Fallout 4

Without quest markers, Fallout 4 players explore by following their own curiosity. Mark Brown deactivated the main quest and every mission he was given, even a plea to recover a dead woman's locket. After about 10 hours he had finished only two quests, because buildings on the horizon kept pulling him off to see what treasures or stories were inside.

Notes became puzzles he solved by investigating. One said a guard found the mayor in the tub and locked the door, and he found the room by spotting a sign rather than a waypoint. "I want to be lead by my own curiosity, and not by a compass."

Make markers optional, but write quests that work without them. Fallout 4 lets players disable quest helpers, yet its quests aren't written for it, which is why Brown made so little progress. The proposed fix is a game playable without markers that players can switch on when lost or when they want fast progress, with a few missions kept off the map and quest log entirely.

Playing without markers needs spoken directions, signage and place names to support it. "The game simply isn't designed to be played this way."

Bethesda's Fallout 3 hid a scavenger hunt solved by reading rooms. In the Anchorage memorial museum, a computer note points to a floor safe in the clinic, which players recognize from its operating table and x-rays. A safe component opens a hidden door, then a key and note lead to a refrigerator.

The quest is unlisted and doesn't count as a quest in the game. The prize is bottle caps and a mirelurk cake recipe, a Bethesda inside joke, but Brown said the real reward was using his brain and following clues instead of breadcrumbs.

The Witcher 3 wastes good spoken directions by drawing a dotted line. A character describes a route by the pond, a path, a lone rock, the woods and an old cart, then a dotted line appears on the mini-map and the player follows it instead. With helpers off, the lost patrol quest gives only the south shore of Lake Wyndemere, with no place names, and can end in a bandit camp.

Treasure maps and triangulation turn navigation into a rewarding skill. Treasure maps in Red Dead Redemption, Skyrim and Black Flag show only a crude drawing of a landmark that players must match to the landscape. Miasmata hides the player's position until they climb to a vantage point and triangulate from two known structures.

Older games did similar: Deus Ex gives only an aerial photo, Thief gave incomplete sketched maps, and Morrowind's map shows only visited places, so players ask for directions, check the journal or read signposts.