Currently I’m playing Witcher 3 - Blood and Wine and I have all the HUD options off except for life bar, which luckily hides itself if health is at max. It fully shows again once health goes below max, I wish I could change that too so that it really only appears when I get hit.
Or have a dedicated button to make the HUD appear/dissappear. Dynamic HUDs or options to let you enable/disable HUD elements are in my opinion great. For those that don’t mind a busy HUD (or don’t have plasma or OLED) they can enable it, those with OLED or plasma will greatly appreciate these options. I know I do, because I just don’t trust that bright red health bar at all with my C9. Overly cautious? Maybe, but still, I want to have as little risk as possible with this amazing TV.
But that’s only one thing, how about how it greatly improves immersion? No static icons distracting you from the amazing lands you roam through, the full screen is just you and the game world and everything in it. Dead Space nailed it years ago, the HUD was on the suit of Isaac, genius. And when stuck, one press to have a waypoint shown on the ground.
It’s great CD Projekt RED thought of these things, but man I wish they had done it that I can just enable the HUD with one press of the button. I heard Horizon ZD has that, I wouldn’t know because I don’t have a PS4, but that is awesome.
Moving forward I hope we will see many more games with these options. I really hope Obsidian puts that in Avowed and Playground with Fable. There are also games that let you lower opacity of HUD elements, which is also a good option.
Personally, I would like to see the HUD have on/off options for everything. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey had 20 different options and I turned off 4 of them because im the opposite, I want to see my health, stamina, weapons, ammo, etc. on the screen. Not a fan of it appearing/disappearing. I either want it to be static or off completely.
The stuff I turn off are the things that have to do with combat like enemy detection meter, grenade detector when an enemy throws a grenade, blood splatter on the screen, screen getting dark on the edges/corners when crouched or in foliage (this was in Sekiro and hated it) as well as camera shake, head bob and motion blur.
I played The Witcher III with pretty much everything ON and never had an issue. I know people will say immersion and for some I guess that’s true but even with a packed HUD, I have never had an issue with getting immersed into the game. If im NOT getting immersed, it’s just the game itself. LOL.
Seconded 1000000% lol Dynamic full custom HUD is top priority for me to have a great UX. Let me customize my interface. Also interface coherency and design is important for me.
I play The Witcher without anything on screen too. I hate cluttered screens or full of assistances or useless info.
