5 Bits of Good Game Design from 2015

2015 was dominated by remakes, remasters, and rereleases. Players saw recycled versions of Saints Row IV, Resident Evil, Majora's Mask, the Borderlands games, Devil May Cry 4, DmC, Rare's back catalogue, Journey, God of War 3, Dark Souls 2, Final Fantasy Type-0, Final Fantasy X and X-2, the Uncharted trilogy, Darksiders 2, Tearaway, Dishonored, Gears of War, and Xenoblade Chronicles.

That does not mean those releases should not have existed. But with so many studios looking backward, it was fair to wonder how many designers were left to make fresh things.

Luckily, there were still plenty of smart ideas in new games. Some were major systems. Some were small mechanics. Some were simply clever decisions that made a familiar genre behave differently.

Here are five bits of good design from games released in 2015.

Bloodborne is another dark, difficult action RPG from a studio already known for sharply designed combat. Its most interesting addition is the regain system.

The game wanted combat to feel more offensive and less tentative than Dark Souls. So it removed the safety of a shield and gave the player a short window after taking damage to win back some lost health by attacking.

That changes the player's instinct. Instead of backing away, hiding behind defense, or immediately drinking from a limited supply of healing items, the player is tempted to strike back.

The risk is obvious. Acting rashly is exactly what gets players killed in these games. The regain system creates a dangerous emotional loop: being hit creates panic, but fighting back offers hope that the battle can still be recovered.

The Fulton Recovery System technically appeared before Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, but this is where many players discovered how satisfying it could be.

Any sleeping, stunned, or surrendering guard can be attached to a small balloon and whisked into the sky, then delivered to Mother Base. Animals and vehicles can be extracted too, but guards are where the system becomes most interesting.

Stealth games have often struggled to make non-lethal play mechanically compelling. Tranquilized or knocked-out guards can wake up, so unless the player is chasing a specific achievement, it is often simpler to kill them quietly.

The Phantom Pain gives the player a better reason to show restraint. A soldier with strong stats is useful back at base, so the player has an incentive to take them down non-lethally, move them away from other guards, and extract them. A silly balloon becomes a smart pressure on the whole stealth loop.

Splatoon's best mechanic is not just spraying the battlefield with colorful ink. It is not just swimming through that ink as a squid. It is the way those two systems support each other.

Players shoot ink to create a path. They swim through the path to move quickly and refill the tank. That tank then lets them shoot more ink, which creates more movement options.

Many modern games offer multiple mechanics, but it is rarer to see two different ways of interacting with the world support each other so directly. This is not shooting for a while, then moving for a while. One action feeds the other.

That connection makes every encounter, route, puzzle, and boss fight ask the player to juggle territory, ammo, mobility, and positioning at the same time. Splatoon is much more interesting than a shooter with paint swapped in for bullets because the paint changes what movement means.

Checkpoints change tension. Put them far apart and players sweat when a fight goes wrong after a long stretch without saving. Put them too close and the danger can drain away.

Ori and the Blind Forest offers a clever compromise by giving some of that decision to the player. The game has automatic save spots, but the player can also spend energy to create soul links: custom checkpoints placed where they choose.

That means the player decides how much safety they want. They can save at every calm spot, or hold back and take on a difficult platforming section with more pressure.

This is different from simply hammering quick save. Energy is limited, and it is also used for powerful attacks, so placing a checkpoint competes with other needs. Saving progress becomes another strategic decision rather than a background convenience.

Life is Strange deals with murder, bullying, suicide attempts, abuse, and other heavy subjects. That emotional intensity makes one small interaction especially important: Max can sit down.

When she sits, the game gives her space to think through what has happened. The soundtrack takes over. The camera cuts lazily between quiet shots. The player decides when she stands up and returns to the storm.

That matters because the scene is not only a break in activity. It is permission to breathe.

The idea applies beyond story-heavy adventure games. Constant action can become exhausting. The best games often include deliberate downtime, moments of quiet, or spaces where the player can recover without turning the game off entirely.

These five examples are different in scale, genre, and purpose, but each one shows a designer solving a practical problem with a focused mechanic.

Bloodborne encourages aggression by letting players reclaim health. Metal Gear Solid V makes non-lethal stealth valuable by tying it to base growth. Splatoon fuses shooting and movement into one loop. Ori turns checkpoints into a resource decision. Life is Strange recognizes that emotional pacing needs quiet as much as drama.

None of these ideas is valuable because it is complicated. Each is valuable because it changes player behavior in a way that supports the game around it.

That is often where good design hides: not in a giant feature list, but in one system that nudges the player toward the exact feeling, rhythm, or decision the game wants to create.