it's ok when game that I like does it.

>>3147 I haven't played either of the games. also >missing the point entirely

>>3146 whether minimalism or something else, it has to come from a creative place, then even minimalism can look great. modern day so called minimalism is just corporate bullshit, easily slapped on carapace designed to be interchangeable. chasing a trend created by another corporate machine

>>3146 you deserve it, I fucking hate fags who push minimalism

>>3153 >primitive minuscule 2-bit brain take back to /v/

The issue with minimalist UI is the over saturation of it, there isn't anything intrinsically bad about a minimalist presentation (indeed there are numerous games that don't have any UI at all). Another example is when during 7th gen lots of games were 50 shades of brown, a mostly monochrome color palette has its place in the right situations but the problem was everyone was doing it regardless of whether it actually benefited the aesthetic of their game.

>>3154 what are you talking about, /v/ pushed minimalism all the fucking time back in the day >>3157 >there isn't anything intrinsically bad highly depends on the game, but I would argue games without UIs tend to be pretty shit, while soulful UIs are some of the most memorable like Diablo or Fallout or HoMM

I love the Commandos 2 in-game manual.

>>3164 The notebook inventory is overused but that's a really nice looking one I gotta say.

>>3161 >I would argue games without UIs tend to be pretty shit If it's something dull like a walking simulator then absolutely, but then there's games like Abe's Oddysee/Exodus and Ico which aid their immersion by removing 99% of UI or integrating it into the game world (the LED displays in Abe for instance). >while soulful UIs are some of the most memorable Giving a UI personality is definitely important, even a minimal UI can have a recognizable identity through things like font choices, unfortunately most developers don't really try to give their minimal UI a defining quality.

>>3161 >but I would argue games without UIs tend to be pretty shit Only if the game is heavy reliant on UIs.

it's getting worse...

>>3161 >>3166 What do anons think about UI that disappears until prompted, or UI that can be disabled? Is it the best of both worlds?

>>3247 Contextual UI is a good middle ground when your game is complex enough to need status information but still has periods of downtime. The issue with disabling the UI is that most games don't provide enough alternative stimulus that you can use to gauge your current state, so as a feature it usually has more merit for screenshots or a challenge run.

>>3250 I meant more disabled at a click of a button, not in a menu. Also there are games where UI pops up when you hold a button for example.

>>3253 Ah, yeah that's a nice feature, don't see it very often (especially on console where there often isn't any free buttons).

>>3254 >console where there often isn't any free buttons Like what?

>>3255 Many console games use all available buttons for other game functionality, in particular genres that have to compromise with the reduced input vs PC (e.g FPS games).

>>3256 In my experience most games have vacant buttons that aren't utilized even when they should be. I know very few games where all available buttons, which is usually 24, are used.

>>1454 Resident Evil 4's save/load screen is an animated typewriter to go with the typewriter save stations in the game world. The remake replaces this with a generic save screen that could have come from any game. https://youtu.be/83BhJAZrXrc?t=329 Even if they did this for reasons of accessibility or flexibility, here's what they could have done instead: have the save/load data appear on sheets of paper, and then have an animated sequence to save/load them.