inglorious

Racing games are always full of interface elements that provides important details to the player. Just like a real vehicle the HUD has instruments covering everything, speed, RPM, fuel, and even little gps-esque mini maps. Because most games deal with such similar elements racing games usually feature more of the same with slight stylization tweaks. The above video posted on Kotaku shows a fresh take on an old element: the navigation arrow.

Fuel’s navigation is quite a bit more dramatic and as a result more helpful than the classic floating arrow. It gives the player a line to follow not just a vague direction. This is a big deal, instead of a closed track in the vein of like Gran Turismo and Forza, Asobo Studio’s Fuel features a large open world, so going completely off track is entirely possible, and the more classic navigation elements (GT’s arrow & Forza’s track line) won’t help. There’s even game play modes that embrace this new direction, the goal being to get from point A to point B as fast as possible with no track or checkpoints.

It’s a nice direction and much more dramatic, and as long as it can be turned off (and the official site says it can) I say it’s a welcome addition. Nice work.