Tanking with shields (force/kinetic shields in sci-fi games, not physical shields)

I liked when games let you face-tank damage with your shield (like in Mass Effect, before Andromeda where they made shields weak af and even removed shield gating) and not having to care for healing (unless you lose all your shields)

I don't know if it's due to the souls-like trend, but it feels like game developers need to make punitive games nowadays

I want to see puzzles that are implemented using the physics engine. And I don't mean "toss the axe in the proper arc to trigger the gate" physics. I mean "stack the bricks on one end of the seesaw to balance it long enough to make the jump to the next platform". Or "use the blue barrels' buoyancy to raise the platform out of the water".

Cross game integration. I was recently playing Last Command B-Side, and in a certain part, the game picked stages themed around the games I have installed and it blew me away.

A grapple hook

Arcade racers that aren't just... Bad.

Burnout Revenge was a beloved game of my childhood. You had bonuses from wrecking your foes, got bonuses for creating wrecks, and for near death experiences. And there was an awesome mode where you would launch your car into a scene to cause as much damage as possible.

Midnight Club 2 where you could customize your cars and race them on fun tracks, but could also just beep around the open world.

Maybe it's nostalgia, but I would love a fun racing game that doesn't have a GTA attached to it.

The vehicle damage modelling from GTA 4. The fact that it hasn't been surpassed is tremendously disappointing to me.

Trade Runs from silkroad online.

Destructible buildings like in Red Faction: Guerilla.

I really wished there are more games that implement something like the gambit system from FF12. My dream game is some monster / pet collecting and battling game plus the gambit system from FF12. now if only n*ntendo wouldn’t be such an @ss…

Mechanics from the Mercenaries series. Destructible buildings, getting weapons and vehicles dropped to you anywhere at any time. Being able to ally with different factions. Oh, and the ability to call in airstrikes. Bunker busters, cluster bombs, artillery barrages, etc. Just Cause and Metal Gear Solid V are the closest things to that. But they just aren't the same.

And the ability to just fly like Superman. I'd like that in more games.

I was recently discussing Farcry 2 with some friends and how cool the fire spread system was - And how it essentially was never used again after that title.

In case you didn't know, Zelda Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom have a very similar fire spread system.

I wanna see games going wide again. Get me something like Sonic Adventure 2 Battle again where we got racing, going fast, a creature battler/care system, multiplayer. I miss when games were full of a wide variety of shit.

A mechanic to permanently gain new attacks and/or abilities by mastering equipment. I haven't seen that many games have this mechanic and it's mostly been adult games for some reason. I think Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep is the only non-adult game I've seen to have this mechanic.

I just remembered another one. The Gambits system from Final Fantasy 12. I've always liked this mechanic because it almost completely automates battles, allowing you to focus more on exploration and treasure hunting. I have only seen two games do this and, once again, FF12 is the only non-adult game I've seen with this type of mechanic.

The control scheme in Total Annihilation where you can que up lots of commands for units has largely been ignored by RTS game makers except in Supreme Commander and Spring/Recoil engine games such as Beyond All Reason and Zero-K. I think it is a perfect example of why the RTS genre in many respects died after hyperfocusing on making Starcraft-likes resulting in the stagnation of innovation in a genre that progressively catered more and more only to a very narrow range of brains/players who enjoyed simplistic explicit rock-paper-scissors unit relationships and endless fiddly micro.