Let’s Get Started
It’s a debate as old as, well the last few generations of gaming. The basis of the argument seems to be around “signposting” in gaming, helping the player find their way by highlighting parts of the environment to make them easily identifiable. However it’s creeped in to debate in many areas, with many calling it “handholding”, and “not for real gamers”. In reality though, how wide spread is this issue, and does it really detract from the gaming experience?
If you think back to games of years gone by, it was very rare to see games with clear signposting of where to go, what to smash. However, the game that really brought about this debate recently, Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, uses yellow paint to clearly define where Cloud and the team can easily climb. We can also highlight another recent game which uses this technique to guide its players through, and that is the Resident Evil 4 remake. I’m going to dive in and give some reasons why I think this is below, and whether I think it impacts my personal gaming experience.
Going Retro
Let’s go back to some of my childhood favourite games, way back on to the Sega Megadrive. Sonic the Hedgehog, Kid Chameleon, Ristar, there’s one thing all these games have in common. There’s no Yellow Paint, yet there’s also two other things they all have in common, an easily defined path and a much simpler colour pallette. To me, the path was always clear in these games, even as we moved in to the later generations such as the Playstation, the path was mostly always clear as we had limited polygons to work with. Of course there are the exceptions to this rule, as with the afformentioned Final Fantasy 7, which didn’t contain the “Yellow Paint Virus” at the time. As I see this, it was largely due to the sparsity of polygons and things being easily identifiable within games at this point in time, which brings me on to modern gaming.
HD – Hard to Define
Here is where I think the main problem has come about. Our generation (Millenials & Gen Z) have seen an exponential growth in computing power within an extremely short time. We’ve gone from 8-bit graphics, to full blown close to realism. Environments are much more dense now, and in higher fidelity than ever. If we take the two above examples (RE4 Remake & FF7:Rebirth), they’re both visually impressive games. What does this mean to me? It means things are much easier to miss on your run through. I don’t know about you, but I don’t fancy spending the little time I have to play games searching the same area 50 times over to find a ladder because it’s hidden within a dense environment. This is where I think the biggest issue comes from for me personally. When you have grown up with games of a particular graphic power, to then come forward to more detailed environments, not everything is as clear as it can be. Do that make me less of a gamer?
The answer is simple, absolutely not. I play games to escape the daily grind, not to get further frustrated at not being able to find a chest that is hidden away. The idea of being more “hardcore” because you don’t like yellow paint and therefore you’re better needs to end. We’re all here to enjoy ourselves at the end of the day, and if a bit of yellow paint makes a game more inclusive and gets more people involved, then amazing! More games should have accessibility features to allow more people in.
Reddit Gives Comment
I headed over to reddit to give some others a chance to share their thoughts on the “Yellow Paint Virus” and this is what some of them had to say.
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byu/Names_Pending from discussion
ingaymers
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ingaymers
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ingaymers
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ingaymers
What do you think about the “Yellow Paint Virus” in gaming? Should it stay, or is it something that should be left behind? Let us know in the comments below!
