ESCORT MISSIONS
Escort missions, if you think about it, actively work against the very point of video games as a whole- games, at their very core, are about agency and about being in charge of your character’s fate. When you’re suddenly put in charge of taking care of this whole other person who is completely incompetent at making sure they don’t die in the stupidest ways possible, the game takes away that agency. Instead, it forces you to change the way you’re playing, by imposing the care of characters controlled by incompetent AI onto you. Granted, some escort missions can genuinely be fun- Ico, for example, is a game that is essentially one large escort mission. But Ico makes it work because the game is designed around those mechanics, and designed well at that, and it makes sure that it never feels like that is getting in the way of your enjoyment. Because that is very much the point of the game.
