Since everybody obtained mad about yellow paint once more this yr, listed here are 5 alternate options I suggest to assist gamers discover their approach round in 2026
Earlier than generative AI turned the all-consuming omni-topic upon which we should all opine, everybody was weighing on the lighter-shaded speaking level of builders utilizing yellow paint as a directional software. Video games like Stellar Blade, Ultimate Fantasy 7: Rebirth and Star Wars Outlaws reignited the controversy about splashing liquid sunshine too liberally throughout platforms and obstacles to assist participant navigation, with the controversy spilling over into 2025 as critics referred to as it out as lazy recreation design.
Quite a few recreation builders supplied their views on the difficulty. Ultimate Fantasy 7: Rebirth’s director Naoki Hamaguchi said there may be “undoubtedly a necessity for that type of factor” in video games, even when gamers do not prefer it, whereas The Witcher 4’s lead designer believed the issue “is not essentially the yellow paint”, however the context during which it was used, and that degree designers wanted to “correctly weaponise your complete arsenal of your toolkit” to forestall gamers from realising that “‘oh, I am being guided'”.
A Pleasant Canine
Fable 2 famously featured a canine companion who would dig out treasure, help you in fight, and most significantly for our function, assist prepared the ground to quest targets. I suggest that we roll this function out for each online game, along with your devoted hound barking and or/pointing in the correct course if the participant is caught for a sure period of time.
A few of it’s possible you’ll observe that that is much like how characters like Atreus in God of Conflict: Ragnarok would vocalise puzzle options if the participant obtained caught on them for too lengthy. However there are two benefits to utilizing a canine over a personality like Atreus. Firstly, a canine will not be an annoying, moody teenager. Second, a canine can not communicate, thereby requiring some interpretation of its behaviour on the participant’s half.
Execs: Accessibility function that may be petted
Cons: Participant is likely to be a cat individual
Navigational Climate
This one’s impressed by Ghost of Tsushima‘s Guiding Wind, whose air currents helped level gamers within the course of their subsequent goal. Why not apply such meteorological navigation to different sorts of climate? You would have rain that drives within the course gamers have to go, thunder that rumbles on the related compass level, lightning that illuminates the following a part of your path.
This concept has the additional benefit of creating your recreation moody as heck, though it will not be supreme for individuals affected by seasonal affective dysfunction.
Execs: Subtler than yellow paint
Cons: You may by no means see the solar once more
Dynamic Signage
This one I am just a little extra critical about. After I performed Mafia: The Outdated Nation earlier this yr, my favorite system within the recreation was how it could generate bodily highway indicators alongside any route you plotted out on the sport’s map, displaying you the way in which to go. Admittedly, Mafia: The Outdated Nation was not precisely brimming with new concepts. However it was nonetheless a helpful high quality of life software. It eradicated the necessity to look consistently on the minimap, permitting me to benefit from the drive whereas additionally directing me in a approach that felt in line with the sport’s visible design.
Perhaps there is a solution to apply this method to any recreation the place navigation is vital. The trick, after all, is to make your dynamic indicators match along with your given atmosphere. You do not need highway indicators showing in an historic temple or up the aspect of a canyon wall. However I believe indicators are extra believable than simply spilling yellow paint all over the place.
Execs: Clear navigational instruments
Cons: Tougher to implement in environmentally numerous video games
The Riddlemaster
A central a part of the yellow paint discourse is that gamers don’t love feeling patronised. So one possibility is to make navigational hints each optionally available and a puzzle in and of themselves. It’s with this in thoughts that I suggest The Riddlemaster, an NPC who will be summoned at any time to offer cryptic hints on the way in which ahead.
This does require the developer to give you a riddle for each level at which a participant could develop into caught, and I am not wholly positive how nicely riddles would gel with looking for your approach round. However hey, it is extra fascinating than kicking over a can over Dulux over each ledge.
Execs: Supplies help whereas persistently difficult the participant.
Cons: Intensive to provide. Probably annoying as fuck
Divine Intervention
Maybe the issue with yellow paint is not that it is obtrusive, however that it is obtrusive in a extremely boring approach. If so, one resolution can be to create a navigational help so overwhelmingly superior that gamers can not assist however like it. And I am unable to consider something higher than God himself pointing the way in which to your subsequent goal.
Image it, you have been caught on the identical rocky platforming puzzle for ten minutes and are nonetheless no nearer to selecting your approach via. Then, you hear a rumbling noise emanating from above. You search for, to see the clouds half and crepuscular rays beam down from the celestial aperture. Moments later, an enormous, pointing hand descends from the heavens, as a booming voice says: “THIS WAY, IDIOT.”
Execs: Visually spectacular
Cons: Finances, attainable spiritual discord