Today's look at the emerging trend of games with minimal or nonexistent heads-up displays (HUDs) got us thinking about how games have traditionally laid out critical information about the player's status. We've come practically full circle from the days of the earliest video games, which were unable to display any status information or even keep track of basic statistics. In between, we've seen HUDs ranging from the realistic (Ace Combat 2) to the ridiculous (World of Warcraft) with everything in between. Recall for yourself by clicking through our gallery.
Games on the Magnavox Odyssey had no HUD or even an internal score-keeping mechanism. Points were tracked by taking notes in an included pad.
Games on the Magnavox Odyssey had no HUD or even an internal score-keeping mechanism. Points were tracked by taking notes in an included pad.
Computer Space The first coin-operated arcade game, Computer Space, had an extremely minimal HUD that consisted of just three large numbers. Note the labels for each number were permanently written on the side of the screen.
tari Age Games like Robot Tank on the Atari 2600 managed to include HUD elements like a basic radar despite hardware that did not make these features an easy task.
IGN The Legend of Zelda popularized the idea of a console adventure game that featured plenty of information, including current health, equipped items, and even a mini-map.
Wikia The Doom series packed information about weapons, ammo, health, and keys into a small space. It also showed players their only view of their character's face, which changed as he got hurt.
Board Game Geek Wing Commander's HUD was set up to look like the cockpit of a spaceship, and it helped reduce the size of the animated portion of the monitor.
kia Ace Combat 2 used the original PlayStation's power to show a HUD similar to what an actual fighter pilot might see.
quare Enix Forums MMOs like World of Warcraft are known for their potential to fill the HUD with information overload, as seen in this extreme example.
The Gaming Online King Kong (2005) was notable for including practically no on-screen meters or indicators of your character's current status.
eabag Fight Night: Round 3 is one of the few fighting games that doesn't feature a health meter. Instead, it relies on animation and visual cues to indicate damage.
Nigmabox The lack of screen-cluttering information in a game like Enslaved: Odyssey to the West lets you appreciate the sweeping vistas that much more.
Why are there still a few HUD elements left in Metro: Last Light? “We could have made Last Light totally HUDless, but we didn’t have quite enough time for that,” the designer said.
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