Gaming is becoming less interesting to me and here is why.

[Shodan_]

unless you call building space stations 'crafting.' You're taking a bunch of stuff and putting it together to make something, so maybe, even though the something is huge.

I kinda do actually. Another example is in Factorio and Satisfactory IMO you're actually crafting automated systems from scratch using parts.

You're not crafting the parts themselves but at some point you need to take a decision on how granular you want the system to be.

IRL if you want to craft an actual arrow you chip away at a rock to make an arrowhead and secure it to a stick somehow. No two arrows are exactly the same, sometimes you might craft an arrowhead that doesn't work as well or breaks when you tighten the string around the stick or whatever. Doing this in real life is fun, probably difficult, assuredly rewarding. Gamifying this in a fun way is an insane undertaking that no company can implement as an afterthought unless the whole game is either built around this or it take 20 years to develop. I could see this working well in VR however.

So you get "crafting systems" that are crafting in name only and when other companies see how easy it is to make a "crafting system" then they make one too and next thing you know the game is now 8 hours longer because you're running around collecting more junk and waiting for progress bars to fill up while you "craft" things in a game that would certainly not be any worse if it didn't have that system.

If I play Subnautica, or The Long Dark or 7 Days to Die or The Forest and I have to craft something for my survival, the entire context of the game makes it make sense and I feel like a survivor. For a lot of items I have to get back to camp so I can use my fire pit, workbench, makeshift foundry, etc. This makes sense and feels right. Subnautica absolutely nailed the implementation of crafting and base building in the context of far out science fiction, using replicators and fabricators and whatnot. 3d printing hundreds of years in the future, sure I'll buy it.

In Tomb Raider that context or feeling isn't there at all. It's like oh I'm out of arrows, press a button boom you have arrows after a 0.5 second animation.

I just think these are systems that most games would benefit from not having at all because no thought has been put into them due to complexity and time constraints mostly but they have to be there because that'S what's cool at the moment.

So when I see an 80$ game that has this whole checklist of trendy gimmicks I'm instantly put off because I know it would be just as good if it was 60$ and had none of it.

In that sense I'd rather play Jalopy which was not expensive, stripped down and IMO a wonderful experience because it was self aware, didn't have everything in it and just did what it knew.