Starfield and Baldur's Gate 3 both weigh the player down with encumbrance. Love it or hate it, it seems like it's here to stay.

It’s a debate as old as role-playing games themselves: should players have to deal with encumbrance?

The recent release of Larian’s Baldur’s Gate 3 and Bethesda’s Starfield have thrust the encumbrance debate back into the headlines, with both games employing a system that restricts how much stuff you can carry.

While each game employs systems and mechanics that let you carry more and more, it is inevitable that as a player, you’re going to have to spend a decent chunk of your time fussing with managing your character or characters’ carry weight limit.

In Starfield’s case, encumbrance is a big enough issue for some that they are willing to lose access to gaining achievements in order to increase the carry limit via console commands on PC. This in turn has made a mod designed to prevent the achievements from being disabled one of the most popular on NexusMods.

  • @bouhEnglish
    0•1 year ago

    It depends. There’s a fine line between managing logistic and soreadsheet grade chores. Managing logistic can be interesting and it can bring a lot to the game. But if it is merely checking boxes and numbers on a spreadsheet it’s a chore that’s better left out of the game.

    • SokathHisEyesOpenEnglish
      1•1 year ago

      Zelda has a good system for this. You need to decide which weapons, shields, and bows you keep, but you have otherwise unlimited storage. It adds a degree of realism and management, without negatively impacting the gameplay.