Video games look really good these days. I boot almost any PS4 game released in recent years and am impressed. But while the games may look prettier than ever before, we lost “display screens”, HUD, in the process. It was worth it?
I’ve been playing a lot Assassin’s Creed: Odyessy lately. Much. And I was interested in past games, most of which I played a long time ago when they were first released. Going back and looking at these games, I immediately noticed something. His HUDs were so much cooler than what’s inside Odyessy.
Here is a screenshot of Odyessy through Stephen’s wonderful post about an annoying arch he kept finding.
Now here’s a screenshot from the first Assassin’s Creed via WSGF.com.
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Look at the strange map! And the cool looking DNA inspired life bar. I also like how high the contrast feels. Odyssey’s HUD is clean and efficient. It does the job, no doubt, but it lacks personality. And if we go back even further, to the era of PS2 games, we can find HUD even wilder, as pointed out by the Twitter user @BlacWeird a few months ago
This is what the HUD looked like in SkyGunner. It has a steampunk vibe.
Or how about Snowblind project. What’s going on on that minimap in the upper right corner? I have no idea.
And even a less dark PS2 game, the original God of War, he had a giant sword for his health meter.
He compared that last screen to this screenshot of the most recent entry in the God of War series, confusingly called God of War, released on PS4 in 2018.
Again like OdyessyIt works very well. But it also has almost no personality. It’s boring. And yet, for the most part, this is what all video game HUDs have become. Clean, slightly transparent boxes and white lines that often fade when not needed. I understand, and even agree, that these new HUDS are more effective in translating information and data to players. But does there have to be a middle ground?
An example of a game that has HUD graphics that are not boring, but not too weird or big is last year The devil can cry 5.
The text is crisp and clean and the icons are small, but there is also a variety of colors, a strange devil face, and some broken glass in the corners. It has style. Doesn’t look like a JJ Abrams console Star Trek movie. It seems exciting, but I can also clearly understand what information the game is sharing with me, which is always vital.
As TV screens get bigger and resolutions increase, people want to see more of their great games. They don’t want big skulls or stars to cover the action. I get it. But many games that look the same as HUD feel like a step back after years and years of wild and cool menus and life bars. I understand that a lot of work is needed to create these clean, crisp menus and HUDs, but the end user sees only a simple box and some blank text.
I’d love a feature to trigger more complex and weird HUD artwork and designs in next-gen games. Let players choose whether they want something clean and efficient or big and dumb.
I know which one I would choose.
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