Why Does This Village Have So Many Yellow Crates? 

You mention in the video that this sort of signposting is unwanted because it makes the visuals less realistic but for me this doesn't cover the entire issue. When it's so obvious it feels like the developer backseating me and turns the game from an exciting adventure to a pure mechanical problem. It would be like replacing the zombies with their hitboxes. It would give the player more accurate and readable information, but would destroy the atmosphere. Most people would say that this last sentence is pure hyperbole, but it's just how these sort of yellow paints make me feel ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . Whether it be boxes in RE4R or climbable spots in Horizon and other AAA games. And I know that it is absolutely possible to make games with much more natural signposting, whether it be through level design, in-universe explanation of mechanics and HUDs. (For example Half-Life 2, Prey 2017, Thief, Morrowind). Now I realize that these solutions don't quite work with modern realistic art styles and they require a specific type of game. Plus when you're remaking something you're going to have more constraints. I guess for now this is the best we've got, even if I find it extremely inelegant.

Just like this example here @5:50, and much like the shown Sekiro example.. passing sweeping a place with the camera could mark things with a prompt white circle, as if they caught Leon's attention. Leon sees what we see, but we are not the same person (not really), so interacting with him.. and Leon helping us in a way might even improve our relationship with him. This functionality can be found in games like "Haunting Ground", where Fiona alludes to anything that catches her eye. And while yes, these things are necessary.. people can complain but they are not solving the problem. Go play "Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order" for a bit and get frustrated several times within the first 10 minutes of gameplay because of a lack of this kind of thing.

Here's an idea, although I'm not sure if its a good one: Make the barrels/boxes visibly broken (just a little bit) and make the windows visibly cracked to indicate they are breakable.

The yellow signposting was far more easier to buy into in the previous remakes because they took place in modern day cities whereas RE4 takes place in an isolated village so it's more jarring to some. It's worth mentioning that RE2 remake, which was more exploration focused, didn't have any yellow crates whereas RE3 and 4 remakes which are action oriented have more obvious way to guide players.

To me I always figured it would just save time during exploration. I'm the type of player who inspects literally everything, and in OG RE4 I would sometimes double or triple check to see whether random wooden boxes or other environmental objects could be broken or used. With a clearer indicator, it's a lot easier to tell which objects in the environment you should or shouldn't pay attention to. The way I play games is honestly exhausting and needlessly thorough, which is why my first playthrough of RE1 remake took me 16 hours.

My only fear is that we may see these yellow marks ( God of War) to guide player exploration. I swear I saw one of those in one of the reviews

If yellow boxes is the only common thing people complain about RE4 Remake, you know it’s a damn well-made game. People will absolutely nitpick the dumbest stuff to complain about these days. Why not complain about villager dropping ammo? When people have to scavenge every boxes and crates in RDR2, they complain about it being tedious. it’s a video game played with mouse and keyboard (controller) in the end.

🟨 yellow crates?

Personally would of preferred something like coloured handprints to suggest the box/barrel has been interacted with at some point. Maybe cracked window pains to show they can be jumped through. Would be more subtle but I get why they're how they are.

Why not the OG resident evil of it just shining every now and then?

I like the idea that some random non-infected villager started to paint points of interest in yellow to help survivors.

I honestly really, really enjoy this. It saves time not needlessly searching every single corner and centimeter of the game, which becomes annoying. It also doesn't really feel out of place since the original RE4 was a silly game, and this one seems to have mostly that same time. Capcom has been knocking it our of the park recently, and I'd be curious to see if the remake might replace the original in any capacity for people, just like RE1 Remake did for 1.

I’ve heard several devs(not from this game, just in general) say that games really do have to be idiot-proofed sometimes, especially AAA mainstream games. They probably tried a few different things and testers just couldn’t pick up the memos

People want realism. When realism is given. People complain it's too real and hard to know what to do. People don't want to be directed. But when directions are shown, people comlpain about being directed. It's quite hard really xD

I feel like at first it might look weird but after a wile you wouldent even notice and it just becomes a natural part of the world

I can see these people having random yellow painted windows/barrels/boxes all around their village and stuff. I live in a small place away from everything and when you go further up the road from me peoples buildings and barns and whatnot have been scraped together from scrap wood that has actually been painted random colors and stuff. You have to think that the villagers here don’t really have as many resources as they may need. this is a small village that doesn’t really have shops or any way to buy what they need so I’d imagine they reuse resources for whatever they need them for. (One building falls and another gets put up with the salvageable lumber.)

I just think it's funny to see people complaining about the crates as a change when we have thick multicolored beams of light coming off of corpses in the original.

All they'd need is the interact icon prompt above the boxes and objects you can interact with.

there is mod on nexus that removes all yellow paint from the demo.

I think a better look would be to have dirty/bloody smudges and handprints all over crates and barrels. Would fit in more while catching your eye.

Considering how unabashedly gamey the series has traditionally been, I just don't see this as an issue. I *might* understand this complaint more in something that values realism more, but that is clearly not so in a game that lets you parry a chainsaw with a knife.

fantastic video, you basically summed up what i personally had to say about it, except one thing: i think that at this point the yellow markings have become sort of a calling card for the RE engine era of RE the same way the glints of light were in pre RE4 resident evil.

8:25 I don't agree with this argument. If it's a toggle option, it's up to the player to decide. The same reason why some people prefer to play i.e. without UI or Cross hairs. Removing QoL or indicator simply means you as a player needs to invest more attention to scanning the environment -> less attention on enemies -> more like to waste a shot. It's a simple attention-tax which the player needs to pay. The question IF this is fun to the player, is up to the player. Pretty much everything can be a difficult-option, and is almost always preferable to simply pumping up health and damage of enemies.

This reminds me of that story of Bulletstorm where they had to change the colors of the explosive barrels to red because playtesters would not shoot em

I don't like the yellow signs, but i don't know how to solve this better. It looks silly and makes me ask the question who painted all these crates and windows? Maybe the breakable stuff could have been full of cracks and look like it's gonna fall apart any second, contrasting not interactable more solid looking crates. But maybe there are problems with that approach too, that i don't see and i'm sure Capcom has tried around with this and ended up with the yellow markings for a reason.

Great video my friend. This was definitely worth discussing with the new resident evil coming and this becoming the norm

I think Underthemayo will complain about this. He's biased asf.

Thank you very much for your explanation! Fantastic job, I was looking exactly for this kind of video to help me understand those markings.

I've got a mod that removes the yellow paint from the barrels, also got a mod that fixes the aiming issues

Why is there a shiny object in old Resident Evil games? Keep the same energy.

Judging from what I've seen, the yellow tape and paint doesn't stop at just crates and barrels. It's painted on interactive objects and even objects that are colour coded already like red explosive barrels. Even wire explosive traps are taped with yellow, which kind of ruins the point of a hidden trap. It comes off as very hand holdy and very unfaithful on people who play this game.

4:40 ily bro; this cracked me up 🍻

One of the Player Direction examples by making things stand out would be Mirror's Edge. The use of Red for things that you can interact with allowed them to put 'set clutter' around to make the world look realistic and still give you stuff that you can interact with to jump on or climb over or the like.

I'd be down for crates to still have some sort of discoloured or saturated tint of brown/grey, but I'm almost certain they tried this is playtesting and it must not have worked.

Very nuanced take on the matter and very natural approche, just talking about something you enjoy. I never stopped to question the yellow paint, main brain is always thinking in a ps2 manner. I always favored function and vibe above realism. It became second nature to just see the function of things rather than their form. Subbed a few weeks ago, great analysis. And you avoid the trapping of a few reviewers on the platform who waste so much time talking about things that are so minor and not core to the experience. Cheers.

As someone with visual impairment issues (especially with colour) these things are a bloody godsend. When games like these with realistic graphics become a mix of mud and sludge to me after five minutes having something bright standing out to indicate that 'this is breakable' or 'this is interactive' makes the game playable! If they're refusing to put colourblind modes in games with these graphics you need to put a compromise in somewhere! People who get upset over these have no idea what it's like playing games with visual limitations. 🤷 sometimes something is done as a design decision in order to get more people to play the game. Less players means less sales and less motivation to make more games. If they want to get rid of these signposts in games then they NEED TO MAKE VISUAL OPTIONS FOR PLAYERS. Many games just avoid make anything accessible behind signposting which can be as equally frustrating when you can't tweek the signposting to make it more obvious or not. Edit: after reading some comments it's pretty obvious some people don't even consider that the signposting isn't always directed at them but have to be incredible jerks about it.🤦🤷 accessibly in not just for casuals you know! Alot of people (blokes especially) are colour blind or have some type of visual imparement and love to play these types of games but the more everything is muted colours the more difficult it is to play. Not every decision in a game is going to be directed at people without these problems. (The same way characters voicing something aloud, while annoying to some it's immensely useful to people who rely on audio cues to play games. Incorporating disability features into game play without having to go through menus to find them is bloody good game design and should be praised.)

My solution is to make it bright and arcade-y as possible. Screw realism, it's ruining video games. The OG RE4 had it right!

The thing that annoys me about the dialogue is that people who hate the yellow paint/tape markers talk about the game ruining their immersion because it's not real. And sure, fair enough. Let's say we just do what Resident Evil classic did and have items sparkle. I don't see how you can suspend your disbelief enough for an INK RIBBON to sparkle but yellow paint is a bridge too far. Or opening your inventory - which freezes everything - in the middle of combat to heal. THAT'S more realistic to you? Even RE 4 classic had indicators which you may not have actively noticed but were all very easy ways to signal to the player that "this is a crate you can smash" or "this is an item you can pick up". There was a consistency among items themselves which served as indicators. Items glowed white on the ground after you killed enemies. Breakable crates always had a very clear and identifiable design to them. Herbs were colored in a way to stand out against the environment. If anything, the yellow paint is a much better indicator because of the kind of shorthand that it serves and how it's been deployed within the game. To me, the yellow paint on crates and barrels absolutely stands out but aesthetically, it fits the look of the game better. Also, RE Remake DOES use some of those same indicators. Handgun ammo is VERY bright red. You can rummage through the same table model throughout the game. Herbs stick out of the background like a sore thumb. Worse - the game features button prompts all over the place. The whole game itself sits in the uncanny valley which is why this whole debate about yellow paint on crates is weird to me. Because I don't hear about complaints about other indicators. It's the yellow paint on crates that has become a lightning rod for the debate. You're playing a game where a man who's being controlled by a parasite can have his head blown off and attack you with the worm inside his body but the yellow paint is "immersion breaking". But anyway, I think the problem comes down to the uncanny valley. I don't think it's that the yellow paint sticks out too much. I think it's that the objects it's on and the way that it looks actually fit too close to the world of Resident Evil that you have to adjust yourself to seeing them in-game. They look like they belong in the environment but you have to intellectualize them as being a breakable as opposed to being a part of the environment whereas with other items, you don't have as much of that mental process. It creates this sense of cognitive dissonance that other items in game don't have that issue with and I think that's where the issue is coming from. Conveyance is absolutely critical and I think that while people are entitled to play a game how they want, the discussion isn't leading us to better solutions to the issue. Simply removing the method of conveyance it doesn't solve the problem - which is that you want an easily identifiable marker for pick ups. Personally I think you could get around the issue by having the design of the barrel be standardized in a way that manages to stand out a lot more from the environment. Make them look less like they belong there. Give them a consistent shape to signify that they are breakables. Maybe we don't need 6 different models of breakables. Just have one and use it throughout the game.

I would like to see you doing an analysis of this game

Honestly, if someone needs yellow paint splattered all over a barrel (something that in the history of games has been a VERY commonly used item to break and get loot from nonetheless) to tell them they can break it... Then that's on them at that point. Not everything needs to be hand fed to us and sometimes it makes me miss back when more games treated us as people capable of thinking for ourselves and using basic problem solving skills ect.

Excellent work my friend.

Aesir do you plan on any long form videos in the future on specific games?

I swear to God I played the demo a million times and couldn't believe there was people online complaining about boxes BOXES dear Lord, i swear some of these people are actively searching something to complain about instead of just playing the games and enjoy themselves and have a good time, weird af

The solution is simple. Just give players the options to toggle on/off all UI/HUD elements or even textures like yellow tape. Sometimes you just want to replay a game without all that stuff just for the immersive thrill. Things being clearly sign posted or highlighted is never a problem for people who have already played through the game and know what and how these objects/areas interact.

I would just have multiple colors and 10 or so different designs of the paint on the crate.

Probably one of the most interesting videos on RE4R so far. Instead of spending time talking about how Ashley feels right about her role in the original script and gameplay (a traumatized girl you have to care about and your main mission), you question why RE4R goes with certain formulas in its design. In RE2R they tested different cameras through development phase: fixed cameras, 3rd person and 1st person aiming... the dev team have certainly tested how other possibilities worked here as well, in every element of the game. I believe yellow marks will be a characteristic element of the title and in itself, in its physicality within the credibility of the scenario, they feel appropriate given the setting and combat.

I wonder how many people skimmed past your points before commenting. There’s a lot of good food for thought in this video, and I hate seeing this kind of work fall on deaf ears. Anyway, good stuff as always, Aesir.

Thanks for the vid

The general Majority of gamers are just dumb I guess , why capcom feel the need to copy Sony games like GOW and TLOU is beyond me. how hard is it to observe your environment and detect the barrels ? the original RE4 didn't have it

you know, I get all that. It still looks lame as fuck.

what a great insight in GameDev, nice video.

I honestly think the old system of having a slight glow on objects is less immersion breaking. Yes it's signifying you're in a game, but unlike the yellow which visually clashes and has weird implications (who is painting stuff yellow? why?) the objects are still just normal objects, and the glow is simply an external force showing you interactibles. Also fuck people complaining about immersion. Just play the damn game and enjoy it. Immersion is mostly in the eye of the player, and real immersion breakers are things like crashes and bugs and the like, not game mechanics put in to help the player. The yellow tape is an attempt to pander to immersion obsessed people that ultimately fails because they will never be happy, and in the crossfire everyone else has to deal with this ugly aesthetic choice that imo is strictly inferior to the old glow.

It helps for people who are visually impaired. Also I don't see it as that big of deal personally. Kind of a nitpick I would say.

Yeaaaa, a lot of people definitely didn’t watch this video and just rushed to the comments to start arguments. That sucks, good video though

Really not a fan of how the new game makes Leon's movement drop to a placid crawl if you're within 10 feet of doctor chainsaw man. That's such artificial terror.

Noice thumbnail

Honestly, I couldn't care less about the yellow stuff

Because there are too many dumb beta testers that need it,they don't find the barrels and boxes if there is no paint😑🤣

I mean, here is an obvious idea. Stop placing meaningless objects in the game world. Make the environment fully interactive and destructible. At the least, all clutter. Then use your code to distribute items as necessary. If every box in the game can break, then every box can provide loot. So if you don't need loot it is empty. And if you do, it drops a grenade. Or bullets. RE4 distributes loot this way already. So apply it to every box, and make them all breakable.

For me it's not that the yellow looks bad, I think it fits the service fine it's that it's hastily splattered ALL over barrels and even windows, for some reason. It's just really crude.

As a severe color blind, I absolutely love this yellow

Wouldn’t want to ruin your channels momentum or algorithm? But more of this would be 👌

I like yellow

Wait this actually bothers people? Its pretty much the same with lighter colored boxes/barrels in the OG that show which ones are breakable/interactable.

I loved how every barrel/crate in the game could be broken in the original, kinda lame that only the ones they want you to break can break

They could have removed the yellow entirely and the game would have been fine. Original re4 set it up nicely, at the start of the game if you go to the side of the house and inspect the small crate there it brings up a message saying something or other and that It could be broken with a knife. So after that point, or if you just figure it out yourself, you know that anytime you see that specific model, and actually that specific wood texture, that its likely breakable. And on other things, like windows, they should all be breakable. Its 2023 we have the technology, not all need to serve a purpose or be somewhere that you can jump out of, but windows are inherently a breakable object. Ladders are even painted which is ridiculous, we know what a ladder is, there is no alternative usage for a ladder but to interact with it and climb. If they feel the need to put a ladder in the game that isn't usable for decoration purposes, block it off or have it be broken in some way. As for your Sekiro analogy, the icon for the grapple points is a UI element and is judged differently. I know the UI isn't actually in the game world, I know its a necessary human interface layer between me and the game world, so it goes into the suspension of disbelief void. A similar small UI icon that showed up when near a box in RE4 would have looked much better than the paint that has no business being there. Whats happening is too much emphasis is being placed on the lowest common denominator during playtesting and market research, and the suits are scared to death of losing a single player. But that line of thinking is a race to the bottom, and I swear its making people dumber in the long run. Its ok to be uncomfortable sometimes, or to be lost, or to make a false judgement and whack a barrel that doesnt break. Its like driving freely vs having your face glued to the GPS screen the whole time. Old games werent some perfectly intuitive paradise, we all used to try to interact with things that didnt allow that, make jumps that lead to a death, and go down paths that werent the right way. And thats fine, thats just life. And on a side tangent about a similar issue with white painted ledges because it is a near and dear to me issue having grown up on the Tomb Raider classics. Its an issue of regressive game design, where the world is no longer made up of gameplay blocks and is instead a more scripted faked disney ride through a visual attraction. In the old TR games they established rules about the world and the game was built with blocks that adhere to those rules. Any ledge thats flat up to a certain gradient could be grabbed, didnt matter if the ledge was relevant to progress or not. So now we have games where characters have abilities, but cant apply them logically to the world. You can ONLY grab that ledge thats painted white, even though that non painted ledge over there looks just as good to hold onto. If this is all the product of chasing better graphics, then I want to go back.

Personally I’ve grown accustomed to yellow markers (tape, paint etc) denoting interactability in Resident Evil games. I would probably be thrown off if it changed now lol

All of this is gonna look really silly when there's an NPC obsessed with running around and spreading yellow paint on everything 😏

It sounds to me as though you've been reading books rather than experiencing feedback. You certainly have grown to enjoy lecturing your audience!

The destruction of a classic.

The people who complained about this do not understand game design. The amount of times I've seen people who play games for a living refuse to look up is baffling. I can only imagine how a casual player navigates games. I've also seen plenty of examples of a game telling the player a mechanic and the person proceeding to ignore it the entire playthrough. If something is not directly in front of them or explicitly stated or shown multiple times it is not considered by most people.

Are we allowed to comment?

They killed to wolf. 0 out of 10

This reminds me of someone who believed that the yellow paint which denotes you can climb in God of War 2018 and Ragnarok were diegetic. That someone had wandered the world painting climbable walls. No. it's just a gameplay thing. Geez.

I'm personally more pissed of holding down the button for action to start. For example you need to hold the button to start moving the shelf unit. Why not make the shelf pushing when you are holding the button??? Another to craft a potion you need to select a herb then pick craft then pick the one you want to craft then hold the button to fill a bar then the potion appears. This is stupid. They should have added after you hold the button to fill the bar then you need to confirm that you want to craft a potion. Second thing that they added pissed me of is crafting. It's just stops that combat so that you can make few bullets that is stupid just give me bullets. And no crafting will not encourage exploration. Why because I would have explored the are for ammo now I have to explore the area for crafting materials to make ammo.

I like yellow :)

im playing a video game

I have no interest in playing the remake any time soon, but if you had any doubts that the average player is a complete idiot, needing to splash so many objects in bright yellow painted X's should remove any doubt. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt that they tested methods more cohesive with the environments that players just weren't able to figure out during play testing - and they just said forget it we gotta do something.

algorithm

Total disagree. How, oh how did we ever rub two braincells together to figure out that the crates the game told us are breakable... are breakable? I mean, it's impossible to figure out that this model of crate/barrel can be broken! How did we do this in the past? Furthermore, how will the players know that they can shoot enemies if the enemies aren't splatters with yellow paint? Ah, but photorealism requires this! After all, we cluttered everything as hard as possible in an endless pursuit of realism over such outdated concept as fun. Can't treat the player like a thinking individual, photorealism is more important, gotta solve the problem of everything being cluttered to death by splattering bright yellow paint on everything breakable. I mean, otherwise it would look bad and out of place. Unlike bright yellow paint being splattered everywhere.

Nobody seems to care enough about the excessive yellow paint to make capcom have an option to turn it off for players that aren't picking up a controller for the first time, and bizarrely people like you are defending it for some reason- despite it being unnecessary and ugly. So I guess we'll just mod it out.

They're barrels and boxes. Let gamers figure out what's breakable and interactable.

The yellow definitely isn't a problem. I'd rather focus on the action than 'which of these barrels and objects are worth my time?' I'm on PC anyways, so if I like, I'll just mod it out when I feel like it.

Oh boy, here we go already with people ready to cry, whine, complain, and be an utter child over any small thing with RE4Remake.

It's so stupid and ruins all immersion. It takes away the whole point of exploration and PAYING ATTENTION to the game you're playing.

Are you yugopnik

The comments on here show why devs shouldn't listen to feedback from regular players most of the time. Too many people think because they grew up with video games think they can come up with good solutions to problems. No. There are so many layers to this that suggestions from average joes and janes arent gonna cut it.

y'all pick the dumbest things to complain about you will see this and forget all about it in the next 5 minutes there's a documentary on postal 2/half life 2 where the developers say players wont look up unless being told to 2023 we all need to stop the armchair game dev behavior; it brings nothing but elitism to the conversation Bulletstorm had green exploding barrels for its entire lifespan until playtesting revealed that players refused to shoot non red barrels

Could be? It is and I just saw how jarring it is from the video. Who thought that was a good idea? If the player isn't naturally intuitive, then they aren't playing to explore. There is always a better solution. Too many games have found seemless ways to draw players attention to important objects or paths without making it glaringly obvious or gamify it. Western devs don't trust gamers because they are catering to a larger, casual audience. They are not used to games and they assume they will get lost. AAA games are primarily made for them, not for gamers. Gamers can enjoy it too, but they have to deal with the hand-holding meant for the casual consumer. I'll keep repeating the fact that people's attention span and intelligence is in the decline from studies shown and how education is plummeting. It was mentioned once I recall when attention spans came up talking games, so this is being taken into account to. Games are dumbing down to fit the audience in the global scope (one coat fits all). Niche games, indies don't so much.