I Loathe: “Opens from Other Side”

Locked doors have been a tedious issue in video games for as long as games have had doors. We all learned the unspoken video game language of nonfunctional doors that look painted into the scenery versus those with which we can interact, and as infuriating as it is that there’s never any narrative rationale for this bizarre design, we roll with it. But The Great Circle takes it a stage further, with clearly interactive doors that are locked on the other side, everywhere

It’s obviously just gating the levels, all such doors marking routes you’ll use on your return, rather than having to trace back along the ledges and windows and drops and climbs and so on you are intended to traverse on your way there. But when where you want to be is there, on the other side of this flimsy door with glass panels, and you’re holding a sledgehammer that’s capable of knocking through walls, it’s pretty annoying stuff. The phrase “Opens from Other Side” appears so, so often in the game’s enormous first third, and I began to greet it with an exasperated growl.

It’s also weird that it capitalizes “Other Side,” rather suggesting these doors are opened from the afterlife.