There was (is?) a requirement from Sony and Microsoft about how long a game can take to load as part of the game licensing process. One of the ways it is measured is by counting time from game boot to how quickly the game can react to user’s keypress. A “press start to continue” screen is the most simple thing you can load that passes this requirement. After that the game can do heavier operations such as loading save data, checking DLC or pulling latest messages from online server without having to worry too much about how long these operations take.
Games used to take a looong time to load before flash storage, so people would go get a coffee or something while loading. Before main menus, it would just drop you into the game while you were away, potentiality missing something. So they added the “press any key” pause to wait until you’re back.
Some games, like the Pathfinder games by Owlcat, use that initial input to determine if you are playing with mouse/keyboard or a gamepad. Depending on that, you get presented with a different UI in the main menu.
Another reason for such a screen could also be Xbox support. Nowadays it’s no longer necessary, because user-handling has been vastly improved with the GDK, but before the GDK was released a splash screen was the most user-friendly way to do user-handling in a single-player or online-multiplayer game on Xbox.
It’s there due to the technical certification requirements of XBox. All games are required to become interactive after a set number of seconds. When you have a complex game with long loading times, that might be difficult. The load start screen works around that, it’s simple enough to load quickly and it is interactive, i.e. “Press any key to continue”. It’s not useful, but it fulfills the certification requirements, all loading time that follows or might happen in the background while that screen is shown, doesn’t count.
It the same reason why you see so many games have the same “You’ll lose all your unsaved progress if you exit the game” screen, even in games that save so often to be a non-issue. It’s a certification requirement too. There is a whole bunch of stuff like this in games (and movies) that is not there because anybody wants it, but because some contract somewhere says it has to be there or you aren’t allowed to publish your game (see also the way names in movie posters never line up with the people on that poster).
PS: This has been around since at least the Xbox360s, don’t know what Sony requires or how Microsoft might have updated their requirements since then.
If you have a particularly slow PC, this screen would be good feedback that it hasn't crashed while booting the game. It also keeps the game consistent across platforms.
Yeah, they're not gonna do all that stuff for cert and then go "now let's remake our whole intro sequence to be more convenient!", I don't think devs typically have that much free time
The problem is that the majority of games do not tell you what you are actually losing or how to prevent it. Do you lose the last five seconds or do you go right back to the beginning of the game? How far away is the next save point? Games don’t tell you. You have to try to find out. There are a few smart games that will tell you “2min since your last save”, but they are pretty rare.
And of course in modern times that screen is rather unnecessary to begin with: Just save the damn game and let me continue were I left of. Xbox has QuickResume, but a lot of other platforms still have nothing like it.
IMO it’s a good feature and it’s a good thing it’s required. I remember the days when I would boot up a game and never be sure if my system crashed or not.
This requires the game to start giving you feedback before you start wondering if you should do a power cycle.
I mean, better loading feedback would be better than an arbitrary “interactive within 1 second” blanket rule, leading to this whole “press button to continue” workaround.
That’s like a generator needing an earth rod, and the engineer putting an earth rod into a plant pot. Sure, the earth rod is there, and sunk to regulated depth in dirt… but it’s a plant pot.
Just make an accurate loading screen with accurate feedback.
Imo that’s still not enough. Plenty of crashes or failures happen in a way where loading screen animations still keep playing. Having a cursor you can move around to validate that the process is still responsive is important feedback.
I also remember lots of games that did exactly what you are saying and there was no way to tell if it had hung during loading or not because you couldn’t check if it was accepting feedback.
Neither of these things can be true, because they’ve been around since long before Microsoft got into the console game. I’m pretty sure Atari 2600 games had that prompt. I know NES games did.
Games must enter an interactive state that accepts player input within 20 seconds after the initial start-up sequence. If an animation or cinematic shown during the start-up sequence runs longer than 20 seconds, it must be skippable using the START button.
What earlier games were doing was very similar, but was done for different reasons. Arcade games had an attract mode that would show gameplay or intro cutscenes in a loop when the device wasn’t in active use and had an “Insert Coin” flashing to attract players. The normal game would only started once coin got inserted into the arcade machine. Early console games had that attract mode too, just “insert coin” replaced with a “press start”.
What makes the modern start screen different is that there is often no cutscene to skip, no gameplay to watch, it’s just a pointless screen before you go to the main menu.
Yes, but you’d have to get there in 20sec first, which in case of very elaborate main menus, might not always be the case. The start screen provides a safety buffer so that you never fail at this certification criteria, as all the loading time after the start screen doesn’t count.
I have a similar issue with Diablo 4 at the moment. I’ve been playing on controller on pc. It’s two button presses to skip the intro logos, and a third press will exit the game before even getting to the main menu. The number of times I’ve accidentally closed the game is much too high.
OMG yes!!! D4 has been driving me crazy with this! Especially if I’m playing on Steam Deck, where load times are longer and I have to sit through it all again.
It has a host of other issues besides basic ui problems, my largest pet peeve at the moment is town layouts being completely different. Picking a random nightmare dungeon to run and then porting to town is immediately followed by me opening the map to see which cardinal direction the blacksmith/shop is in.
At some point in this millenium, it became ubiquitous in games to ask for a button press before switching to the main menu and it has become a pet peeve off mine.
Fake news. It was common in the previous millenium too
I knew I wasn’t going crazy! That press any key habit is so ingrained because it’s been around since I played my first game on a 286 PC, probably longer.
That’s the thing. I think it is a carry over from that. Back then a lot of games didn’t have a menu or anything, after you hit the button, you were just playing the game.
Like Mario 1 and 3 have just a simple 1 or 2 player select then you are in the game. Some single player games didn’t have anything, they just would go straight to the game after you hit start.
Now there isn’t really a need since nearly every game has a menu for loading saves, starting a new game and such. So they could go, but are just a vestigial part of gaming history at this point.
Lately, I’ve seen it for controller detection on PC games. Larian games like Baldur’s Gate 3 at least use it to change how they render the “Main” menu. I mean, the “Main” menu also changes if I plug in a controller so maybe it’s just an aesthetic thing held over from older video games.
Sometimes windows itself will only let games know there’s a controller plugged in after a button is pressed, but connecting a controller with the game already open can usually be detected just fine.
The only thing I don’t like about Deep Rock Galactic is having to watch both the publishers, and the studios logo sequences every time I start the game.
Go to steam, right click the game and browse local files.
Navigate to something like Deep Rock GalacticFSDContentMovies and delete (or move) them.
I’ve played other games with annoying intros. Normally, deleting the files means the don’t play on startup.
Where they are depends on the game. A quick Google found this solution.
You will probably have to re-delete them after an update, and after running a “verify local files”.
I’ve done this with EAC games without issues (incase you are worried)
I’m reminded of something that Binding of Isaac does that I wish more games would do: If you’re anywhere in the main menu (even drilled into it), if you just mash the B button/Esc key, it will keep backing out, up to and including exiting the game if you press it on the main menu. I hate games that make me click 3 times and say “are you sure??” when I just want to quit the dang program.
“REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE NEVER DO THAT” - FromSoft games
At least Elden Ring added a “Quit to Desktop” option. Any games before that… no you have to exit back to the title screen and be subjected to several seconds of extremely loud gothic chanting before you’re allowed to exit the game. God help you if your network connection is down because it will try to connect to the network for an entire minute before it fails and lets you exit.
Hey just an FYI “reeee” is “autistic screeching” i.e. it’s pretty ablelist/shitty to say. Not sure if you are aware, I only learned that pretty recently.
I’m sorry but what? I’m not OP but that is a record scratch. End of story. There is no ableism even in the vicinity of OPs statement without someone shoehorning it in there.
Sorry, wrong nomenclature. We are talking about the same subject (use of Reee) but I used the term OP in reference to the commenter you responded to. Sorry for the confusion.
My point was that calling out using Reee as ableism is uncalled for, in my opinion, because it is used to signify a record scratch (if this is not general usage and confined to my bubble of experience , I do apologize). Pointing out the possibility for offense when there clearly is no offense implied, and no one stating that they are offended, smacks of white knighting.
I feel like your comment came with good intentions, but to me it seems like unnecessary language policing. It’s a harmless onomatopoeia that could just as easily apply to the unrelenting tinnitus that rages inside of me.
I have never heard of “reeee” being a record scratching sound.
“Reeeee” being a joke about autistic screech, like a lot of old shitty jokes, originated on 4chan but made its way to reddit and twitch and basically any other site where pepe the frog got traction. It eventually got mainstream enough that shows like South Park and I think Family Guy referenced it as such. Search “reeeee” on google or youtube, it’s going to be almost all references to a joke about autism.
Also, correcting someone making offensive jokes isn’t white knighting. It is a good thing that more people should do. Just because someone from the targeted group isn’t vocal in the comments doesn’t mean harm isn’t done. It isn’t the sole responsibility of the people targeted in situations to vocally defend themselves. Informing others of harm they might be doing to others is a core part of building a community.
I worked the 1’s and 2’s for years and I never, ever heard someone say “reeeee” to refer to scratching. And in what world is the above a record scratch? It doesn’t even make sense in context.
pointing out the possibility for offense when there clearly is no offense implied, and no one stating that they are offended, smacks of white knighting. but to me it seems like unnecessary language policing.
You came rushing to the defense of another user. The white knighting is not happening on my end. And what’s worse, you’re defending something that can easily be verified as a bad thing to say. But sure, go ahead and die on the hill of defending “REEEEEEE.”
I made it clear that I am assuming it was not their intention. But language is not all about intention. If you know something is offensive, just don’t say it. It’s not that difficult.
That use of the term was clear. It had no other interpretation. But please keep lecturing me, someone who is on the spectrum (which is not a requirement for speaking up by the way), about how I am White Knighting over a shitty 4chan meme making fun of autistic people.
Your ignorance of a term does not suddenly make it innocuous. Especially not when someone is standing here telling you exactly what it means and you could easily verify it with a cursory Google search because it’s that prominent and known now. But no, instead of trying to understand this you chose to lecture people on what they can and can’t be upset about. I’m sorry we didn’t meet your arbitrary bar.
Thank you for mentioning this. I try/want to but it's so tiring dealing with the crap people throw at me just because they can't stand to ever think about the crap they spew.
Here's a cupcake to help make up for you getting jumped on instead :3 🫴🧁
The best thing a game has ever done with this is ask on first startup if it should go to the main menu or just load your last save on every startup after this one.
I honestly just don’t get the point of these screens.
It lets the game see which controller or input method you are using. This screen was (and maybe still is? I’m not sure.) a requirement for certification on consoles going back to the Xbox 360, when wireless controllers became ubiquitous.
Having to press a single button at the start of a game is a pretty minor complaint.
Personally, I think if I cant just use both at the same time it’s kind of shit. Only a handful of games actually work like that, and it’s insane. I shouldn’t have to go into the settings and switch control types. I should just be able to use them if they’re plugged in, like GTA or BG3.
Wouldn’t that be just as applicable from the interaction with the main menu? When the player selects a menu entry (eg Start, Load, Options), that tells the game what you’re using.
Plenty of games are able to determine what you’re using without having such a screen. The “press any key to continue” screen has been a thing my entire life (born in 85), and it has never been necessary for anything other than simulating the “insert coin” screen for arcade games.
BG3 can use both at the same time, and yet it still has two of these screens. If you’re playing with a controller, it will say press any key then you press a button and it changes to “press A to continue” before you actually get to the main menu.
And it’s even dumber because you can see the game detects your controller before the first logo screen ends when the cursor is auto hidden.
I dug up my old 3DS in the past weeks, installed some custom firmware to play my backups of DS/3DS/GBA games. A bit of Zelda Minish Cap, some Metroid Fusion… But mostly I find myself playing various Pokemon ROM hacks lol.
I’ve been getting into “Pokemon Elite Redux”, which is a difficulty/challenge game centered around each Pokemon having up to 4 abilities at the same time in battle. And there’s tons of new abilities that make each pokemon uniquely useful. It’s certainly challenging, even on the lowest difficulty. It’s happened to me several times that I have to get together a whole new team to beat a single trainer. But, there’s zero grinding involved, and there’s SO many quality-of-life changes that it’s super easy to get a whole new team squared up in just a few minutes. That makes it really easy to jump in for a few minutes when I can, without feeling like I’m wasting my time
Dude. It’s called a pet peeve. They’re allowed, and even people who have very stressful lives have them. It’s definitely better than shit-talking random people on the internet - just skip the thread if you don’t care about it.
I’d say that they’re more of an issue for people under a lot of stress. It just adds an extra stress point. In fact if OP was not stressed, they probably wouldn’t mind it enough to post a rant about it.
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