Nothing frustrates me more than not being able to pause for no seemingly good reason. I’m playing Wild Hearts right now and even though I never play online I cannot pause for some reason. To simulate pausing, I can turn off the xbox and the quick resume feature makes it look like the game was paused when I turn the console back on.
Other games guilty of this are Fromsoft games: Dark Souls, Elden Ring and so on.
Obviously all of these games have an online component. Not allowing pausing when this component is activated makes sense. But if I am playing completely online why cannot I pause? In Soulslike the worst exploit I can think of is switching equipment on the fly but is that really that bad? When stuff comes up in the middle crucial moments it frustrates me a lot.
I don’t play games that don’t have a pause button. I’m an adult with adult shit to deal with. That might be as simple as cooking dinner. I don’t have long for leisure in the evenings but if I can pause a game in between e.g. cooking, I can play it. If I can’t pause, I can’t play.
If devs want to say ‘fuck you, user, we aren’t making our game accessible,’ then fuck them, too. Just another symbol of the shit hole that is game development. I don’t really care what their justifications are. Online games could be made with a pause button as well if the devs cared about accessibility. It’s an industry that takes itself far too seriously, as if games aren’t supposed to be a bit of fun. That’s what happens when games are commodities, I guess.
It’s another factor in gamers being so reactionary; so much of it is de facto the reserve of people without responsibilities or people who don’t care about their responsibilities. Down with inaccessible games.
In Soulslike the worst exploit I can think of is switching equipment on the fly but is that really that bad
in that case they can implement a pause screen that’s only a pause screen, not allowing the user to do anything but unpause 😐
it’s understandable if you’re using a game engine that doesn’t support it (e.g. your own engine), but I can’t think of it as anything other than a design flaw
I’m pretty certain that the Prepare To Die edition of DS1 had seperate pause and inventory buttons, so I don’t see why other games wouldn’t be able to do it.
More often than not is a design choice. Dark Souls does it to increase tension: you can’t pause to consider your options, you have to do it, and do it fast. It gives an even greater importance to your quick item slots since rummaging through your inventory for an item, while possible, can be cumbersome and kill you.
in Minecraft
But comrade… MINECRAFT is one of those games that doesn’t have pausing…! 😨 (In Bedrock anyway, Java Edition is thankfully safe)
counterpoint: not being able to pause creates tension and puts pressure on the player. that wii U zombie game didn’t pause while you were digging around in your inventory and that game would be way less interesting if it did. i probably wouldn’t even remember it exists.
if you don’t like that tension and pressure that’s fine but there’s no shortage of games that don’t restrict you like that and no-pause is a legitimate design tool.
If there was a pause button and you wanted the tension, all you would have to do is simply not press pause.
Whether not having a pause is justified or not, you surely must know this isn’t a good response, right? “Just play wildly suboptimally for dramatic effect” is not viable game design.
So not building in a pause button automatically makes gameplay wildly suboptimal?
a self-imposed limitation is not at all the same as an external restriction.
It’s either a self imposed limitation for some users and inclusivity by default, or a design-imposed limitation and exclusivity by default. Considering I spend so much of my time arguing and fighting against against exclusion and for inclusion in every other part of life, I see no reason why games shouldn’t get the same treatment.
