We're in another grim period for poorly optimised PC games, with the last couple of years bringing us a string of power-hungry virtual slideshows such as 2023's Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and, more recently, Borderlands 4. Corpos like Randy Pitchford think we should stop moaning and fork out for a better PC, as playing the best-looking games simply demands a rig capable of lighting a small town.
But perhaps there's another way, one where good design and technical ingenuity can remove some of the sting from system requirements. In a roundabout way, this was recently demonstrated by modder, YouTuber, and mapper Goonya's Animations, who took a map he was making for Half-Life 2 and somehow made it run in Half-Life 1's GoldSrc engine with minimal visual difference.
