Nemesis system. But ~~Wanker~~ Warner Bros tossed a patent on it and no one else could use it.

It didn't really take off to begin with but dual screen support like Supreme Commander had with the real-time map overview on the 2nd monitor. It could be a skirmish map or live track map for a racing game, live scoreboard, player status or inventory system.

Fun unlockables by doing some cheat.

Imagine telling a FIFA player that you used to be able to have a dog as referee by doing the Konami code. And it was not behind a fucking paywall.

International Super Star Soccer for SNES had this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYaHPm-yDl8&t=63

Split screen coop/multiplayer

Way too many games only let you do multiplayer with one player and have online only coop campaigns

Used to be pretty standard that a guest could play with you online

I want to see puzzles that are implemented using the physics engine. And I don't mean "toss the axe in the proper arc to trigger the gate" physics. I mean "stack the bricks on one end of the seesaw to balance it long enough to make the jump to the next platform". Or "use the blue barrels' buoyancy to raise the platform out of the water".

A grapple hook

Mods and self hosted servers

Destructible buildings like in Red Faction: Guerilla.

Arcade racers that aren't just... Bad.

Burnout Revenge was a beloved game of my childhood. You had bonuses from wrecking your foes, got bonuses for creating wrecks, and for near death experiences. And there was an awesome mode where you would launch your car into a scene to cause as much damage as possible.

Midnight Club 2 where you could customize your cars and race them on fun tracks, but could also just beep around the open world.

Maybe it's nostalgia, but I would love a fun racing game that doesn't have a GTA attached to it.

I was recently discussing Farcry 2 with some friends and how cool the fire spread system was - And how it essentially was never used again after that title.

In case you didn't know, Zelda Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom have a very similar fire spread system.

Mechanics from the Mercenaries series. Destructible buildings, getting weapons and vehicles dropped to you anywhere at any time. Being able to ally with different factions. Oh, and the ability to call in airstrikes. Bunker busters, cluster bombs, artillery barrages, etc. Just Cause and Metal Gear Solid V are the closest things to that. But they just aren't the same.

And the ability to just fly like Superman. I'd like that in more games.

Tanking with shields (force/kinetic shields in sci-fi games, not physical shields)

I liked when games let you face-tank damage with your shield (like in Mass Effect, before Andromeda where they made shields weak af and even removed shield gating) and not having to care for healing (unless you lose all your shields)

I don't know if it's due to the souls-like trend, but it feels like game developers need to make punitive games nowadays

I wanna see games going wide again. Get me something like Sonic Adventure 2 Battle again where we got racing, going fast, a creature battler/care system, multiplayer. I miss when games were full of a wide variety of shit.

A mechanic to permanently gain new attacks and/or abilities by mastering equipment. I haven't seen that many games have this mechanic and it's mostly been adult games for some reason. I think Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep is the only non-adult game I've seen to have this mechanic.

I just remembered another one. The Gambits system from Final Fantasy 12. I've always liked this mechanic because it almost completely automates battles, allowing you to focus more on exploration and treasure hunting. I have only seen two games do this and, once again, FF12 is the only non-adult game I've seen with this type of mechanic.

I really wished there are more games that implement something like the gambit system from FF12. My dream game is some monster / pet collecting and battling game plus the gambit system from FF12. now if only n*ntendo wouldn’t be such an @ss…

The control scheme in Total Annihilation where you can que up lots of commands for units has largely been ignored by RTS game makers except in Supreme Commander and Spring/Recoil engine games such as Beyond All Reason and Zero-K. I think it is a perfect example of why the RTS genre in many respects died after hyperfocusing on making Starcraft-likes resulting in the stagnation of innovation in a genre that progressively catered more and more only to a very narrow range of brains/players who enjoyed simplistic explicit rock-paper-scissors unit relationships and endless fiddly micro.

Horizontal progression. Relatively flat power curve, but you gain more options.

Guild Wars 1 is a really good example of this.

The scrolling health bar in Eartbound/Mother

Take a look at Half-Life 2's old Face Poser software. I feel like you don't see that sort of action-level control much anymore.

Indie studios are evading the need for lipsync entirely, by making simple models, giving people masks, putting them on radio overlays, etc. AAA studios are overengineering it, putting a $4,000,000 actor in a motion capture suit for each of their cutscenes to capture every fine detail as they stare in wonder at the white ping-pong ball in the studio with the sign written; "LOOK HERE".

Face Poser was a good median; it's where the director gets control, but you don't need a vast technical setup beyond animations, some vowel extraction, and some basic know-how. It means that if the director wants to add a criticism "No, character B should give a dubious, unsure look when character A says that", it's something they can apply directly rather than ask the animators to do by hand.

For some reference, old machinima like Clear Skies, or my own "AS" made use of Face Poser.

I really want to see a god game with gestures, like black&white, make the jump to VR

Fun fact: some mechanics never came back cause they got copyrighted and the studio with the copyright went "no, we're not doing that kind of game anymore" and as soon as anyone goes "okay, can we try?" they sue them into oblivion for copyright infringement

The Fiend's Cauldron from Kid Icarus Uprising. At the start of a stage, you have to wager currency on how high of a difficulty you want to attempt, on a sliding scale from 0.0 to 9.0. Higher difficulties cost more to play, and if you fail, you lose your bet and the difficulty drops if you choose Continue. It's an interesting system for how it forces you to check your ego and self-evaluate just how much you think you can handle.

Did you know Shadows of Mordor copyrighted the Nemesis System and then proceeded to never use it in any other games ever again despite people calling out for it?

That's one I'd like to see

The vehicle damage modelling from GTA 4. The fact that it hasn't been surpassed is tremendously disappointing to me.

I miss casual flight sims that were designed to be played with a joystick. Not so much Janes F-15 1997 or whatever, i'm more talking about Crimson Skies. I want more Crimson Skies.

Destructible environments like in silent storm. You could remove walls and floors with grenades or mines. Unfortunately it was a bit buggy and slow. Teardown is fun, but it feels like a tech demo.