In preparing for Uncharted 4, I replayed all of the previous Uncharted games.

I chose explorer difficulty. This is the difficulty that is below even easy, and is essentially for those who just want to see the story (which I did). Even so, this does not stop you from falling to your death or being blown up by tanks.

Anyway, part of the tradeoff here is that trophies, bonuses, stat tracking, and collectables are all disabled. And wow that made a difference.

I didn't realize how much better playing these games were without having all that is. It's fantastic not having to even think about collectables in offbeat or hidden areas of the map. If I wanted to go somewhere, it was just for the joy of climbing or the view. I didn't have to take my mind off of the environments and story at hand. I was completely immersed, even though it was easy mode. No need to have "Did I miss something here"? or "Is anything down this alley?" go through the back of your head.

I've known for a while that collectables and trophies are bad for games, but I did not realize how much better the experience would be without them. Having played the game with and without, I found the experience far better without.

I only wish you could turn them off on higher difficulties.

While I acknowledge what you're saying, I've never actually understood the viewpoint.

Do people still care about or even pay attention to achievements? I don't. I never even so much as look at an achievement/trophy list anymore. I don't strive for any of them, hell, I rarely even read the description of what it's for when they pop. You can accomplish exactly what you're talking about just by disabling notifications (I've never looked, but I assume you can do that on PS4).

Edit: That said, I'm mixed on achievements and trophies. I don't personally care, but I know some do. I do think they can be detrimental to multiplayer games, though, when achievements aren't designed properly and people end up playing to get the achievement versus actually just playing the game.

The appearance of collectibles in the game world and the game's stat tracking have nothing to do with notifications.

The appearance of collectibles in the game world and the game's stat tracking have nothing to do with notifications.

So the collectibles are actually removed from the game world? I guess I misread your post. In any case, I'm not sure that really changes much. It's a tired argument, I know, but "just ignore it" still applies here. I don't spend my time in Uncharted or Tomb Raider looking for collectible trinkets that do nothing to service gameplay. Their mere presence isn't detrimental.

And I'm not sure what stat tracking has to do with anything. I like games that allow me to see weird stats. That doesn't mean I give it any thought while I'm playing the game--it's just a neat gee-whiz thing once I'm done.

While I acknowledge what you're saying, I've never actually understood the viewpoint.

Do people still care about or even pay attention to achievements? I don't. I never even so much as look at an achievement/trophy list anymore. I don't strive for any of them, hell, I rarely even read the description of what it's for when they pop. You can accomplish exactly what you're talking about just by disabling notifications (I've never looked, but I assume you can do that on PS4).

Edit: That said, I'm mixed on achievements and trophies. I don't personally care, but I know some do. I do think they can be detrimental to multiplayer games, though, when achievements aren't designed properly and people end up playing to get the achievement versus actually just playing the game.

I played through about half of Quantum Break before putting it down... one of the things that really turned me off of the game is the fact that your character's power progression is tied to finding collectables scattered around the environment. And to find those collectables, you need to engage the "detective mode" vision ability (which stops working the moment you move). So rather than running through the environments and exploring them naturally, I would walk 10 feet and activate my vision mode, walk another 10 feet, activate it again, etc. It's the most immersion-breaking combination of mechanics. I wanted to just ignore the collectables, but that would mean I giving up the chance to level up my powers. I'm amazed the game shipped this way :-/

On the flip side, I do think some games incorporate collectables well. As much as the Assassin's Creed series has devolved into a bit of a mess, Black Flag nailed a lot of things for me. The thing about collectables in that game is they perfectly fit into the narrative concept of living as a pirate. Sailing around the ocean, exploring tropical islands and searching for buried treasure makes perfect sense in a game like that. I never felt like the collectables were pulling me away from the game. They felt like a perfectly natural part of the whole experience.

I played through about half of Quantum Break before putting it down... one of the things that really turned me off of the game is the fact that your character's power progression is tied to finding collectables scattered around the environment. And to find those collectables, you need to engage the "detective mode" vision ability (which stops working the moment you move). So rather than running through the environments and exploring them naturally, I would walk 10 feet and activate my vision mode, walk another 10 feet, activate it again, etc. It's the most immersion-breaking combination of mechanics. I wanted to just ignore the collectables, but that would mean I giving up the chance to level up my powers. I'm amazed the game shipped this way :-/

On the flip side, I do think some games incorporate collectables well. As much as the Assassin's Creed series has devolved into a bit of a mess, Black Flag nailed a lot of things for me. The thing about collectables in that game is they perfectly fit into the narrative concept of living as a pirate. Sailing around the ocean, exploring tropical islands and searching for buried treasure makes perfect sense in a game like that. I never felt like the collectables were pulling me away from the game. They felt like a perfectly natural part of the whole experience.

Now, see, I agree with that. I've not played Quantum Break, but what you just said sounds absolutely awful and would be enough to make me reconsider playing it if I had actually been planning on it. It's been forever since I've played Black Flag, but I don't remember being particularly fond of its collectibles, or feeling like it strayed from the standard Assassin's Creed collectible mold.

Uncharted, though, is probably the worst example to use as to why that sort of stuff is bad. It's literally completely irrelevant to the game at large. As far as I can remember, collectibles unlock trophies and new costumes for Nathan, neither of which actually affects your gameplay experience. You argue about why they're included at all, then (and I would agree that it's stupid, and somehow it just became the expectation), but even so, it's not actively detrimental to the experience if you don't find any of, unlike Quantum Break, apparently.

Their mere presence isn't detrimental.

It can be. Whether or not it actively affects the "main" functions of the game, its presence colors the experience of exploration and can affect the completionist part of the mind.

So this game is at least vaguely like the recent Tomb Raiders, correct? In both the modern Tomb Raiders, many of the collectibles were tied into the story or provided backstory for various characters. Often, fully voice acted and interesting backstory. Turning them off and making them disappear would hurt the Tomb Raider games, in my opinion. Do any of the Nathan Drake collectibles serve a similar function? Or are they mostly disconnected from the story and just move you closer to a trophy?

Nah, a lot of times you're picking up artifacts that mean nothing.

Their mere presence isn't detrimental.

It can be. Whether or not it actively affects the "main" functions of the game, its presence colors the experience of exploration and can affect the completionist part of the mind.

Basically. Some are also not that far out of the way, so you'd end up finding the few easy ones through normal play. This can create what the fancy intellectuals call ludonarrative dissonance.

I played through about half of Quantum Break before putting it down... one of the things that really turned me off of the game is the fact that your character's power progression is tied to finding collectables scattered around the environment. And to find those collectables, you need to engage the "detective mode" vision ability (which stops working the moment you move). So rather than running through the environments and exploring them naturally, I would walk 10 feet and activate my vision mode, walk another 10 feet, activate it again, etc. It's the most immersion-breaking combination of mechanics. I wanted to just ignore the collectables, but that would mean I giving up the chance to level up my powers. I'm amazed the game shipped this way :-/

My goodness gracious, that sounds like a trainwreck. What the hell, MS?!

Other than that, I didn't mind the collectibles in AC black flag

Their mere presence isn't detrimental.

It can be. Whether or not it actively affects the "main" functions of the game, its presence colors the experience of exploration and can affect the completionist part of the mind.

Basically. Some are also not that far out of the way, so you'd end up finding the few easy ones through normal play. This can create what the fancy intellectuals call ludonarrative dissonance.

Funny that you should mention that. The folks at Naughty Dog are pretty familiar with this concept themselves...

Their mere presence isn't detrimental.

It can be. Whether or not it actively affects the "main" functions of the game, its presence colors the experience of exploration and can affect the completionist part of the mind.

Basically. Some are also not that far out of the way, so you'd end up finding the few easy ones through normal play. This can create what the fancy intellectuals call ludonarrative dissonance.

Funny that you should mention that. The folks at Naughty Dog are pretty familiar with this concept themselves...

Clever. However it's one thing to be aware of a problem. It's another thing to solve it. And mass murder is kind of a problem in a game as story driven as Uncharted.