Why do developers keep adding virtual cursors to console games?

Archmage Azor@lemmy.world to Games@lemmy.world – 111 points –

It just feels lazy to me, like the developer couldn't be bothered adjusting the UI for consoles so they copied the PC interface and bound the mouse cursor to a stick. Some games do both at the same time, having menues navigable both with buttons and a cursor, but usually that makes all menus unreliable and unprecise as hell.

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Wait? Console players feel like devs just copy the PC interface? Us PC players always feel like they copy the console interface and just slap a cursor on it. Buttons are huge, excessive amount of tabs, very few things visible at any time, etc. Oh and those "wheels" ugh.

Both things happen. It depends on what the game was originally designed for.

I don’t think Hogwarts Legacy was designed for PC primarily and it’s full of cursor control on console.

But it also limits me to 4 spells at any given time even on PC, instead of giving me a bigger hotbar. So I guess devs just make middle-of-the-road interfaces that don't please anyone these days.

The only game I can think of is Minecraft.

No Man's Sky's UI is almost entirely through cursors, drag and drop etc.

Even choosing between a couple dialog options used to require moving a pointer over buttons but they finally fixed that at some point. Now with a controller you can just select the answers right away.

By "wheels", do you mean pie menus? What don't you like about them?

They are often very blatantly designed for a controller and a far-away screen. Take up the whole screen a lot of the time despite very few possible selections. Often they don't even include a cursor and you just drag a highlight from the centre of the wheel.

I mean, they work, but no one can say that they're designed for M+KB imo.