For anyone who’s discovered Once Human, clicking through dozens of menus to claim rewards has become part of the core experience. But partly because of its Asian mobile-gaming roots, and partly because of the furor following the announcement of its six-week reset cycle, the game’s hideous UI design went largely unnoticed—until yesterday.
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In a Reddit thread that has now become the fifth most upvoted post on the Once Human subreddit over the past week, players came together to voice their annoyance over the poorly designed menus. "Too many goddamn claim menus. As soon as I unlock something just give it to me, don't make me claim my unlock. Or at least just have one menu for all claims," the original post read.
"It's intentional. It's so you can go into the menus and relax and see other buttons that lead to the store," said one player, referring to the alleged dark pattern in Once Human's user experience. "It's the same reason the currency is split up, it would be easier to have them in the same place. The point is you get confused."
While games that use cluttered menus as a smokescreen to drive microtransactions have become an industry trend, Once Human arguably takes it to the next level. And if this is the scenario at launch, it's a legitimate concern how things will fare a few cycles later with more content thrown into the mix.
