pausing during cutscenes - it's weird that this isn't always an option even in AAA

When I want to quit your game, I mean it.

I do not want to be prompted several times as attempts to keep me in the game when I just want to leave.

Everything should be controllable. Give me all the options. Every graphical feature, every UI element, even gameplay mechanics. If it is as simple as adjusting a number or selecting something from a table, give me the option to control it myself.

Motion blur - OFF Screenshake - OFF

Internet Connection - On/Off

The ability to pause should be a requirement for single player games. Not being able to pause long cut scenes, combats, etc. is so frustrating when nobody else is impacted.

Any game completely opposed to pausing for whatever design reason should instead be required to have a minimum of 30 seconds between pauses to allow for interruptions while playing without it allowing for rapid pauses to impact game play. 30 seconds minimum is because of how many interruptions are immediately followed by another interruption by kids/spouses/parents/pets.

If I'm going to put 100+ hours into a game, there better be a setting to mute BGM, because no matter how good the OST is I will eventually tire of it and want to listen to something else.

separe audio settings for bgm, sound effects, etc

All controls should be remappable. All means all. Not most, not some, and certainly none of this bullshit where all you can do is toggle between "XBox 360 controller layout A/XBox 360 controller layout B." This is especially true for titles on consoles, many of which still to this very day don't allow you to remap their controls at all.

For 3D games, field of view. Far too many developers of FPS titles in particular have Console Disease, and feel it's somehow acceptable to lock the FOV to 70° or some absurd number. If they allow you to adjust it at all they may be feeling "generous" enough to let you go as high as 90°. That's completely unacceptable. On my 4K monitor that's 25" from my face, I need at least 120°. Honestly, I want to see that slider go up to 180°. That's right, I want to be able to look at your game world like a goddamned pigeon. On that note I really have to wonder what those people with those 3840x1080 überwide monitors do most of the time, other than spending their days in never ending torment.

Allow me to turn off the stupid pre-launch splash titles. Certainly at least after the first startup. I certainly don't need to be told that nVidia is the way it's meant to be played, or that your company licensed Havok, or who your publisher is, or who your publisher's owner is, or who your publisher's owner's owner is, etc. Nobody cares. Usually instead you have to resort to replacing the .mkv or .bik files in the game folder with zero-byte text files or something. It's dumb.

While we're griping, and speaking of Console-Itis, does every PC game now need to have an unskippable message telling me that this game has auto save and urging me not to turn off my PC when the icon is being displayed? Really? Nobody's going to do that. Tell me your game is a shitty console port without telling me your game is a shitty console port. To keep this on topic, let's have a setting to turn that off, too, because it's stupid. Off by default would be nice. Should there be an Idiot Mode toggle?

Granularity in subtitles. It seems too many games only have two settings: All subtitles off, or they assume you're completely deaf. Typically I want to be able to read what characters are saying in their voice lines, but instead the developers also think I need to see the bottom third of my screen filled with [BOOM] [GUNFIRE] [JUKEBOX MUSIC] [FOOTSTEPS] [BOOM] [GUNFIRE] [BOOM] [BOOM] and so on and so forth, all the time. They should either categorize sounds and make their subtitling things individually selectable, or at least if they insist on making it a slider give it three or four levels: Off, cutscene/conversation dialog only, all spoken lines ("Cover me!" "Reloading!" "Never should have come here!" etc.), and then only the top level resulting in every single cricket and rustle of grass being captioned. Some games do manage to accomplish this. Many do not.

Oh, I thought of a good one to add to my wish list. I want every game to bring back the sound test menu. But they won't, because every studio on Earth now wants you to spend an extra $15 for their game's soundtrack. (As if it's not all going to be on Youtube about twelve seconds after release anyway...)

1. Developers should spend effort vouching for a launch without startup logos. Even if supporting libraries/publishers are credited some other way, startup movies take up a lot of time when gamers launch the game many times.
2. Trails in the Sky has a feature where you can choose to launch the game directly into your most recent save game rather than ending up at the menus. This would be a boon for many singleplayer games, especially those with densely animated menus.

Here’s a simple one. On PC, a lot of games let you use the keyboard/mouse or a controller. On some games it’ll switch the prompts to the layout of the last type of input you used. However I tend to use a controller for everything, except I’ll use a mouse for more fine tuned control since I suck at aiming with a joystick. But then what happens is the input notifications switch to keyboard/mouse and sometimes don’t switch back.

I’d love to see an option to force which input style gets displayed on screen. Keyboard/Controller/Auto

This is totally unrealistic but it would be sweet if there was a button for showing you a compilation of recent cutscenes or something for when you havnt played a story heavy game in a while and forgot what’s going on.

Like in the main menu give me a memory button or whatever that basically brings me up to speed to where I left off. Could be replaying cutscenes or showing me text of recent events, who knows 🤷‍♀️

But there are too many times i have to put a deep rpg down and then life gets in the way and picking it up again becomes impossible when it doesn’t feel like I’m there anymore

A way to start a fresh save. Or better yet, allow multiple saves/profiles. I've lost count of the number of times I've had to search online for where save files are located and delete them myself.

And if it's a Steam game, you also have to worry about cloud saves undoing whatever you did. Please, just make it simple for players to do this.

Please let me invert y-axis for games where I control the field of view. Nothing takes me out of a game like suddenly staring at my feet when I try to look up.

Customisable difficulty. Have a single or multiple presets balanced to what you'd like your players to experience but give me an option to adjust some of the stuff to my liking. There are SO MANY games I'd love to play way more than I do but none of the difficulty options feel "right", bringing the whole experience down.
It's also a great feature from an accessibility standpoint - pretty important thing for those who literally can't play your game for reasons that could be easily worked around if such customisation was there.

"But my artistic integrity and vision!"

No, shut up. Your vision doesn't mean squat if my experience with the game is annoying to the point where I don't even care about the lore implication of an enemy placement or how gameplay systems intertwine with themes and story of the game. It's important, sure, but it shouldn't be more important than player's enjoyment of your product.

Balance your game how you imagine it but let me play with the sliders to make it feel how I want it to. Just drop a scary message about it not being the intended way to play and it'll be fine.

For over-the-shoulder games, separate field-of-view AND CAMERA DISTANCE.

For player-hosted games, an option to reject hosts using unsuitable hardware or low bandwidth, high latency networks. My gripe is specific to Warframe on the Switch 1, but if the developers of any game can't/won't operate public game servers and choose to offload the responsibility to the players, the choice should belong to the players.

Adjustable HUD offset for widescreen.

I have a 32:9 display and it SUCKS when HUD elements are anchored to the sides. I have to turn my head to see it!

Subtitles for the hearing impaired. Like when a switch flicks it writes click on the screen.

I'm not impaired, but I like to have the sound down for stealth gaming.

Not a setting, but a "here's what you did last time/here's where you need to go now". If it's been a little while since I played the game, I shouldn't be lost trying to figure out where I am or where I'm going.

All fighting games (or anything that runs deterministically on all players' machines, like fighting games do) should always have a performance test requirement before you hop online. We figured this out over a decade ago, and plenty still don't do it, resulting in people with weak computers causing matches to appear laggy.

As a society, we should agree on which menu subtitles belong in. Is it language? Audio? Display? Game Settings? Sometimes I've seen games put them in multiple menus so that we always find them where we're looking for them.

I'm no expert on colorblind settings, but I tried playing Monaco with someone who's red/green colorblind, and that game was nearly impossible for him.

If your game runs online, I should be able to host the server myself, and launching a listen server from within the game ought to be present, too. It might be nice to surface port forward information there as well. LAN is nice; Direct IP connections are better. (Thanks, Larian, for including both!)

I get enough of this from my glasses, thanks.