What games have the best third-person character controls?

[rusty_shackleford]

Based on something that was a short discussion in chat a while back. I'm going to start by saying Warframe.

[Vergil]

Kind of an oddball choice but I love the control and traversal of VTM: Bloodhunt. It's a real shame it's stuck in a dead battle royale game.

[Greyborne]

****** games, but I think the Shadow of Mordor games were fluid and responsive.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Shadow of the Colossus. I like the animations and the camera framing. It has that grandiose, cinematic feel. I know some people like to complain about the controls/camera but I personally never felt it was a problem given how there are only 16 enemies in the entire game and they are all slow enough that you do not need immediate movement to evade. Even the intense 14th boss gives you enough time that you will probably not get run down.

[loregamer]

Roblox

[Oyster Sauce]

****** games, but I think the Shadow of Mordor games were fluid and responsive.

Had to rebind the sprint button because they committed the unforgivable sin of setting it to A

[rusty_shackleford]

****** games, but I think the Shadow of Mordor games were fluid and responsive.

Had to rebind the sprint button because they committed the unforgivable sin of setting it to A

I have to assume any game with sprint not bound to shift by default is made by people who don't play games

[Finarfin]

Kind of an oddball choice but I love the control and traversal of VTM: Bloodhunt. It's a real shame it's stuck in a dead battle royale game.

Agree, shame it was a BR. They could've made it into a cool fast paced single-player action-rpg.

[StudiedAsleep]

Depends? From what I remember Warframe does give really precise control over your character, but Resident Evil 6 has some really interesting ways to control your character even tho the controls are awful. Batman Arkham Knight had amazing third person gameplay. I don't remember Skyrim being too bad in third person either?

I always found games like Uncharted, Witcher 3, GTA V, etc, to have some seriously clunky character movement even though the games are designed around third person.

The worst is Monster Hunter games. I am 100% certain the developers deliberately put code in to make the game ignore half of your button presses. There were even articles bringing this up and it got even worse in their Rise game. ******** idea by the developers.

[Finarfin]

Depends? From what I remember Warframe does give really precise control over your character, but Resident Evil 6 has some really interesting ways to control your character even tho the controls are awful. Batman Arkham Knight had amazing third person gameplay. I don't remember Skyrim being too bad in third person either?

I always found games like Uncharted, Witcher 3, GTA V, etc, to have some seriously clunky character movement even though the games are designed around third person.

One thing I really dislike about GTA is the whole "Spam button to run" No ******, I just want to click on shift or left stick so the player character runs without me breaking my keyboard/left stick

[nyxnyx]

Returnal - it's very similar to Warframe in terms of responsiveness but slightly more grounded and actually comes with modern animation systems like proper stationary transitions, procedural leaning, and terrain awareness.

other contenders would be Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem - but it's been too long since I played either of those, so my memory might not be best, though I do remember that both really stood out quite well in that department (but that could just be the result of everything else being total dogshit).

[StudiedAsleep]

Depends? From what I remember Warframe does give really precise control over your character, but Resident Evil 6 has some really interesting ways to control your character even tho the controls are awful. Batman Arkham Knight had amazing third person gameplay. I don't remember Skyrim being too bad in third person either?

I always found games like Uncharted, Witcher 3, GTA V, etc, to have some seriously clunky character movement even though the games are designed around third person.

One thing I really dislike about GTA is the whole "Spam button to run" No ******, I just want to click on shift or left stick so the player character runs without me breaking my keyboard/left stick

Yea I used to hate that too but I also dislike pressing in the left stick idk why it feels weird. Would rather be able to hold a key to run instead.

[TKVNC]

Mount and Blade: Warband

[aweigh]

rockstar games, specifically gta 5 and rdr 2 though not for the reasons you might think. The third-person camera in those games is very well done, especially in RDR 2. I *love* a good centered third-person camera.

I *hate* left-adjusted third-person cameras, or left-justified. However you want to term it. Most unreal engine games have a left-adjusted third-person camera by default and I really dislike that. Much prefer a well done centered camera.

Remedy's Control also felt very fluid to control and had a nice centered third-person camera, though when you aim it would adjust to the left slightly (this is fine, though it also requires work to get it right).

[aweigh]

Yea I used to hate that too but I also dislike pressing in the left stick idk why it feels weird. Would rather be able to hold a key to run instead.

i use reWASD to do exactly this on games; i make a custom control config for games which don't allow you and/or don't offer the option to make the controls the way you'd prefer.

for example: in rockstar games i shuffle things around so that "A" becomes Right Bumper but only when I have the left stick deflected, i.e. using it. What i mean to say is in RDR 2 when I press RB while standing still or while inside a menu, i get RB, however if i push the left stick and start walking and then hold down RB it will act as if i was pressing A, and that way i can sprint while holding down RB.

Now, obviously, this means that while I'm sprinting i lose access to the native function of RB, but that's where you start thinking outside the box. Of course on a controller with extra buttons you could just assign 'native RB' to one of the other buttons and be done with it but I prefer making control configs that are usable on a standard controller.

in the case of RDR2 the RB button's main function is to snap into and out of cover, so what i did is i made X become RB when i hold it down; i.e. when i long-press X for 200ms it becomes RB, however if i just mash the button or simply press X once or twice it will still function normally as X (which is normally jump).

Also, not related to sprinting but I also usually assign the weapon quickswaps to the D-PAD as well, if i press Up on the d-pad i get "2" on the keyboard which is dual-wielding revolvers (as an example). So on and so forth. I prefer doing that to using the Weapon Wheel.

It all depends on the specific game though, sometimes it can be tricky because the d-pad is mainly used for navigating menus or scrolling a list, but if you access the menu by pressing a button like Start or Select then you can use shift-layers; when you press Start it will immediately revert all buttons to native (so d-pad is d-pad), then when you're done using the menu and press B or press Start again to exit it will deactivate the layer and the d-pad returns to weapon hotkeys.

i have more fun making the control configs than i do playing the games, most times. figuring out the PERFECT scheme to have everything exactly how i want it in the most optimal way.

[Nemesis]

Ghost of Tsushima. Being a console port, I thought I'd need a controller to get the most out of it. However, after playing through the introduction and doing some initial exploration, I was pleasantly surprised to find movement and combat worked well with a mouse and keyboard.

[ERYFKRAD]

Metal gear v phantom pain. Absolute butter on a stick.

[DDC]

Mega Man

[Irenaeus]

Mega Man

It indeed had great controls. Fun little game.

[Ratcatcher]

This:

[KnightoftheWind]

****** games, but I think the Shadow of Mordor games were fluid and responsive.

Had to rebind the sprint button because they committed the unforgivable sin of setting it to A

I have to assume any game with sprint not bound to shift by default is made by people who don't play games

I'm of the opinion most games shouldn't have a separate "sprint" function at all. They should follow Halo's example and just settle on one movement speed that the whole game is designed around. When Halo itself went on to have a sprint function in all games after 4, they've suffered immensely because of it.

[Irenaeus]

This:

Such a good game.

[Element]

Variety has slowly evaporated and now all games seem to adhere to one of several standardized templates

[Hauberk]

all games seem to adhere to one of several standardized templates

Yes! It used to be about making something which nobody had done before, not "I'm making a generic lootershooter roguelite metroidvania with rpg elements". The developers keep reusing the same old molds instead of making new. But that's society in general at the moment. No innovation.

[CSM-101]

Armored Core VI had surprisingly smooth controls, especially compared to the originals I played. I know some of the sequels got kind of Gundamish but I thought the weighty mech movement was done really well for Fires of Rubicon.