Others have mentioned RDR2 and the upgrade systems in Just Cause. They're both right and symptomatic of the larger problems. I think Ubisoft games are the wors

Others have mentioned RDR2 and the upgrade systems in Just Cause. They're both right and symptomatic of the larger problems. I think Ubisoft games are the worst at this. Tons of experimental or different game elements that don't contribute to the core game. You can play chess or other board games in the middle of Assassin's Creed III. It does nothing. They had this whole city-building subgame that added nothing. They had an inchoate pirate game in there that was actually engaging enough that they made an entire sequel centered on it, but it added nothing to the actual ACIII game itself. I can see evidence of all sort of "wouldn't it be cool if. . ." features that really don't need to be there and I can't help but think that if PMs actually had to think through what they're trying to do with their game they wouldn't do this as much. Bioware actually admitted to this after Mass Effect 3, claiming that they had never managed with so many resources at hand before and they couldn't really resist the impulse to bite off more than they can chew. This led to them adding in a bunch of extraneous side-quests and stuff that they didn't really get a chance to put enough time in to do it justice or make it worth anyone's while.