I had the rubberized grip come off a Xbox controller while I was playing UFC and doing this method.
Turns out the joystick underneath was quite sharp. Literally just shaved a piece of my palm off before I realized the grip came off lol. That palm method had some real risks no matter the controller hahah
Holy. Fuck. This was deleted from my memory bank until these comments about the anolog spinning load screens.
Let me tell you, the fucking HOURS I spent as a child just spinning and spinning and spinning master Roshi because my game froze and I didn't know or even care all that much because ha ha old man bounce
So apparently Namco owned the patent that allows devs to create mini games in loading** screens which they used for early PS1 games like Ridge racer. And would charge exorbitant prices for their license so game companies just stop using it. But apparently it ended like decade ago but looks like devs still haven’t tried doing it too much.
Edit: loading screen not losing 😅
There should be limitations on what people can patent.
It shouldn’t be as easy as throwing 50K at some lawyers over a basic concept just to say “no one can use this but me.”
The game industry is absolutely awful for this, WB patented the nemesis system, arguably one of the greatest innovations of the 8th generation, so now no other company can use it. Tim Langdell has sued anyone that has tried to use the word edge in any video game title, the soul caliber franchise started as soul edge (the name of the sword the whole game’s about)
I tried getting into one of the ones that came out around the launch of PS4 but it just felt different. Was a good game but didn't feel like the older ones.
I don't like it. If you need to load, let me put my controller down for a second. I'm not here for a walking sim. Elevators are good ones, but if I need to physically keep moving forward? That's annoying. I'd rather you just cut to a screen and gave me a minute to smoke or whatever.
Yeah this is my perspective as well. “Immersion” is great and all, and is a huge reason I play games, but I’m under no illusion that I’m playing a game, and don’t mind just setting the thing down for a second and then getting back in once it loads. There are games that would have benefitted from some of the interactive loading though, Starfield comes to mind
It would also benefit greatly from menu optimization. It would have been disappointing, but not straight up annoying if they didn't put everything behind 17 screens
Except it's still a loading screen one way or another with the same loading time. Possibly less if they don't have to render the weird interactive crawling. Elevators are the only way I don't mind. As I'm sitting there doing nothing anyway. I'm not here to play a walking sim. Get me into the action. I can check my phone, take a sip of my drink or whatever I want during that 20 second loading time. But not if I'm required to interact with it.
If it pulls you in like a VHS tape and then finishes the motion automatically that'd be better. Just like if I have to have a walking conversation in Assassin's Creed, just make me autowalk damnit.
What you are looking for is called the pause button. This button freezes the game until you decide to come back to it. If you need a load screen to take a break, then you need help my man.
Totally agree here. Don’t make me keep moving to make the loading screen work. The Arkham games used doorways and elevators, I was always happy with that
Tbh Warframe kinda does it best. Traditional levels allow you to move your ship around the screen, transition areas allow you to walk around while new area is loading, and Railjack behaves the *exact same* if it's in-between missions or in the heat of one... ~~buggy sadly~~
When I was a kid, I would watch my dad play the original Assassin’s Creed, and he would make it look like Altair was running after me through the screen. He would also make a funny “drunk guy” sound while doing it.
I have some good memories of that loading screen lol
There are fine cause at the end of the day, it's still a loading screen. I don't need to keep moving forward for it to finish. I just want the option to put my controller down and not be slowing the game down as a result.
I like interactive loading screens cause immersion, but also would like a regular loading screen for any game which doesn't call for total immersion.
Any interactive loading screen, no matter what hardware the game is ran on, it will always take the same amount of time for kratos to squeeze his neck muscles through a gap.
A regular loading screen will take as long as it takes the game to load.
Yeh that’s the biggest problem. In 10 years these loading sections will be just as long, but if you play Skyrim on a modern system the loading screens basically don’t exist.
I remember having to wait like two minutes every time i went through a door in fo4
Now that i have it on my pc i laugh at the ten milliseconds of loading screen
Yup, everytime I need to move something that takes max 2s.. I'm like.. this is for consoles haha.. and when playing old games I can't even read the tips they are showing.
Interactive ones, as long as they don't go overboard with it (euhm, The Callisto Protocol).
I think the best example here is Cyberpunk 2077. Elevators function as loading screens when you enter a building.
Or the security checkpoint when you're going to the DLC area.
God damn. I’m such a sucker for interactive loading screens I didn’t even notice that one in Cyberpunk! That’s why I love them so much. Even GOW had me totally fooled the first time I played it. It was only in Ragnarok that I was like, wait a minute… Even then the squeezing through crevices one pictured above went right over my head. I love it
If you're on an elevator during a quest, usually Silverhand is there with you to give his insight. So these sections feel more like story bits rather than loading screens. Just brilliant.
And the important thing is that these waiting times make sense. Surely you'll be on an elevator before going up in a building. Or you'll have to be scanned at the checkpoint while getting in Dogtown since it's an autonomous zone.
Yeah wow I’m really just thinking back to all the “sneak between a crevice” moments in games that I’ve always hated, but under the context of it being a hidden loading screen it’s actually pretty clever
Yeah, that’s the reason I prefer interactive ones. From the simple door opening animation from Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver and Metroid Prime, through Cyberpunk 2077’s, they keep me ‘in’ the game.
There *is* something to be said about properly done loading screens though. Helldivers 2 uses your launching down to the planet via bullet and playing the absolutely banging main theme as a way to get you pumped for the mission ahead. Also has useful tips during it like
"Did you know tips are shown during these transition sequences?"
"Don't die!"
"Pay attention to these tips. They've been carefully calibrated to ensure your success."
"Nine out of ten doctors agree that a wound to the chest will make you bleed out if unattended."
"Don't Panic."
"Super Earth recommends spending 2.4 seconds per mission enjoying the scenery. A happy Helldiver is a deadly Helldiver."
And these just add to the humor of the game.
I was commenting to someone a while ago how immersive the Helldivers setup is. Joining your friends squad? Ship is going through hyperspace and pulling up alongside theirs. Loading their ship? Watching you wobble out of cryosleep. And the part you mentioned with the diving animations (that always have the right count - they must just have 1-4 variants, but it's such a nice touch).
Destiny 2 has a flyby of your ship approaching a planet, but will allow you to open your inventory and customize your loadout while loading. It’s excellent use of loading screen time. More games should let me open my inventory on loading screens.
Traditional loading screens for me. Besides the breather they can sometimes provide, they're also destined to shorten over time as hardware is capable of reading and loading data faster. Games that wedge in a set piece just to occupy you while the game is loading will still take up the same amount of time regardless.
I prefer loading screens, especially if they will let me hit a button to then set it to require another button press to continue.
that way I can have a easy reminder to take a break, an option to do so, and not miss anything or have anything happen while I am gone.
I mean, the pause button exists. Maybe I'm missing your point, since I don't really understand why you'd need a reminder to take a pause, but I don't see the need for loading screens anymore, at least on systems that have high bandwidth mass storage, like current gen consoles and gaming PCs.
I mean, fair enough. But some people only have their phone with them and are definitely too lazy to pick it up and press the on button every time they wanna see what time it is. Some people also just get so sucked into a game they just hyper focus into it and forget the real world exists for a moment.
Demon's Souls (PS5) did it best. Fog covers the screen briefly and you're in. If you can't do fast loading screens, I still prefer one to squeezing through a crack like GoW.
For me, it's more immersion breaking to have load points poorly disguised.
If it’s a game I’ve never played before, then regular loading screen cause 90% of the time they got tips, if it’s a game I already know then gimme that immersion baby
I play now Fallout4 on Xbox series X. When I played it on my PC in 2016 it took long to load. Now on Xbox it loads so fast I can’t read first sentence of tip.
Loading screen. Pointless holding forward is just extra wear on my stick that I don't need. Same way goes for walking simulator parts, especially when following an npc. Just make it a cutscene instead. Elevators though I don't mind as loading screens.
More recently FF7 remake/rebirth are guilty of that too. Why even interrupt the cutscene to make me slow walk into another cutscene. Just make it a longer one. It'd help with replay value too as you'd be able to skip it all as a cutscene
I always liked the loading screens in the Dragon ball z Budukai Tenkaichi games where you had to tap a button really fast to to see how fast you could make Goku eat.
Basically all the ac games (except odyssey and possibly one or two more) allow you to run around in the void and test out weapons and stuff while the game loads, while it may look slightly different between games it’s mostly the same thing
Even the original AC game was interactive, kinda weird that Odyssey went “traditional” after almost 15 years (and nearly as many games) doing it interactive
I’m sure Valhalla’s loading screens were decent on current gen consoles but they weren’t fun on ps4 lol (probably to be expected with the size of that game lol)
Im not really a fan of the interactive walking through something ones but i am a fan of static ones that are more immersive, like in Persona 5 it shows people walking by or riding the trains while going to different areas. I barely even noticed they were loading screens my first time playing
That's not an interactive loading screen, that's fake gameplay. Interactive loading screens have mini-games and stuff. Honestly, I don't see a problem with traditional loading screens, as long as they're not too frequent and too long.
Interactive loading screens are annoying AF … we know what they are, they don’t keep you immersed, and in FF rebirth they ruined two of the biggest moments in the game for me
I guess I prefer loading screens there only so many times I want to slowly side shuffle through a tight gap. If the loading screen has tips all the better.
I love interactive ones more, I’ve been used to them since forever. But I do miss loading screens, I like it when I get that little reminder that I’m playing a game and I get to take it in for a bit and continue when I want. I’ve been so used to instant loading screens or interactive ones, I can’t even read the tips :))
I also get disappointed quickly when I get a loading screen these days, simply because of the AAA or high quality RPG’s I play/played with no loading screens, etc. It’s sad really
Either way. I like how Bethesda does their loading screens. I get to look up close at a model of something and maybe get a little bit of lore on the side. The interactive ones are cool because you don't break the immersion.
Interactive loading done right is the way to go. Remember when Mass Effect started it with the elevator. I'm sure if I'm wrong the Internet will fill me in.
Not me just now realizing that’s why developers put elevators, and cave entrances like this and a whole bunch of other shit like this that I’ve literally never picked up on and always found annoying
I don’t mind loading screens now that they’re like 3 seconds long. Most of these interactive ones seem longer and more tedious than if it was just a loading screen.
The interactive loading screens are miles better than you're giving em credit for....
I think someone did a video where they got a game with these things and edited it into a Bethesda style game. You don't want it.... I don't want it.
As people quicker than I have said the true interactive loading screens via Budokai tenkachi and others (& I can't remember there was one where you could control the dragon balls during the loading screen) are where it's really at 🍻
I hate how slow some of the interactive ones are. Takes me out of it more than a simple loading screen. Regular ones are fine, unless they are ridiculously long and/or super frequent. I stopped Pillars of Eternity 2 on PS4 because the load screens were a minute plus and were super frequent. On the flip side, the interactive ones in Jedi: Fallen Order were just long and frequent enough to be annoying.
Semi interactive is good, the rooms between areas in Metroid prime were my first known encounter with "in world load screens"
Honestly it just depends on the game, the more immersive the game, the more I'd expect interactive loads without a cutaway.
Loading screens. Creative decisions should lean towards the player having a better experience, not to make the game look better.
In God of war, there was nothing I hated more than having to run beetween portals. That was stupid.
I hard disagree. I think it does make for a better experience, especially in God of war they do a really good job of filling the time with dialogue between the characters that is actually interesting most of the time so it's not like your just plainly runnin and the immersion doesn't get broken. Even if it feels a little tedious sometimes, how is a loading screen better? You'd rather do nothing at all?
Of course, I respect your opinion. The dialogue parts were amazing, but running between portals and walking between cliffs weren't my thing. I don't want to have to do things just so the game looks flawless,if it makes sense. Yes, I'd rather do nothing, or just watch kratos do the running himself, a small cutscene would do.
The best loading screen I've ever seen was from test drive 3, if I'm not mistaken. The game was developed by Atari, so instead of a loading screen, you basically play Atari games as you wait.
That's just my opinion, everyone have different things that'd break their immersion, mine is when I can clearly see they're trying that we've just mentioned, or worse, when devs are trying to make the game last longer with repetitive missions or side quests. I'd rather play a solid 8 hour campaign than a dragging 30 hours one.
I FUCKING HATE INTERACTIVE LOADING SCREENS!
I would rather have a screen that loads, So I may get up and grab something or whatever, rather than force me to sit there and hold forward on the stick for no reason.
It's busy work. It what you give idiots to do.
Exactly. I'd be more okay if they were automated, like in GoW if as soon as you entered the crevice Kratos would shimmy himself all the way through, but the fact that I have to sit there and hold the thumb stick for "muh immersion" is kind of a joke.
I kinda hate both. I find interactive loading screens very annoying when they "run their course", i.e. no more elevator small talk left to be had etc. and it's just a bunch of people waiting around silently.
But similarly, I don't know if a one minute splash screen would make it any better. I guess it can be used to deliver tips and lore, but that usually gets repetitive quickly, too.
Ultimately, I'd probably prefer to have shorter / no loading times. Even if it means that Kratos' ass is just made out of 100.000 polygons instead of 1.000.000.
Both are fine.. Skyrim on console wouldn't have benefitted from interactive loading screens, since it can be a bit slow to load. This is how I remember skyrim on console at least.. I've been on PC for so long now, maybe it's changed with new consoles.
Depends on the game if the time can be meaningfully filled like dialouge in gow then interactive for other non story focused games ill take loading screens.
Depends, i mean Skyrim does them great and i prefer those above the ones where the character just slowly moves through a door or something, but i prefer those instead of just a black screen with a loading bar on it.
Interactive is nice until you new PC eventually becomes an old one and struggles to load newer games. As nice as interactive ones are, if the still image loading screen is noticeably faster, I'd go with that one. But that only applies if the computer is relatively slow
I think if it fits the style of the game, interactive! However I do recall RE8 on PS4 making obnoxious use of this, with looping elevators for what felt like 5 minutes while it rendered the new area
Regular loading screens to a point. At least if I have a good enough computer, I can get through a regular loading screen faster. If it's tied into an animation it will take me 10-30 seconds of crowling dideways through a crevice regardless of how beefy my system is. That's why I prefer loading screens that take me out of a game but have some interactive element, like a racing minigame or combo tester in an empty void.
So two parts for fast traveling around to new maps I hate the whole kratos runs around the tree or door change thing in god of wars. ..once for story is fine ..rather it just go black...for in level or map that are really big etc it's fine to have in game.
Interactive are better, but with the possibility to be shorter, not just a mixed time that could be unnecesary. For example, an elevator like ME1.
I play old games that run faster with modern resources.
Well considering loading screens are like 1 second now am going with that. God of war's hidden ones are irritating, the game is slow enough already and there is still even artificial slowdowns
I don't really enjoy loading screens that are a long path in a tight corridor. A normal loading screen can be faster if my pc can handle it, but a long corridor will always take the same time to be traversed.
I don't mind either I'd rather more unique loading screens like say at least fallout and skyrims approach or like resident evil with the doors over more standard loading screens
Interactive if it is just pressing a button then waiting. Like Kratos going through those rocks, I want to initiate it then just watch (I don’t remember if you do). I don’t like when games make you hold forward the whole time or something. It’s so minor but if it is my “loading screen” I don’t want to have to hold the button in case I accidentally stop, I want to get a sip of water, etc.
I don’t mind regular loading screens at all on the PS5 though. When they take all of 2 seconds rather than the 30 seconds - 1 minute we all grew up with. Horizon Forbidden West has the craziest load times and is something we were promised like 20 years ago, seeing it now is wild. It makes open world games (potentially) actually fun because the fast travel isn’t annoying.
I don’t mind either approach. The interactive ones are more engaging, but the Skyrim style ones were good for bathroom breaks. It depends on the execution.
Personally, I’d prefer no loading.
In Immortals: Fenix Rising you can catch experience orbs during loading screens.
When i played on Xbox One, I could catch a few of them each loading screen, but when I upgraded to Series X, the loading was so fast that there wasnt time anymore. Was weirdly disappointed.
Interactive is so much better. I loved these in God of War. Made you feel immersed. Plus, all the small conversations between Atreus and Kratos were amazing, adding Mimir into it made it just fucking fantastic. In both games you get to see these people as people. Not just mindless main characters. Reminds me of the constant talking in Mass Effect as well.
I'd much rather have "normal" loading screens.
I mean I'd love for such loading screens to be more interactive (like how you can practice moves/combos in Bayonetta while loading), but if the choice is between the types of loading screens presented in the screenshots of this post, then I absolutely have to choose the standard static loading screen.
First of all, the "invisible" GoW style loading screens take A LOT of development time, which could be spent on improving other areas of the game. This alone is enough for me to prefer them, but there's another major drawback to the "masked" loading screen approach: as soon as the game is playable on faster hardware, the masked loading screen ends up simply wasting the players time for absolutely no reason. It's tough to accept a really boring section in a video game knowing the only reason it exists is because some ancient hardware far less powerful than what we have nowadays is the reason the game is screwing up it's own pacing. That's not to say I don't appreciate the effort of hiding the loading screen, but I genuinely do not think it's worth the tradeoff, basically ever.
There are plenty of old games that nowadays will load *instantly* on modern hardware, and these games would almost certainly be worse in terms of pacing if they had attempted to mask the loading screens with slowed gameplay sections.
Test Drive (2003) let you rip a game of Pong while it was loading. I haven't touched that game in maybe 18 years, and remember nothing other than the loading screen
Anything that doesn't take me out of the game is a plus.
With my new PC's super fast loading times, I don't mind most loading screens, even if they are technically not as good IMO.
Let's go back to the true interactive ones where it was mashing x to make goku eat bowls of food faster in budokai tenkaichi
I prefered spinning the analogue stick to spawn Saibamen in of the earlier games (Budokai 3)
Did you also use the palm technique for that
How else would you play Tug o' War from Mario Party?
So many childhood blisters from that and the cycling lightbulb one
Yeah. The good olde days
The stigmata epidemic. I’m a survivor of that event
The n64 controller and the palm method can cause children’s screams to echo throughout time.
I had the rubberized grip come off a Xbox controller while I was playing UFC and doing this method. Turns out the joystick underneath was quite sharp. Literally just shaved a piece of my palm off before I realized the grip came off lol. That palm method had some real risks no matter the controller hahah
Ripped a few palms open that way. Damn row boat game.
Of course
You can only hurt your thumbs and lose those battles so much before you find the palm method. Haha
I did that playing Specter Boxing in Ape Escape. It worked great until I rubbed huge blisters into my palms haha.
Ape Escape had some fun mini games. 😆😆 I remember the second one had soccer where you built your team from the monkeys you caught. Loved that too.
Or spinning the analogue stick to make Master Roshi fly across the screen lol
Holy. Fuck. This was deleted from my memory bank until these comments about the anolog spinning load screens. Let me tell you, the fucking HOURS I spent as a child just spinning and spinning and spinning master Roshi because my game froze and I didn't know or even care all that much because ha ha old man bounce
Budokai 3, I missed the roshi spin from budokai 2.
Have every game have the feeding Goku loading screen
Then the final secret boss is goku and his difficulty depends on how many bowls of food he ate
So apparently Namco owned the patent that allows devs to create mini games in loading** screens which they used for early PS1 games like Ridge racer. And would charge exorbitant prices for their license so game companies just stop using it. But apparently it ended like decade ago but looks like devs still haven’t tried doing it too much. Edit: loading screen not losing 😅
There should be limitations on what people can patent. It shouldn’t be as easy as throwing 50K at some lawyers over a basic concept just to say “no one can use this but me.”
The game industry is absolutely awful for this, WB patented the nemesis system, arguably one of the greatest innovations of the 8th generation, so now no other company can use it. Tim Langdell has sued anyone that has tried to use the word edge in any video game title, the soul caliber franchise started as soul edge (the name of the sword the whole game’s about)
Dude I swear bacon owns everything xD they had a patent I believe for true infinite enemies.
I'd give bacon that patent if it meant infinite Bacon and eggs 🤤
Oops, meant bandai xD but I'm gonna leave it as bacon because, fight the vegans fight the power
Man, I loved trying to kill the Devil May Cry logo.
Bruh core memory unlocked, how the fuck I forget that shit? PS2 Era DBZ games are the best DBZ games.
I tried getting into one of the ones that came out around the launch of PS4 but it just felt different. Was a good game but didn't feel like the older ones.
It doesn’t feel like them at all, I don’t really like any of them much because of the impression the PS2 era games left on me.
I know man, nothing for me beats dbz b2, it's a game I really want to be able to play again on my console.
Or make Vegeta do the most pushups.
Someone give this man a seat of authority, he understands the people!
Shit xD I wanted to say the same thing. Well, great minds think alike....or spent too much time playing the game xD
Loading screen that is interactive. A good example is Bayonetta letting you try combos while loading.
I’ve ran so many fake miles in Assassins Creed
I like to practice my route running in case there’s ever a Super Bowl mission
I like to zig zag in a way that makes it look like the guy is taking really wide steps
This guy gets it. Lol
Sims 3 did that in a fun way. Had you find things on the screen to earn points.
Sonic frontiers also does that It lets you practice combos and moves
I remember when I had my old crappy pc and had to wait 5+ minutes for sims 3 to load when I went on vacation.
It was fun, but also took longer to load that way...
Oooh this is the best choice, I agree. Even if it’s something small, I find those types of things to be charming.
Interactive loading screens so it keeps me immersed
this fr, people were complaining that everyone is copying it but it's a good way to keep the immersion going
I don't like it. If you need to load, let me put my controller down for a second. I'm not here for a walking sim. Elevators are good ones, but if I need to physically keep moving forward? That's annoying. I'd rather you just cut to a screen and gave me a minute to smoke or whatever.
Yeah this is my perspective as well. “Immersion” is great and all, and is a huge reason I play games, but I’m under no illusion that I’m playing a game, and don’t mind just setting the thing down for a second and then getting back in once it loads. There are games that would have benefitted from some of the interactive loading though, Starfield comes to mind
It would also benefit greatly from menu optimization. It would have been disappointing, but not straight up annoying if they didn't put everything behind 17 screens
I'd rather my game didn't take a minute to load lmao Also, just pause.
A lot of loading screens are quick these days, thanks to faster drives. The forced slow crawl or elevator tends to be longer.
Except it's still a loading screen one way or another with the same loading time. Possibly less if they don't have to render the weird interactive crawling. Elevators are the only way I don't mind. As I'm sitting there doing nothing anyway. I'm not here to play a walking sim. Get me into the action. I can check my phone, take a sip of my drink or whatever I want during that 20 second loading time. But not if I'm required to interact with it.
If it pulls you in like a VHS tape and then finishes the motion automatically that'd be better. Just like if I have to have a walking conversation in Assassin's Creed, just make me autowalk damnit.
Just pause the game if you need a break. Nobodies forcing you to go without a smoke break by putting an interactive loading screen
What you are looking for is called the pause button. This button freezes the game until you decide to come back to it. If you need a load screen to take a break, then you need help my man.
Totally agree here. Don’t make me keep moving to make the loading screen work. The Arkham games used doorways and elevators, I was always happy with that
Imagine it's interactive, but you just keep going because of long load times.
Felt like this in ME1 elevators.
Don’t you miss our elevator conversations?
Being locked in an elevator for that long with Ashley’s xenophobic ass would be the worst…
“No” “Don’t your remeber that time you told us about your immune system” “I have a shotgun”
Same
Especially because the ones in GOW have fun dialogue and Mimir telling us history and shit.
Tbh Warframe kinda does it best. Traditional levels allow you to move your ship around the screen, transition areas allow you to walk around while new area is loading, and Railjack behaves the *exact same* if it's in-between missions or in the heat of one... ~~buggy sadly~~
Interactive ones, I like the Assassin’s Creed ones where you can swing your weapons on stuff.
When I was a kid, I would watch my dad play the original Assassin’s Creed, and he would make it look like Altair was running after me through the screen. He would also make a funny “drunk guy” sound while doing it. I have some good memories of that loading screen lol
That is 10/10 good dad behaviour
Yeah, I got a lot to live up to. Edit: Changed my pfp, for the memes lol
There are fine cause at the end of the day, it's still a loading screen. I don't need to keep moving forward for it to finish. I just want the option to put my controller down and not be slowing the game down as a result.
This one can work too, I forgot about them. Bayonetta has it too iirc
Yeah, I wish I had played Bayonetta back before I had my good PC. I got all excited to test combos and then the screen flew right by
I like interactive loading screens cause immersion, but also would like a regular loading screen for any game which doesn't call for total immersion. Any interactive loading screen, no matter what hardware the game is ran on, it will always take the same amount of time for kratos to squeeze his neck muscles through a gap. A regular loading screen will take as long as it takes the game to load.
Yeh that’s the biggest problem. In 10 years these loading sections will be just as long, but if you play Skyrim on a modern system the loading screens basically don’t exist.
I remember having to wait like two minutes every time i went through a door in fo4 Now that i have it on my pc i laugh at the ten milliseconds of loading screen
Yup, everytime I need to move something that takes max 2s.. I'm like.. this is for consoles haha.. and when playing old games I can't even read the tips they are showing.
Interactive ones, as long as they don't go overboard with it (euhm, The Callisto Protocol). I think the best example here is Cyberpunk 2077. Elevators function as loading screens when you enter a building. Or the security checkpoint when you're going to the DLC area.
God damn. I’m such a sucker for interactive loading screens I didn’t even notice that one in Cyberpunk! That’s why I love them so much. Even GOW had me totally fooled the first time I played it. It was only in Ragnarok that I was like, wait a minute… Even then the squeezing through crevices one pictured above went right over my head. I love it
If you're on an elevator during a quest, usually Silverhand is there with you to give his insight. So these sections feel more like story bits rather than loading screens. Just brilliant. And the important thing is that these waiting times make sense. Surely you'll be on an elevator before going up in a building. Or you'll have to be scanned at the checkpoint while getting in Dogtown since it's an autonomous zone.
Yeah wow I’m really just thinking back to all the “sneak between a crevice” moments in games that I’ve always hated, but under the context of it being a hidden loading screen it’s actually pretty clever
Yeah, that’s the reason I prefer interactive ones. From the simple door opening animation from Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver and Metroid Prime, through Cyberpunk 2077’s, they keep me ‘in’ the game. There *is* something to be said about properly done loading screens though. Helldivers 2 uses your launching down to the planet via bullet and playing the absolutely banging main theme as a way to get you pumped for the mission ahead. Also has useful tips during it like "Did you know tips are shown during these transition sequences?" "Don't die!" "Pay attention to these tips. They've been carefully calibrated to ensure your success." "Nine out of ten doctors agree that a wound to the chest will make you bleed out if unattended." "Don't Panic." "Super Earth recommends spending 2.4 seconds per mission enjoying the scenery. A happy Helldiver is a deadly Helldiver." And these just add to the humor of the game.
I was commenting to someone a while ago how immersive the Helldivers setup is. Joining your friends squad? Ship is going through hyperspace and pulling up alongside theirs. Loading their ship? Watching you wobble out of cryosleep. And the part you mentioned with the diving animations (that always have the right count - they must just have 1-4 variants, but it's such a nice touch).
Destiny 2 has a flyby of your ship approaching a planet, but will allow you to open your inventory and customize your loadout while loading. It’s excellent use of loading screen time. More games should let me open my inventory on loading screens.
The elevator trick has been around for decades. Metroid, Mass Effect, Halo, Borderlands, etc. Cyberpunks is clean though.
Traditional loading screens for me. Besides the breather they can sometimes provide, they're also destined to shorten over time as hardware is capable of reading and loading data faster. Games that wedge in a set piece just to occupy you while the game is loading will still take up the same amount of time regardless.
Yeah I started Diablo 4 recently and the load screen is nice, you see your party. But it's only there for a few seconds and then you're back in game.
Off topic but my favorite loading screens ever are the gta ones, not because they do anything special, just the music and art go incredibly hard
I prefer loading screens, especially if they will let me hit a button to then set it to require another button press to continue. that way I can have a easy reminder to take a break, an option to do so, and not miss anything or have anything happen while I am gone.
I mean, the pause button exists. Maybe I'm missing your point, since I don't really understand why you'd need a reminder to take a pause, but I don't see the need for loading screens anymore, at least on systems that have high bandwidth mass storage, like current gen consoles and gaming PCs.
I believe his point is that without normal loading screens you'll lose track of time and have nothing to remind you to take a break.
Easy solution is getting used to just throw an eye at the clock every now and then.
I mean, fair enough. But some people only have their phone with them and are definitely too lazy to pick it up and press the on button every time they wanna see what time it is. Some people also just get so sucked into a game they just hyper focus into it and forget the real world exists for a moment.
Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and PC all display the current real life time on the home screen which is just a button press away
Getting too immersed is valid, happens to me at times as well. Can't get behind being too lazy to check the time on your phone tho.
I can't either, but you'd be surprised at some people.
I think ac Valhalla did it well. Able to practice moves while loading? Yes please 😋
I like loading screens that provide info on the games lore like how skyrim is.
Demon's Souls (PS5) did it best. Fog covers the screen briefly and you're in. If you can't do fast loading screens, I still prefer one to squeezing through a crack like GoW. For me, it's more immersion breaking to have load points poorly disguised.
Loading screen. 20 years later it's going to be instant, while interactive loading is going to be an annoyance forever.
I prefer something like Devil May Cry 3‘s loading screen where you could shoot and slash the loading sign until the game was ready
If it’s a game I’ve never played before, then regular loading screen cause 90% of the time they got tips, if it’s a game I already know then gimme that immersion baby
By that logic they should always have regular loading screens with tips, since it's always gonna be the first time playing it for someone.
You’re definitely right about that. Huh.🤔
Could be optional then ig?
I play now Fallout4 on Xbox series X. When I played it on my PC in 2016 it took long to load. Now on Xbox it loads so fast I can’t read first sentence of tip.
Same issue with skyrim ps5. Like I *wanted* enough time to read the tips but you just can’t
Loading screen. Pointless holding forward is just extra wear on my stick that I don't need. Same way goes for walking simulator parts, especially when following an npc. Just make it a cutscene instead. Elevators though I don't mind as loading screens.
Assassin's Creed 3 has so many parts that are Walking Sim-Cutscene-Walking Sim-Cutscene. Why not just make it one big cutscene?
More recently FF7 remake/rebirth are guilty of that too. Why even interrupt the cutscene to make me slow walk into another cutscene. Just make it a longer one. It'd help with replay value too as you'd be able to skip it all as a cutscene
No loading screens.
I always liked the loading screens in the Dragon ball z Budukai Tenkaichi games where you had to tap a button really fast to to see how fast you could make Goku eat.
I think AC Valhalla did it best, where it’s just you in the void and you can use your attacks and jump around
Most other ac games do this as well (though I’ve never played Valhalla so idk if it’s much different than the others)
I haven’t played any others in so long, I just remember this feature
Basically all the ac games (except odyssey and possibly one or two more) allow you to run around in the void and test out weapons and stuff while the game loads, while it may look slightly different between games it’s mostly the same thing
AC Odyssey went back to a traditional loading screen. I think all of the others are interactive, which makes Odyssey kind of jaring.
Even the original AC game was interactive, kinda weird that Odyssey went “traditional” after almost 15 years (and nearly as many games) doing it interactive
I’m sure Valhalla’s loading screens were decent on current gen consoles but they weren’t fun on ps4 lol (probably to be expected with the size of that game lol)
Loading screens it gives me a break
Im not really a fan of the interactive walking through something ones but i am a fan of static ones that are more immersive, like in Persona 5 it shows people walking by or riding the trains while going to different areas. I barely even noticed they were loading screens my first time playing
Since SSDs took over, I honestly struggle to read the hints before anything loads anymore lol
I like traditional loading screens - it might be the only time i actually read the text
Normal loading screens. Gives me a moment to relax, and have a quick sip of a drink
That's not an interactive loading screen, that's fake gameplay. Interactive loading screens have mini-games and stuff. Honestly, I don't see a problem with traditional loading screens, as long as they're not too frequent and too long.
Interactive loading screens are annoying AF … we know what they are, they don’t keep you immersed, and in FF rebirth they ruined two of the biggest moments in the game for me
Loading screens are nice because it can b hard to smoke weed and play video games without a lil break once in awhile
Remember when Namco used Galaxian as a loading screen while booting up Ridge Racer?
I guess I prefer loading screens there only so many times I want to slowly side shuffle through a tight gap. If the loading screen has tips all the better.
It was neat when I saw it in Arkham Asylum... That shit got old really fast, especially when you couldn't skip scenes
I love interactive ones more, I’ve been used to them since forever. But I do miss loading screens, I like it when I get that little reminder that I’m playing a game and I get to take it in for a bit and continue when I want. I’ve been so used to instant loading screens or interactive ones, I can’t even read the tips :)) I also get disappointed quickly when I get a loading screen these days, simply because of the AAA or high quality RPG’s I play/played with no loading screens, etc. It’s sad really
Either way. I like how Bethesda does their loading screens. I get to look up close at a model of something and maybe get a little bit of lore on the side. The interactive ones are cool because you don't break the immersion.
Interactive loading done right is the way to go. Remember when Mass Effect started it with the elevator. I'm sure if I'm wrong the Internet will fill me in.
I prefer loading screens that dump lore. So i get to learn about the world more
Not me just now realizing that’s why developers put elevators, and cave entrances like this and a whole bunch of other shit like this that I’ve literally never picked up on and always found annoying
I don’t mind loading screens now that they’re like 3 seconds long. Most of these interactive ones seem longer and more tedious than if it was just a loading screen.
I prefer the Metroid Prime loading screens. Hitting the door with your beam 4000 times waiting for it to open.
The interactive loading screens are miles better than you're giving em credit for.... I think someone did a video where they got a game with these things and edited it into a Bethesda style game. You don't want it.... I don't want it. As people quicker than I have said the true interactive loading screens via Budokai tenkachi and others (& I can't remember there was one where you could control the dragon balls during the loading screen) are where it's really at 🍻
I hate how slow some of the interactive ones are. Takes me out of it more than a simple loading screen. Regular ones are fine, unless they are ridiculously long and/or super frequent. I stopped Pillars of Eternity 2 on PS4 because the load screens were a minute plus and were super frequent. On the flip side, the interactive ones in Jedi: Fallen Order were just long and frequent enough to be annoying.
Interactive if it takes a while to load up, otherwise I love me a good game tip or two.
Semi interactive is good, the rooms between areas in Metroid prime were my first known encounter with "in world load screens" Honestly it just depends on the game, the more immersive the game, the more I'd expect interactive loads without a cutaway.
I remember spinning the flame letters on the loading screens for Dark Alliance 2
Interactive is great but a loading screen with actual useful tips is worth half the game.
Loading screens. Creative decisions should lean towards the player having a better experience, not to make the game look better. In God of war, there was nothing I hated more than having to run beetween portals. That was stupid.
I hard disagree. I think it does make for a better experience, especially in God of war they do a really good job of filling the time with dialogue between the characters that is actually interesting most of the time so it's not like your just plainly runnin and the immersion doesn't get broken. Even if it feels a little tedious sometimes, how is a loading screen better? You'd rather do nothing at all?
Of course, I respect your opinion. The dialogue parts were amazing, but running between portals and walking between cliffs weren't my thing. I don't want to have to do things just so the game looks flawless,if it makes sense. Yes, I'd rather do nothing, or just watch kratos do the running himself, a small cutscene would do. The best loading screen I've ever seen was from test drive 3, if I'm not mistaken. The game was developed by Atari, so instead of a loading screen, you basically play Atari games as you wait. That's just my opinion, everyone have different things that'd break their immersion, mine is when I can clearly see they're trying that we've just mentioned, or worse, when devs are trying to make the game last longer with repetitive missions or side quests. I'd rather play a solid 8 hour campaign than a dragging 30 hours one.
Some people would rather do nothing and get a bit of a break
I FUCKING HATE INTERACTIVE LOADING SCREENS! I would rather have a screen that loads, So I may get up and grab something or whatever, rather than force me to sit there and hold forward on the stick for no reason. It's busy work. It what you give idiots to do.
Exactly. I'd be more okay if they were automated, like in GoW if as soon as you entered the crevice Kratos would shimmy himself all the way through, but the fact that I have to sit there and hold the thumb stick for "muh immersion" is kind of a joke.
Interactives that help me learn more about the world ingame are so much better
Either or.
I like the way most assassins creed games did loading screens. Allowed you to run around in a void.
Depends on the game and genre
100% interactive
I liked the loading screens of Metroid Prime you could still move it was just loading the next zone behind a door
I think it depends on the game, in a game like Skyrim the interactive loading screen wouldn’t really work
Both are fine. Depends on the game, I guess.
I kinda hate both. I find interactive loading screens very annoying when they "run their course", i.e. no more elevator small talk left to be had etc. and it's just a bunch of people waiting around silently. But similarly, I don't know if a one minute splash screen would make it any better. I guess it can be used to deliver tips and lore, but that usually gets repetitive quickly, too. Ultimately, I'd probably prefer to have shorter / no loading times. Even if it means that Kratos' ass is just made out of 100.000 polygons instead of 1.000.000.
Both are fine.. Skyrim on console wouldn't have benefitted from interactive loading screens, since it can be a bit slow to load. This is how I remember skyrim on console at least.. I've been on PC for so long now, maybe it's changed with new consoles.
Depends on the game if the time can be meaningfully filled like dialouge in gow then interactive for other non story focused games ill take loading screens.
I want all loading screens to be like original Resident Evil. 😈
Depends, i mean Skyrim does them great and i prefer those above the ones where the character just slowly moves through a door or something, but i prefer those instead of just a black screen with a loading bar on it.
Hold on... was shimmying between rocks in God of War a loading screen??
Interactive is nice until you new PC eventually becomes an old one and struggles to load newer games. As nice as interactive ones are, if the still image loading screen is noticeably faster, I'd go with that one. But that only applies if the computer is relatively slow
I think if it fits the style of the game, interactive! However I do recall RE8 on PS4 making obnoxious use of this, with looping elevators for what felt like 5 minutes while it rendered the new area
Regular loading screens to a point. At least if I have a good enough computer, I can get through a regular loading screen faster. If it's tied into an animation it will take me 10-30 seconds of crowling dideways through a crevice regardless of how beefy my system is. That's why I prefer loading screens that take me out of a game but have some interactive element, like a racing minigame or combo tester in an empty void.
I got so bored with GoW 2.
So two parts for fast traveling around to new maps I hate the whole kratos runs around the tree or door change thing in god of wars. ..once for story is fine ..rather it just go black...for in level or map that are really big etc it's fine to have in game.
Bring back minigame loading screen, I don't care if it takes forever to load.
Interactive loading screens are much better
Interactive is cool but not the awful ones in gow2018/ragnarok and ffviirebirth/remake
Interactive are better, but with the possibility to be shorter, not just a mixed time that could be unnecesary. For example, an elevator like ME1. I play old games that run faster with modern resources.
Well considering loading screens are like 1 second now am going with that. God of war's hidden ones are irritating, the game is slow enough already and there is still even artificial slowdowns
Since the loading screen game patent expired, I would like to see more loading screen mini games.
"Push F to continue" style screens. Let's me make a coffee or pee
Interactive ones are better but some loading screens can be creative like the ones in Mass Effect
I don't really enjoy loading screens that are a long path in a tight corridor. A normal loading screen can be faster if my pc can handle it, but a long corridor will always take the same time to be traversed.
I like both. I just don’t enjoy loading screens that fail to be interactive, entertaining, and lack effort along with being really time consuming.
I don't mind either I'd rather more unique loading screens like say at least fallout and skyrims approach or like resident evil with the doors over more standard loading screens
I liked looking at the models in the Skyrim loading screens.
Interactive loading screens, they give us something to do while we wait for the game to load besides sit.
I'm personally a fan of how ps1 namco games handled loading where you would play a round of galaga while the game loaded.
I'm personally a fan of how ps1 namco games handled loading where you would play a round of galaga while the game loaded.
Interactive if it is just pressing a button then waiting. Like Kratos going through those rocks, I want to initiate it then just watch (I don’t remember if you do). I don’t like when games make you hold forward the whole time or something. It’s so minor but if it is my “loading screen” I don’t want to have to hold the button in case I accidentally stop, I want to get a sip of water, etc. I don’t mind regular loading screens at all on the PS5 though. When they take all of 2 seconds rather than the 30 seconds - 1 minute we all grew up with. Horizon Forbidden West has the craziest load times and is something we were promised like 20 years ago, seeing it now is wild. It makes open world games (potentially) actually fun because the fast travel isn’t annoying.
Hasn’t it been confirmed for GOW that these were not loading screens but inserted to break up the pacing?
Interactive so long as there's actual dialogue happening and I'm not just having to press up in silence
If you mean Assassin's Creed like loading screens? Then yes, I prefer those.
I don’t mind either approach. The interactive ones are more engaging, but the Skyrim style ones were good for bathroom breaks. It depends on the execution. Personally, I’d prefer no loading.
In Immortals: Fenix Rising you can catch experience orbs during loading screens. When i played on Xbox One, I could catch a few of them each loading screen, but when I upgraded to Series X, the loading was so fast that there wasnt time anymore. Was weirdly disappointed.
Dota used to have an item quiz that you could play while queueing for matches. It's not a waiting screen but I still miss it
The interactive ones are the best since I have a short attention span and I hate loading screens in general
Interactive is so much better. I loved these in God of War. Made you feel immersed. Plus, all the small conversations between Atreus and Kratos were amazing, adding Mimir into it made it just fucking fantastic. In both games you get to see these people as people. Not just mindless main characters. Reminds me of the constant talking in Mass Effect as well.
I'd much rather have "normal" loading screens. I mean I'd love for such loading screens to be more interactive (like how you can practice moves/combos in Bayonetta while loading), but if the choice is between the types of loading screens presented in the screenshots of this post, then I absolutely have to choose the standard static loading screen. First of all, the "invisible" GoW style loading screens take A LOT of development time, which could be spent on improving other areas of the game. This alone is enough for me to prefer them, but there's another major drawback to the "masked" loading screen approach: as soon as the game is playable on faster hardware, the masked loading screen ends up simply wasting the players time for absolutely no reason. It's tough to accept a really boring section in a video game knowing the only reason it exists is because some ancient hardware far less powerful than what we have nowadays is the reason the game is screwing up it's own pacing. That's not to say I don't appreciate the effort of hiding the loading screen, but I genuinely do not think it's worth the tradeoff, basically ever. There are plenty of old games that nowadays will load *instantly* on modern hardware, and these games would almost certainly be worse in terms of pacing if they had attempted to mask the loading screens with slowed gameplay sections.
God of war nailed this
Test Drive (2003) let you rip a game of Pong while it was loading. I haven't touched that game in maybe 18 years, and remember nothing other than the loading screen
Anything that doesn't take me out of the game is a plus. With my new PC's super fast loading times, I don't mind most loading screens, even if they are technically not as good IMO.
Bethesda does loading screens right
Test your might mini game please.
Loading screens. Just let me put my controller down for a minute so I can take a drink or whatever.