Inventory management is tedious. I'm not totally against it and I'm not saying that inventory caps should never be a thing, period, but if you're going to have an inventory limit then have a good reason for it. Make it part of the challenge, and having to sort through inventory because you want to pick up that kickass sword you just found is not a challenge. Inventory caps only make sense if resource management is a meaningful and interesting part of the game.

There's a PC mod for Skyrim called SkyUI and it is the single best example of an organized inventory that I have ever seen. You can organize everything by alphabetical order, weight, or value, and there's a search function on top for you. It's easy, guys, we have exceptionally well organized databases and spreadsheets all over the place. That, combined with no limit on the number of things I can carry, is what I want out of any open world RPG. By the end of the game, I should have an entire library, armory, and wardrobe in my back pocket, along with a plethora of ingredients, potions, keys, scrap, and other meaningless nothings.

What I don't like is the mouse-driven interface of a lot of PC RPG's, where you have a bunch of icons in squares on a grid representing items and in order to find out what the item is, you have to hover your mouse over it. That's awful. The console equivalent is having the description on the right and the grid in the center - also awful. To bring up SkyUI again - you have all the attributes you need to see in a list at a glance. I just want everyone to copy and/or improve on that.

I actually really like 'inventory Tetris' when done well. At least to me, System Shock 2 feels almost spot on.

Also, not exactly the same thing, but I thought it was super satisfying arranging rooms in your ships in Infinite Space (quite possibly my favourite aspect of that game):

If you're going to have a game with shit loads of different items to pick up, just let me carry everything.

One of the worst inventory systems I've seen is in some of the Ultima games, like Ultima 6-8. You had this grid-less inventory where you can drag the items wherever you want. Problem is it gets so cluttered you have items on top of items that gets lost behind more items.

@beachthunder: FUCK I've always wanted to play Infinite Space.

I mostly like to be able to carry everything, but I feel that an encumbrance system fits with Elder Scrolls type games. I kinda like deciding what I'm going to be prioritizing before I set out for an adventure. It also forces me to get rid of old gear regularly which I am terrible at otherwise. Inventory Tetris has always been a hassle for me because I haaaate ending up with extra little pockets of space.

I will agree with the general consensus that inventory management is tedious. But the weird thing is that I actually liked the weight system in Fallout 4 specifically. I felt like it made every item pickup a conscious decision. I need all this junk to build my base, but I can only carry so much. It became a game of "pick up only the rarest components, and balance the weight to value ratio of big ticket items." It kept me thinking of my own personal economy through the dungeon crawls.

The only thing worse than weight limits is shops with limited gold.

It's really neat that the Tetris style has such a following. Gamifying the inventory system works.

I've never had a game become more fun by having a specific inventory system. So why not just give up on it and let you carry whatever you need. Yes yes, this might sound 'OP' in certain games, but even a game like Stardew Valley doesn't become more enjoyable by having limited inventory space.

@onemanarmyy: If you can't appreciate the feeling of being able to fit in just one more 2x1 stack of pistol rounds after spending 5-10 minutes sorting out your inventory then I just don't know what to tell you.

@adequatelyprepared: Okay, thinking about this, the only time i felt good about inventory stuff was in Diablo 2. Managing to fill up your entire inventory right after you cleared a dungeon, and then being able to sell the junk to create space in your inventory feels good. But i hated the system whenever i would have to open a portal to sell junk , while being in the middle of a dungeon :D It's a love / hate thing.

I kind of like inventory tetris, but I feel that only works in survival games. RPG's i'd rather have an unlimited inventory. (also Zelda has an unlimited inventory?)

Aside from RE4 probably just Dark Souls without a comically huge number of items.

Diablo inventory management has always been pretty shitty.

Horizon's seems totally fine; many games have done the same system drastically worse including the Witcher 3 and, ironically, Far Cry.

Dark Souls system. Infinite carry weight but limited equip weight. Also shout out to Dark Souls 2's UI layout and functionality for the best most effective interface that should be copied forever from now on.

@ivdamke: Didnt Morrowind do the grid thing way before Dark Souls 2? (on PC at least, dont remember consoles) Having to deal with carry weight sucked though. Especially since it slowed you down even before reaching the limit.

@boozak: Dark Souls 2 is much more than the presentation. It was how navigation worked between tabs how every item had unique icons that were immediately identifiable. It was an evolution of Morrowinds system to be sure though.

I have always preferred the "let me carry everything" method. Maybe it is the hoarder in me, who knows?

I immediately mod out inventory weight limits in any game that has them.

I answered Inventory Tetris. But I mean Astroneer inventory tetris. Check that game out, it really solves all the inventory,crafting and building UI and makes it fun as hell!

They've all been done well. They've all been done poorly. Especially weight limits. They are more often done poorly than well.

One thing I do not like happening is being in the middle of a dungeon, or something otherwise engaging, and running out of inventory and having to choose what to drop.

Inventory tetris, that way I know that I can only carry a few things so I make sure they are important. Otherwise I hoard everything and drive myself insane. I get a lot of people hate invoentory management because it doesn't make games more fun. But it does make games more interesting by limiting my pool of resources.

@beachthunder said:

I actually really like 'inventory Tetris' when done well. At least to me, System Shock 2 feels almost spot on.

Also, not exactly the same thing, but I thought it was super satisfying arranging rooms in your ships in Infinite Space (quite possibly my favourite aspect of that game):

Room Tetris was so damn great. I wish some other sci-fi game with a better combat system would rip off some of the ideas in Infinite Space.

Why are there so few RPGs with rad ship-to-ship combat? Skies of Arcadia's ship battles were actually pretty rad (but each one was basically a boss fight with a bunch of custom scripting so overall the game didn't have that many of them) and then there was Infinite Space but the combat system was kinda boring and once you got a carrier that could launch fighters you pretty much just won the game forever because of poor balance.

I know infinite inventory sounds unreasonable, but at the same time, it's so good not caring about inventory management.

Inventory management is easily my least favorite thing about any western RPG. Weight is arbitrary. Unless you have to drop your damn sword to pick up a new one, you're nowhere near any sort of realism so why make a chore out of it?

I like stuff like FF where you can carry everything. It's not realistic but it lets me carry what I want and not worry about encumbrance. I like Fallout 3-4 and stuff like Oblivion so long as I spec my character to be a walking item mule. Having a companion makes that a bit easier, but it still gets annoying when we're both encumbered and I'm deep in a dungeon. :/

The worst are the ones that combine a weight system with inventory tetris. It's infuriating. Below is a screenshot I took of my inventory from an early part of Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura. Look at the inventory nightmare. JUST LOOK AT IT.

@magmamud said:

The original Dragon Quest inventory system was pretty awful. You had 8 slots per character, and that had to include your armor, weapons, etc. Once you started to get plot important items, you basically had 1-2 item slots per character.

Oh, and items didn't stack. So 1 potion took 1 item slot. I really disliked that system, though to be fair it was hardly game breaking; just frustrating as all heck.

Limitless inventories are bad because they give you an unlimited arsenal. An enemy degrades your gigantic sword with an acid attack, but it doesn't matter because you have a second giant fully upgraded sword. You fire unlimited arrows at the enemy or heal endlessly in PvP. Demon's Souls did it better than Dark Souls. If not being able to pick up an item bothers people so much, I would have let them put what they are unable to carry into the bottomless box, to be extracted at a bonfire. I would have also made the texts and items in the menus smaller and combined items of the same type, so that it doesn't take so damn long to scroll through them. Instead of scrolling through seven longswords, you select the longsword x7 and then chose which elemental type to play with.

One of the dumbest things in RPGs is how you can run at 15 MPH while carrying hundreds of pounds of gear, but then you go one ounce over the limit and suddenly you can barely move. Thankfully, Cheat Engine exists. I don't want to be bothered with inventory management, ever.