Summary
- Some studios embrace fun bugs in open-world games, leading to memorable experiences.
- Goat Simulator 3 thrives on jank and clipping, making glitches part of the fun gameplay.
- Games like Fallout 4 and The Legend of Zelda encourage exploiting mechanics for creative play.
Striking a balance is often challenging in game design, particularly for open-world games. Over on one side, rough edges (jank) could break the player’s immersion or lead them to abandon the game entirely. Yet, discovering hidden exploits or glitches can create unforgettable moments and make gaming experiences truly enjoyable.
With this understanding, some game studios now choose to keep amusing glitches in their titles for players to discover, or even develop entire games centered on destructibility. These open-world games that offer opportunities for creative destruction or unintentional flaws from developers are the ones that provide the most enjoyable breaking experiences.
7. The Bloodline (Early Access)
A Bonkers, Off-The-Wall Fantasy Adventure
- The breaker: over 500 skills, including wall running and a grappling hook
Despite being in its early access stage, The Bloodline showcases an approach that includes numerous features without much refinement yet, often referred to as “everything including the kitchen sink” and “develop now, refine later.” This results in a gameplay experience that’s quite diverse but can sometimes feel chaotic. There seems to be a plethora of activities to explore, each presented as mini-games, and all these activities are optional.
In this game, you’ll discover numerous spells and abilities that drastically alter the game’s laws of physics or equilibrium. These include wall-running, grapple hooks, and magical jet boosters as part of the expansive, dynamic open-world movement system. Despite three bugs seemingly appearing for every new feature introduced, they can sometimes result in amusing scenarios if you approach them with the right attitude.
6. Goat Simulator 3
The Greatest Glitch Game Of All Time
- The breaker: the goat and the bizarre physics engine
Goats are not exactly household pets nor terrifying beasts, but they certainly offer a lot of built-in comedic possibilities. Without a shadow of a doubt, Goat Simulator 3 is an open-world game that satirically imitates physics simulators, stemming from a design philosophy where if a glitch was amusing, it was permitted to remain.
In the sequel to the Goat series, titled “Goat Simulator 2”, they have refined the quirks and integrated features such as clipping, ragdolling, and physics manipulation into the gameplay. Each system in “Goat Simulator 3” seems precariously close to collapsing, yet this unstable feel is precisely what makes it appealing.
5. Watch_Dogs Legion
Hacking The System (And Enemy AI)
- The breaker: the spider droid and rideable flying drone
It appears that the Watch Dogs series was designed as a version of Grand Theft Auto, but with hacking abilities built into the game mechanics, particularly when it comes to manipulating city infrastructure and technology. In other words, cities become playgrounds for hackers. Watch Dogs: Legion significantly expanded its open-world gameplay by allowing any Londoner to be a potential playable character, each with their own unique abilities and gear.
In essence, managing an open-world game with numerous playable characters can be close to being impractical. However, the joy in playing Legion primarily lies in discovering the best strategies for accomplishing missions or choosing the most unexpected resistance members (like grannies, dog walkers, beekeepers, etc.). Notably, these characters often share a common trait of utilizing a rideable cargo drone and spider droids.
4. Fallout 4
Settling In To A Broken Build
- The breaker: the settlement, scrapping, and crafting mechanics that can be exploited from very early on
Regarding balance, the Fallout series has historically leaned towards a stricter balance compared to its sibling role-playing game series, The Elder Scrolls. This could be due to Fallout’s skill point allocation system instead of leveling up based on use, and its lack of world-altering magic, which is still associated with Bethesda today.
In addition to introducing the settlement system in Fallout 4, it also unveiled a small community of exploits. Players found numerous workarounds for their seemingly impossible builds within the settlements. What’s more, players could farm healing items and create extremely potent weapons, armor, and resources at an early stage. It’s worth noting that other areas of the game are also rich with exploitable secrets, including quick travel techniques and the perpetually respawning money bag at the Lexington Super Duper Mart.
3. The Legend Of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Ultrahanding Players All Of The Tools Of Creation
- The breaker: the Ultrahand’s Merge, Fuse, and Ascend abilities
If Breath of the Wild marked the Zelda series’ initial exploration into emergent sandbox gameplay, Tears of the Kingdom plunged headfirst (possibly off one of the floating islands) into complete systemic disorder. Each new ability, particularly Ultrahand, Fuse, and Ascend, were developed with intricate interactions in mind, enabling players not only to solve puzzles but also to bypass or even redesign them altogether.
1) In The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (TotK), players have the ability to create weaponry powered by bees, bizarre vehicles, flamethrowers, battle engines, and Hyrulian mechanical suits to defeat the Demon King and his minions. This game doesn’t merely allow for rule-breaking; instead, it actively encourages it in order to blend the roles of player and developer. For instance, Ascend was initially a tool designed by developers that Nintendo later allowed fans to utilize on their own.
2. Minecraft
Redstone And Out-Of-The-Block Thinking
- The breaker: combining redstone circuitry with any number of blocks and objects
To those unfamiliar, Minecraft’s worlds might appear as sturdy as a weightless LEGO construction. Yet, the inclusion of redstone opens up a world of possibilities by enabling players to construct practical devices using items such as repeaters, comparators, pistons, observers, slime blocks, and more. This leads to the creation of flying machines, item farms, elevators, rocket launchers, teleporters, drills that bore through indestructible bedrock, and much more.
Some players have taken their Minecraft skills to impressive lengths, constructing functional calculators, computers, and even methods to run and display other video games within Minecraft itself. YouTube channels dedicated to exploring redstone’s potential have sprung up, and many enthusiastic Minecraft creators are eagerly anticipating the endless possibilities yet to be discovered.
1. The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered
The Grand Champion Of Exploitable Mechanics And Jank
- The breaker: spellmaking, sigil stones, ragdoll physics, and general bugginess
In The Elder Scrolls series, starting from games like Daggerfall, players have been provided with opportunities to create their own spells or construct overpowered characters right from the start. Games such as Morrowind offer game-breaking alchemy features, and Skyrim’s blacksmithing and alchemy follow a similar pattern. However, The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion remaster (which delights longtime fans by maintaining most of the original glitches and introducing new ones) offers the greatest potential to disrupt game balance and provides an ideal amount of ‘jank’ (unpolished or poorly designed elements).
This game’s appeal stems from its spellcrafting and sigil mechanisms, alongside the entertaining ragdoll physics system. For instance, mages can concoct spells to make targets susceptible to fire, igniting a powerful flame burst on them for just a second, instantly annihilating them. Sigil stones enable players to fashion armor that renders them completely undetectable and immune to repercussions. Classic tricks like wielding a pitcher to create an unbeatable shield for arrows still hold true, while the instant ragdoll effect upon enemy deaths remains as humorous as it was when Oblivion debuted in 2006.
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2025-05-20 07:37