When Arkane Hated Stairs... And the Lesson It Left the Industry
Before Xbox shut down Arkane Austin, the studio walls were covered with 20 design philosophies. One of them was pretty blunt: "Fuck stairs." Yeah, you read that right — an entire studio treated stairs like the enemy they needed to avoid at all costs.
Now, that sounds weird at first glance. But when you think about game design, you get it. Stairs slow down movement, complicate your camera, and eat up time you could spend on actual content. A lot of studios shared that same hatred. The real question was: how do you build a multi-story world without stairs?
Why This Matters More Than You'd Think
In my opinion, this story reveals something important about the games industry: sometimes we elevate temporary ideas into religious doctrine. Arkane was telling designers "no stairs," and everyone just followed orders. But real life is full of stairs — and our games need them too.
What got me about this is that it points to something deeper: the best design philosophies need to be flexible, not set in stone. A staircase might be a boring design tool, or it might be an element that actually enriches the game experience. The difference between us and the real studios is that they learn from their mistakes and move past the hatred.
The Bottom Line
This is a lesson for players and developers alike: sometimes the best design decisions come when you challenge what you said before. Don't get trapped in rigid ideologies — even if you wrote them on your studio walls.
I'd recommend reading this if you're interested in how studios actually make their design calls, or if you've ever wondered why certain games just feel a certain way.
