If Tears of the Kingdom taught us anything, it’s that crafting is alive and well in games. Its seemingly simple system of allowing fans to magically glue together weapons and devices has proven, when done right, crafting can instill a sense of creativity and wonder and ownership in games. Perhaps not since Minecraft has a crafting system been so thoroughly embedded in every fiber of a game that it gives players thousands of opportunities to solve problems and create new avenues of fun.
And if Final Fantasy 16 taught us anything, it’s that not every game needs to have crafting. At all. In fact, fewer games should have crafting.
Listen, I’m liking Final Fantasy 16 just fine. As much as I’ve made fun of its story and inability to know what it wants to be, I’m getting my angsty quasi-RPG-lite fill. But for the love of God, the crafting system in this game does absolutely nothing. As you explore the lush outdoor hallways of the world and fight monsters that make those linear paths their homes, you pick up bits and bobs of goods. Dragon fangs and bloody hides and metal and who gives a shit because none of it really does anything.
Technically the crafting materials in the game are intended to get you new or upgraded equipment from a blacksmith who seems to hate being a blacksmith. We later learn that he’s sometimes depressed that other blacksmiths are good at their jobs. This is a real quest. Anyway, 99.99 percent of the time you use the blacksmith, you’ll have the crafting items available no matter what. It basically replaces finding cool weapons in a dungeon with an excuse for why a blacksmith would give you a new sword for free. You’re not ‘crafting’ anything. You’re just carrying around slightly different types of money.
Also, I’m not sure if we should equate exchanging various materials for goods ‘crafting’. At best, it’s a shitty barter system with a cool marketing term.
This wouldn’t be a problem if it didn’t bleed into every aspect of the game. It almost feels like an insult when you beat a boss and you get three bits of leather. I’d rather you gave me nothing except money and experience points, two things that are also vaguely useless in this game. Receiving crafting items is supposed to be a reward, but it feels like a cop-out to make players feel like they’re gaining something by getting past a specific milestone. The game’s two options are accessories (one of the few things that do have a huge impact on you) and crafting materials (one of the many things that have almost no impact on you). Obviously, crafting materials are the preferred bonus for the game to give out.
The thing is, and I hate we have to repeat this, not every game has to have crafting. We know this right? There’s no law on the books. It’s not a human rights violation to just make a fucking game normal. I’m not saying all crafting is bad! Clearly we got some good crafting this year. Games that actually use crafting to enhance the experience or expand on the world are wonderful. Tying together disparate items makes more sense in a post-apocalyptic survival sim than it does in a game about rich people fighting over whether it’s bad to enslave magic users. Especially when in the first game you’re doing the crafting yourself and in another, you’re basically just saying “I got you some metal and fur; build me armor now.”
Let’s be honest: a lot of games use crafting as a way to pad out the runtime. It adds an artificial sense of collection and accomplishment. Especially when crafting in many of these games simply amounts to getting more ammunition or equipment that, at best, would have been useful four hours ago. Can’t wait to turn in my eight bags of dead animal parts to get a Gaia sword that will reduce my combat ability by 15 points.
And the rare times when crafting is necessary to get vital equipment, it’s usually only available through completing a side quest. In other words, finishing a quest can eventually get you a special item. It’s like they added in a fucking middleman to make side quests even less important. I’m not picking on Final Fantasy 16. Diablo 4 has useless crafting, too. The game is amazing, but why the fuck is it my job to save the universe and pick the right flowers for an upgrade on a weapon I’ll drop in fifteen minutes anyway? Why the fuck do I have to carry around all this shit in hopes that it’ll be useful eventually?
When crafting is tacked onto a game, it doesn’t make it more fun. It makes it feel like homework. Sure, as the human dogs we are, it’s always nice to hear a little bell in a game and get excited when we receive an item. I get why a developer would add it to their game. You get to list an extra feature while you players think they’re accomplishing more because they got a goat’s horn or something. Never mind the fact that that player will carry around the goat’s horn for ten hours before forgetting it ever existed at all.
Like I said, crafting systems can be great. Zelda? You did good. We got to make our own mechs and hoverbikes. You literally let us defeat impossible enemies by putting together shit we found. That’s what crafting is for. It’s not for turning players into a pack mule because you’re worried you don’t have enough game in your game. Gatekeeping items behind one extra step isn’t a brilliant system, it’s just adding time to the clock while inconveniencing everyone.