I have made no secret of the fact that I have been burned out on triple-A games lately. They are increasingly starting to look the same, sequels barely iterate on tried-and-tested formulas, and others iterate so much that they lose the spirit fans loved in the first place. They are too big, too disrespectful of my time, and too eager to nickel and dime me. But you know what I have not complained about enough? Menus. God, I am tired of menu design in triple-A games. I am tired of endless scrolling just to do the simplest things, especially in Avowed. There has to be a better way.

I understand why menus become tedious and complex. Games get more complicated year on year as developers try to cram as many cool mechanics as humanly possible into the experience, and all that information has to be represented somehow. As they say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Using the menu format that everyone is already used to gives players one less thing to adjust to and relieves designers of the duty of finding a better way. There is nothing worse than an otherwise great game being bogged down by a menu system that avoids approachability at every turn. But why does a simple loadout change feel like filing taxes?

I play menu games - RPGs and such - so when I talk about bloated menu systems, I am mostly referring to RPGs. When you imagine an RPG menu, what do you picture? There is probably a journal tab with multiple subsections separating main quests, side quests, and maybe collectibles. There is an inventory tab with subsections for each item type. There is a map, or more likely several maps, like a world map, a city map, and maybe even maps for smaller areas like specific buildings. Then there is a tab to customise your character's loadout, one to customise their abilities, and maybe a second for skill point allocation. If you have multiple characters in your party, you will probably have subsections for each of them too. Avowed is a game reminiscent of old-school RPGs, and therefore has an appropriately old-school menu system. It is driving me nuts.

Why Menus Feel Like Filing Cabinets

It is not just Avowed. I cannot help but think of Metaphor: ReFantazio, which had absolutely gorgeous menus that made me want to cry. Yet navigating between the many different menu options just to equip a different Archetype or change my loadout left me banging my head against the table. It should not be this hard to do something so simple. And yet.

I am not entirely sure why this is the menu format we have defaulted to as an industry, especially when it is so unwieldy on controllers. It is easy to open specific menus with hotkeys when playing with a mouse and keyboard, but console players have to struggle with trigger and shoulder buttons, scrolling through huge lists of items with the joystick or D-pad, fighting the UI at every turn. I constantly move to the wrong menu when I am trying to do something simple because menu navigation is so unintuitive on a controller. Is that my fault? Maybe partly. But the problem extends past Avowed and past me.

What Does a Good Menu Look Like?

Menus are not something I think about unless they are annoying me - that is, after all, the hallmark of good design. If you notice something right off the bat, it is probably because it is annoying. I had to dig for examples of menu design that does not upset me.

Resident Evil 4 is a good example of inventory management made fun while still keeping with the spirit of the game. You have to organise your inventory to fit within a set grid, turning the mechanic into a static game of Tetris, which can be borderline therapeutic for some more orderly-minded players. This method was inspired by System Shock 2 and has since been replicated in games like Dredge. You can also more or less eliminate menus altogether. I liked the way Wanderstop handled menus: instead of giving you a single menu where everything is logged, it stored tutorials and tasks in a very navigable handbook. Inventory was managed separately through scrollable menus tagged to different buttons on the D-pad.

I would even say Borderlands 3's menu is fairly easy to navigate, despite having quite a standard format. It has fewer tabs, represented by icons to save space, and the menus are laid out so there is very little fiddling with trigger or shoulder buttons. There is also Deathloop, which has somewhat convoluted menus but logs information clearly and, dare I say, beautifully, especially considering how much information you need when planning your runs. It is a more visual and spatial take on the quest log system that I appreciate.

Of course, my personal preference is predicated on the fact that I want clean, easy, accessible menus in my menu-heavy games. I do not enjoy digging through menus to find items, and I do not enjoy having to scroll through endless tabs. Some people do. Some people think Skyrim is the epitome of good menu design. More power to you if so. And some games want every mechanic to be full of friction because it simulates tension - more power to them as well. That simply is not what I want.

In 2026, with games bigger and interfaces busier than ever, I want designers to treat menu navigation as part of the experience, not an afterthought. I am sick of big, hard-to-navigate menus. I am sick of wrestling with pages and pages of information just to do simple things, and I am especially sick of games that do not take console players into consideration, especially since we have fewer controls to navigate menus with. We need to find a way to handle menus that is not a chore. Can we please stop making players fight the UI before they can play the game?