this post was submitted on 04 May 2025
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Sure but you're not doing anything interesting during the walking bits. Most of the corridors are just kinda pretty in a repetitive way, usually characters aren't saying anything to develop themselves, there isn't any play it's the corridors of an art gallery, the spaces between the exhibits.
Media tends to cut away from the dull parts of travel in order to express it as a sequence of highlighted challenges. Video game worlds tend to be extremely compressed and abstract for this reason. Like if you go play a link to the past there aren't many areas where you solve the same challenge as a prior screen and there are only a couple with no challenge to overcome or thing to meaningfully interact with. That game still feels like an epic journey.
A difference in lotr is that you aren't required to do stuff and each vista is unique.
I guess what baffles me is there are no interesting decisions. I am never thinking or playing as there are no choices or consequences. Seeing another red tree or whatever is like oh ok. It isn't telling a story, it's not giving me insight into the culture of the land, it's not teaching me mechanics or letting me practice, it's not providing room for character dialogue it's just a red tree and 10 costume bucks.
That they give you a sprint button is the game admitting that they know this is boring. there is literally a fast forward through the movement button, that it isn't a toggle or default speed is itself strange.
I used to get into this argument all the time back when I cared to argue with people on CS forums. The complaint was always "why valve add graphic" and when you get down to the root of the argument the argument was always "graphic distracting and spending dev cycle on graphic means less dev cycle on gameplay." When you take this to its natural conclusion CS becomes a game where blue squares and red squares shoot each other with exactly one gun inside of a single white cube with one bombsite on one side labelled with a black letter A and one bombsite on the other side labelled with a black letter B. Red team tries to plant the bomb and blue team tries to stop them. It's still at it's core CS it's just simplified down to it's purest essence. Nobody could possibly say that anything is wasted, but, it's still CS. If it didn't follow the basic rules of CS it would be a different game.
And it turns out that literally nobody would play that game. As soon as I describe that the backpedaling begins and well we need SOME graphics and we need SOME corridors just not THESE or THOSE graphics and not corridors like THAT. And yet as CS is today it's still one of the most popular games in the world. So clearly these or those graphics and that type of corridor is working for it otherwise nobody would be playing it.
So it sounds like you want to play a game that is like my reductive description of CS but instead you just move forward to a black sign that has white text on it that explains the story after you fight a square of a different color than the last square you fought. Maybe you think it does need more. Just not the one specific thing you don't think it needs.
Try framing it that way and see if it makes a difference.
It turns out that putting different things and pacing and a world to look at and imagine helps most people enjoy games. If you DON'T like those things that's totally cool and good and I would encourage you to find games that are simpler in line with your tastes, or if there isn't one, maybe you're onto something groundbreaking and you should go make it. We're certainly all allowed to have stuff we like or don't but "why corridor!" is just as silly to most of us as perhaps "why story!" or "why any graphics at all!" might be to you.
I think that's a bit of a strawman. I am genuinely confused by the number of dead ends, empty loops, samey visuals, and the sheer length of time spent holding forward in an otherwise extremely intentional game.
Obviously doom doesn't work if you just put all the enemies on a flat grey plane. Also though doom starts getting worse at a certain point if you start reducing the enemy density by adding long sections between each fight. Those long sections might get better if you do something with them, like in doom notfour they have heaps of long empty sections at one point where they blather lore at you. I loathed that section but I wasn't confused as to why it was there, they wanted to tell you a story once they sucked you in with boom boom pew pew.
So assume I am not stupid. Have you played the game? why are they as long as they are? as narrow as they are? as empty as they are?
Something being there because it's there is not really a reason to sink Dev time and resources into it.
Most games with a sprint involve decision making. Usually something like a timer or stamina system with some mechanical implication for depleting it. E.g. if I travel faster now I won't be prepared for combat later. This balances player concerns about moving fast when feeling safe or fleeing, while making it interesting by punishing reckless use.
Most worthwhile game mechanics are like this. Sometimes things are just there for play, like jumping in MMOs which largely just allows playful social expression in an otherwise extremely limited media. Emotes in multiplayer games serve a similar purpose despite having no obvious mechanical link.
One case for a sprint without mechanical trade offs is player movement control. Less relevant on games with a controller input but sometimes there. Usual practice to to have a run/walk toggle button though, and just build the world scale so running feels good in almost all circumstances and turn it on by default.