The #1 most hated thing in video games for me is fetch quests and pointless side quests. You need me to what? Find exactly seven of these special herbs for a medicinal potion to help heal your sickly child? How is this going to help me save the realm exactly? What would you be doing right this instant if I hadn't shown up, hung around the tavern and gotten drunk like the useless NPC that you are? Kys and your stupid kid.
In the #2 spot is bad friendly AI that mostly shows its annoyance with quests that involve a fail condition on some character dying. It doesn't necessarily have to be an escort mission, but it commonly is. You go from relying on your skill the whole time to relying purely on luck. And sometimes you're helplessly relying on luck, especially if it's a higher difficulty and your AI friendlies die easier.
Coming in at #3 is unskippable cutscenes and tutorials. There is no excuse not to be able to do this. No, I don't care about the genius of your cinematic director or art team. Fast forward was invented with VHS. And yes, some of us are veteran gamers who can pick up the mechanics of your game as we go. It's not brain surgery, so fuck you for needlessly coddling all of us. If it's something that can't be reasonably discovered through play and experimentation, then offer useful hints, but otherwise sit back and let us play your game without holding our hand.
At #4 there's quick-time events (QTE) and obscenely long cutscenes. Cutscenes are there for plot exposition and to give yourself a bit of a gameplay break, which makes QTE a schizo game design. Either let your audience engage in your game in the moment by playing it, or give them a break and let them sit back and enjoy other aspects of your game like the story and art. And keep the cutscene brief, for fuck's sake. If I wanted to watch a movie, I wouldn't be playing a video game. Hideo Kojima is worst culprit for this. That dude desperately wants to be a Hollywood film director, and it really shows in his game design philosophy. Don't use your video game as an excuse to dump your movie on us. Just fucking go and make a movie.
Coming in last place at #5 is something external to video games, but it has inexorably creeped its way into video games nonetheless, and that is the woke, SJW faggotry. For exhibit A on this, look no further than Cyberpunk 2077. The wokeness was rooted in the company's decision-making, by focusing to hire a diverse team consisting of all genders, instead of a competent team consisting of just one (let's be real here). And by God, does it ever show how much of a disaster that can be. When you're more concerned with making sure that your character is able to look 100% female, but still able to possess a cock and balls, than you are of making a smooth running game free of game-breaking bugs, then there is something seriously wrong with you and your game development company.
Furthermore, this SJW cancer is affecting aesthetics and game design all over the industry. Female characters aren't allowed to look sexy and beautiful anymore, because beta faggot game companies are more concerned with appeasing feminist cunts like Anita Sarkesian than they are of appeasing their consumer base. You know, the people who actually buy your fucking games and increase your company's share value. Can you imagine if this cancer takes over Hollywood and suddenly all lead females are some combination of obese, ethnic (the correct ones), POC, with a weird imaginary gender that no one can pronounce? Oh, wait a minute, we don't have to imagine.
