Gaming

I see a lot of people saying that this is an accessibility thing, while also allowing you to not miss anything important

But a well designed, uncluttered environment can do both of these things while giving you a more immersive experience

But we can't do that, because we're in an endless chase to get the most realistic graphics, and how else are we going to show that off than overly detailing each pixel of stationary on a worker's desk?

I also see a lot of people saying "just don't use the feature if you don't like it"

There's a famous quote I like. "Given the opportunity, players will optimise the fun out of a game". And you can bet your ass I do that. In any game with this "scan" feature, I'll be tapping that like a relapsing porn addict, looking for any new quest npcs, missed collectables or just to see if I'm on the right path. I have a similar issue with minimaps, as they have a comparable effect on gameplay

If it's like a fast fading wave but the highlight stays then thats fine.

If it's a toggleable mode that shows you only closeby items that you have to pick up and look at in a specific order, then fuck right off. Especially when it's so fucking obvious that theirs a suspicious bloody knife stuck in a tree but I need to follow footprints to it first.

The only game I'm aware of in my library that has a feature like this is Satisfactory, the "ping" feature to find nodes they tutorialize but you'll probably quickly stop using because you use an external map for planning/get to know the map.

Honestly if I could do this in real life for an object I'm looking for, and have the object ping and light up and flash and shit, I would love it.

It's because in older games, you could clearly differentiate between the background and the gameplay relevant sprites or models drawn over it. It was a technical necessity but it doubled as communicating to the player what's important. When technology advanced past that being technically necessary, something needed to take its place. The pulse is just one of many ways to do that and the easiest one to integrate into a realistic artstyle. When you get more stylized, your options open up considerably.

If mandatory: meh
Accessability feature for players with impaired vision: great bloody UX

t, your local UI/UX guy

If the game has a lot of stuff but only some of it is actually interactive, there should be a way to disambiguate.

I’m thinking Splinter Cell had this kind of feature.

Unpopular opinion maybe, but I LOVE that shit!

I remember the first time I sent out a ping in the voxel-based action-adventure game Outcast (1999). I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen.

There are good and bad implementations, but going to have to disagree with op on the whole.

Duck Hunt!

The Batman Arkham games kinda do that right? Except it was more of a toggle when you had it on or not?

The first game I remember doing this is The Witcher 2. Not sure if that's the first game to come up with the idea, but it's the earliest example I can remember.

Just make it a toggle to highlight shit. On and off.

I used to play games that permanently highlighted interactive objects. I am playing a game, I don't need realism.

What I never wanna see again is a game having me hold a button instead of pressing it, for literally anything

Topical example would be apace marine 2

What about Satisfactory? It has that feature, but it also has alot more pros than cons?

What? And get stuck in places because you didn't see the not-so-obvious object you needed to interact with?

Yeah, fuck that.

I was trying to think on the history of this feature, since i wouldn’t necessarily count something like AvP's heatvision mode. That's meant to simulate a real thing, even if it works a bit gamey, by highlighting active objects.

Assassin's Creed is the game that, for me, codified the mechanic into it's current form. Hawk Vision or whatever they called it specifically highlighted game objects. I think they even mention that the animus machine is projecting that view to help Desmond see the world how his ancestors would have understood it.

But... I'm going to call the origin as being way farther back. In flight sims, your targeting hud can highlight enemies and targets by drawing little boxes around them. That is the very first instance I can think of where a game highlighted objects of interest for the player's benefit. Most flight sims (or adjacent genres like mech sims) would also label the box with the name of the thing, sometimes with health, ammo, weapon, or weakpoint indicators as well.