Trendsetters: 7 Games Responsible For The Common Gameplay Mechanics We Have Today

6) Collecting Things

First seen in: Pac-Man – Arcade (1980)

At a time when video games were all about space-based shooters, Pac-Man effectively created its own new genre. Quite what you’d call that genre I have no idea, but a big part of it was running around swallowing collectables. In this instance, the vast majority of those collectables were paramount to completing a level, but some – like the bits of fruit – weren’t. Did players need them to complete a level? No. Did players need them to attain the new highest score at the top of the arcade cabinet, thus rendering them utterly bad-ass? Good grief, yes. And so it was born.

And then came Sonic‘s gold rings, Banjo-Kazooie‘s puzzle pieces, and Alan Wake‘s *long, drawn out sigh* Energizer ® batteries. In truth, collectibles have now become something of a divisive filler in modern gaming, used by the developer to either make sure the player has fully scoured and appreciated their level design, or simply to pad out the games playtime.

Assassin’s Creed is generally the worst offender, and has you spending exactly 1 billion hours after the game’s main story is finished trawling the map for collectible freakin’ bird feathers, for reasons I absolutely gave up caring about. But, some people just gotta have ’em, and like it or not, collectible trinkets are here to stay.