Top 5 Most Annoying Types of Video Game Missions

There is always that one type of mission that brings gamers to the point of breaking their controllers in frustration. Here are some picks for the top five types of annoying missions. These missions have been around forever, and will undoubtedly carry on to current and next-gen games.

5. Required Side Missions

These are the missions that switch the focus away from the main story, and place you into the shoes of someone who isn’t really a part of what you’ve been working for this whole time.

The Strikeforce Missions in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 are a perfect example. These missions take you away from the game’s main characters and give you control over ground troops and robotic drones to defend certain outposts. These RTS-style encounters don’t feel like they add to the story. They only pull you away from a character or setting that you were just getting comfortable with.

4.  “Beat this within a certain time to unlock different endings.”

These missions are less common nowadays, but they do still exist. Let’s look at Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z. In one mission, you must fight Frieza in one of his final forms. One of the secondary requirements is to beat him within 3 minutes, even though the fight itself can run longer than that amount of time. However, if you take the full amount time allotted for the fight, you can’t unlock the next level.

It’s missions like these that make no sense. Why give us the extra time when we can’t technically win with it? That only adds more stress and ruins the desire to keep playing the game.

3. Kill X Amount of “This” Missions

These have existed in many online games, from World of Warcraft or to newer titles like Destiny. They’re simply a cop-out in terms of missions – sending us to kill the same things we were killing before, but requiring that we reach a certain number or percentage before moving on.

In Destiny, this happens pretty close to the beginning, as the game sends us scouting to pick up random missions on the battlefield. A large majority of those missions are this exact type, or the similar “Collect X amount of This” missions. The NPCs are clearly trying deliver a blow to the enemy’s forces. But that’s nearly impossible when the group you just killed has to respawn in a minute or two so you can reach your mission number/percentage goal?

2. Escort/Babysitting Missions

These missions almost took the number-one spot. There are even some games that base their entire stories on these missions. Ico, The Last of Us (though that one was redeemable), and parts of Resident Evil  4 were all designed to have you protect someone important while they do nothing to help stave off the waves of baddies.

Sure, some games get it right and give the escortee reasonable A.I., allowing them to defend themselves if need be. But that isn’t always the case. I’d rather not spend hours of gameplay listening to a character scream because I let one enemy past me and they can’t take a second to fire their own weapon . Why designers think this is a good mechanic is beyond me.

1. Underwater Missions

This one can be a mission or a level. But we can all agree that underwater gameplay for characters should not be required for characters who aren’t acquatic natives.

We can look all the way back to the Sega Genesis days and see Sonic as a great example. My dreams are still haunted by its music, warning you that you’re about to drown. The altered movements and doing puzzles while floating underwater are hard enough, but the limited amount of air, coupled with sparse opportunities to come up and breathe are even worse. And thsse are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to bad aspects of underwater missions. There isn’t one gamer alive who doesn’t dread underwater levels. 

Fun party game: mention the World Water Temple. Watch anyone who has played Ocarina of Time shudder violently. 

So which one is your least favorite? Was there one I didn’t mention that should be listed? Comment and let me hear what you think.