Some people process that information differently from you, and devs figured they could make HUDs convey things in more intuitive ways than bars and boxes. It's not a war against HUDs, it's experimentation.

Personally, I prefer not having an HUD on the screen. I get that other people like that or the game isn't intuitive enough to do so, so it's nice that there's (usually) an option to toggle it.

As someone who loved the hell out of GTAIV, I miss the HUD from the PS2 era games.

GTAIV is just so tiny and sleek. I don't find it as aesthetically pleasing.

Deus Ex's HUD is the reason I didn't even play it for more than 5 minutes. Instead of thinking I had everything I needed right in front of me, my first thought was the game giving me this much stuff this early meant the game was too complex and there were way too many factors in the gameplay for me to handle.

Developers want the HUD to be clean and uncluttered until you enter a menu, because it's important for immersion's sake. If you're constantly seeing a gameplay element in front of you, you'll constantly be reminded you're playing a video game.

There's a school of thought that says that you want to limit non-diegetic elements on the screen in order to promote immersion and not remind players that they're playing a game. The good examples of this are games like Dead Space and Metro 2033, where HUD elements have either been eliminated altogether or turned into diegetic elements. This design philosophy is pretty dominant right now, though, so there are also lots of other games trying to do the same sort of thing badly.

>>178128
Most games are so poorly designed I can't help but be reminded that its a poorly made videogame.

> because it's important for immersion's sake. If you're constantly seeing a gameplay element in front of you, you'll constantly be reminded you're playing a video game.

Irrelevant. Hiding information from the player for no reason other than to annoy them is the most unimmersive thing of all.

You are playing a videogame, not watching a movie. Gameplay comes first.

>>178134
You are just sounding like you have a problem with grasping things personally.

>>178134

I like a nice HUD myself, but I think you're being a bit silly here. Keeping stuff off the screen isn't really always going to hurt the experience. I'm the GTA guy from earlier. As much as I like seeing my money and ammo on the screen, it isn't exactly necessary either, unless I'm shooting or buying something.

And immersion is important depending on the genre. Take classic Resident Evil for example. Part of the reason the games were scary was because of the fact that they "played cinematically". It was like being in your own horror movie. And as far as arguments against needing a HUD, RE is pretty good in regards to this as well. You had a health bar in the menu screen, but you really didn't need it to know when you were in trouble, due to how your character carried his or herself in the game.

>>178134
> Hiding information from the player for no reason other than to annoy them
That's the thing. It's not to annoy you. The information shouldn't be bothering you unless it's relevant, and there should be (and are) better ways to show that than a dozen bars and numbers on your screen.
Hell, even Super Mario 64 knew not to show your health unless it was a relevant moment.

>>178141
Personally, I've played games that tried other ways and have generally not liked it. In fact, I didn't like it when the heath wheel on Mario 64 disappearing when I was at full health and sometimes even damaged Mario just because I was tired of it not being there when I wanted to look at it. Having a readily available display doesn't bother me, but one that hides from me does.

>>178153

I don't know what game you were playing, but Mario 64's health bar never goes away unless it's been full for several seconds.

>>178159
It still occasionally annoyed a bit that it didn't just stay there. Not all that much, but I never appreciated it getting out of the way. There quite simply was enough room for it, and I'd rather such a thing be static than move around needlessly.

>>178165
Actually, now that I think about it, Mario 64 was released back when CRT televisions were more common and avoiding screen burn-in was more of a concern.