Before Arkane Austin was shut down by Xbox, one of the studio’s design rules was bluntly summed up as “Fuck ladders.” According to the report, that attitude reflected a broader reality in game development: ladders have historically created an outsized amount of work for a feature that seems simple on the surface.
The article traces that frustration back to older projects at Arkane, when Harvey Smith and Raphael Colantonio were still trying to get games such as Thief and Blade Runner made. When Dishonored eventually arrived, the team avoided conventional ladders altogether, using hanging chains instead. The report says the swap was not actually much easier to build, despite the assumption that it would be.
Why ladders are hard to get right
Developers interviewed in the piece describe ladders as a source of design, animation, and technical complications. A ladder can raise questions about how a character grips it, whether weapons can be used while climbing, how falling or being attacked should work, and whether AI characters need the same behavior as the player. The article also notes that older games often handled ladders in awkward or memorable ways, with some systems causing characters to stick, slip, or behave in unrealistic ways.
Liz England, a former lead designer at Ubisoft and Insomniac, told the report that ladders are especially troublesome because entering a different movement state can create bugs and edge cases. She also points out that everyday objects such as doors and ladders become much more complicated once they are turned into interactive systems. The piece says this is one reason many games place ladders in quiet areas without enemies: it reduces the amount of special handling required and makes the climb a controlled transition rather than a combat space.
Source: eurogamer.net
