This is a rant.

I want to preface with that, because I’m going to be a bit rude and a bit annoyed and I’ll probably make some people angry as per usual, but I really have to say this.

What the hell happened to both Starfield and Baldur’s Gate III? Did no one run their UIs through some usability testing? What’s the point of having tutorials that are contextual if they don’t go away after you’ve done what they ask (looking at you Starfield) and why the hell do you have to make it SO hard to play the goddamned games?

Yesterday at 6 pm when Baldur’s Gate was pre-released on PS5 in Sweden, I was playing D&D, so I didn’t get around to starting playing until 8 pm. When I did, I figured I’d be sitting until very very late and enjoy the game.

Instead I turned it off after one hour, frustrated at the UI and the user experience, annoyed that it was so hard to understand what to do and when to do it, where to find the menus but most of all why are there three or four radials to choose actions?!?!?!

I open up menus on shoulder and trigger buttons. WHY? I get completely confused.

Starfield is no better. Let’s put a fucking radial as a main menu, except it isn’t the main menu, because you have to press another button to access that, there are three million things to keep track of and the tutorials are utter, utter, utter garbage. How do I know they’re garbage? I sat for an hour today trying to figure out how to fly to another planet. And then I ended up in the same situation again by not understanding how to jump between star systems. Why? Because the tutorials are utter garbage.

The result is that I’ve bought two very, very expensive games that I honestly don’t really feel like playing. Why? Because the user experience – for me at least – sucks. Maybe I’m getting old. I don’t know. But I do know that those games could have used some serious usability testing because there are friction points everywhere and it certainly takes the fun out of playing for me. Also what the fuck Baldur’s Gate? FOUR RADIALS?

Okay. I’m done now, but I have a feeling I will write a lot more about this.