Nothing frustrates me more than not being able to pause for no seemingly good reason. I’m playing Wild Hearts right now and even though I never play online I cannot pause for some reason. To simulate pausing, I can turn off the xbox and the quick resume feature makes it look like the game was paused when I turn the console back on.
Other games guilty of this are Fromsoft games: Dark Souls, Elden Ring and so on.
Obviously all of these games have an online component. Not allowing pausing when this component is activated makes sense. But if I am playing completely online why cannot I pause? In Soulslike the worst exploit I can think of is switching equipment on the fly but is that really that bad? When stuff comes up in the middle crucial moments it frustrates me a lot.
I don’t play games that don’t have a pause button. I’m an adult with adult shit to deal with. That might be as simple as cooking dinner. I don’t have long for leisure in the evenings but if I can pause a game in between e.g. cooking, I can play it. If I can’t pause, I can’t play.
If devs want to say ‘fuck you, user, we aren’t making our game accessible,’ then fuck them, too. Just another symbol of the shit hole that is game development. I don’t really care what their justifications are. Online games could be made with a pause button as well if the devs cared about accessibility. It’s an industry that takes itself far too seriously, as if games aren’t supposed to be a bit of fun. That’s what happens when games are commodities, I guess.
It’s another factor in gamers being so reactionary; so much of it is de facto the reserve of people without responsibilities or people who don’t care about their responsibilities. Down with inaccessible games.