Games like Flower and Mirrors Edge have nothing on the screen aside from the game itself. There is no health bar, ammo counter or crosshair to obstruct the game. Flower was designed from the ground up to not necessarily need any of these things, but a game like Mirrors Edge has gun ammo and a health system it needs to convey. The way the player gets the health information they need is through a dimming of the screen whenever she takes damage. This effect has been used a lot in tactical shooters where you can die so easily a health bar is practically unnecessary. The ammo indication is essentially nonexistent; this was dealt with by never allowing a gun to have more than a few bursts worth of bullets.
These tricks work for Mirrors Edge because the game is not a shooter, but trying to overcome some of these issues with a full-blown shooter is another story. Far Cry 2 did a few interesting things to free up the screen, which also doubled as a “never break first person” effect that has been popular ever since Half Life. FC2 uses tricks like having the in game avatar pull out a map in game to look at rather than pausing the game to display the map. Even still, the game has a modest health bar and ammo counter. It is very minimal, but it is still there.
Dead Space manages to display all the conventional information a shooter normally would, while still having no HUD whatsoever. Its method is clever, but not terribly radical by any means. Instead of putting a health bar on the top part of the screen, the characters suit has a lit up spinal cord that shortens as he takes damage. The ammo counter is displayed on the gun and all the cutscenes and map are projected from the suit in game. This also has a neat horror ramification in that as a player you are never safe while checking your inventory, map or watching a scene.
One other thing worth mentioning, despite this being kind an old trick that doesn’t really change anything about traditional HUDs, games like Metroid Prime, Halo, and Half Life all try to make the player feel like they are wearing the power suit their characters occupy. Therefore the HUD displayed on the screen is also supposed to be displayed on the visor of the suit the character is wearing. This is usually conveyed early on by the things other characters say. Things like, “your suit is coming online” as various pieces of the HUD start to appear. This works quite well if the game is first person, but in third person games like Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter it seems a little out of place.
Taking the HUD out of games has had some spectacular results, but at the moment it will only work with specific genres and specific instances. Pasting the HUD onto the character like in Dead Space is really just a relocation of specific elements. Removing the HUD entirely out of a game like God of War seems like an insurmountable task. How will the player get the essential information about their health and magic without altering the core of the game in some major way? Perhaps the Afro Samurai approach of having various effects on the screen correspond to things like low health and a built up action meter. This could potentially work, but for something as varied as a large health bar I cannot see this working. God of War does remove the health bar from the screen when it is not needed however leaving nothing on the screen. Without reinventing a lot of genres a HUD will not be going anywhere anytime soon. Could you imagine playing a JRPG with turn-based combat without any onscreen menus? I cannot see that working without a drastic simplification of the game.
What do you guys think, do you like the lack of a HUD in games or do you prefer the more traditional styles? They both have pros and cons, but every time I see a gorgeous game like Mirrors Edge totally unobstructed, I can’t help but support the idea.
no hud or minimal!!!!
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