Level 16. Up there there is a door for the next area. The blue light is too faint and small for the player to notice.

Level 5. In here there is a virtual poker machine that the player has already seen in the beginning of the game. For some bizarre reason the aliens were interested in such machines and brought them to their ship. Just look at the place, the machine has a cable to power it up but it really does feel as if it's connected to the door. It's not a puzzle but it does convey the sense of being a puzzle to unlock the door. To make matters worse, all doors in the game are operated with touch screen panels which is how the poker machine works.

Some players may very well think that playing with the machine will, somehow, unlock the door.

Level 15. In here the pipes and the anti-gravity track, both point at the same direction, with the exception of this spot in the middle of the corridor. To the left there is a sign that tells the player to use the spirit walk power to see some hidden item. To the right the pipes bend to the right and there a faint orange light. It doesn't make sense at all. Two signs that conflict with each other at the same spot. This is just an example on how confusing this game is as a whole.

Chapter 3. In the beginning of the chapter the red wooden doors are locked. Nonetheless they draw the player's attention, who feels frustrated because they won't open. In terms of Chinese architecture the red wood is correct, but that conflicts with the fact that red draws the player's attention. The issue with the doors being locked forever is further reinforced by the fact that there are corpses and a blood trail leading to a blocked path. Curiously, many demons fly to the right and that's the way the player has to go. In the previous level the same event of a flying demon guided the player in the wrong direction. This kind of inconsistency leads to confusion.

Another problem in here is the lighting. The sunlight is oversaturated with a very strong orange hue. The light poles, in an attempt to offset the sunlight, are even brighter than the sun. Notice that to the left there is a house with white lanterns on the front but the sunlight and the poles are so bright that the player can barely notice that that house has goodies inside. In this level some houses have something inside but there is nothing on the outside that tells to the player which houses have an inside space and which ones don't. It could be argued that the player is invited to explore the environment by not telling which houses hold something inside, but trying out each door one by one is more annoying than anything else. To make matters worse, there is one house that the player has to go in to destroy a seal, but the light that points at it is too weak compared to all other lights, including the sun. The lights that indicate the goal are weak and this is a pattern in the whole game.

Chapter 3. When the player reaches Lo Wang's mansion it's on fire and the fire is so bright that it overshadows everything else. The super bright glow also has the effect of rendering the exit door almost unnoticeable due to its proximity to the fire. Having the exit door to the left, very close to the burning mansion, is not something that a player would expect since it's natural to expect explosions from the mansion.

When the player goes underground, Lo Wang's secret base, there is a tree placed near the waterfall that blocks both the view of the exit door and the budha's statue. Even the torches that signal the exit door become hidden by the tree. The tree themselves were placed on a rocky bed that would never allow a tree to grow there. The trees feel out of place because they do not make sense inside a cavern.

Chapter 4. In this part of the level, near the end, there are three seals that need to be broken. Navigating this area is confusing. The red floating lanterns are beautiful and cool and they also highlight the bridges. The problem here is that when the player is on the water level the red lights draw the player's attention to a place where there is nothing and no stairs to go up. The lights serve a purpose when the player is on the bridge and looking down, but they have no purpose when the player is in the water. There is a stair to get out the water but it's hidden in the fog. The red lanterns were clearly placed for artistic reasons, but they end up confusing the player.

Chapter 5. The whole games suffers from this problem. The lights guide the player to the wrong side and highlight things that have no importance at all. The street is where the player has to go but it's dark. At the same time some houses have lanterns that highlight the entrance but the player can't go inside any house. In the next area the player goes through a graveyard and the same thing happens: light that guide the player to a dead end. The game lacks consistency and confuses the player by placing lights where there shouldn't be any or the lights should've been much less bright.

The graveyard has a misleading design. All headstones have space in between one and another that would be wide enough for a player to go. The player could even jump on them. But the player can't walk over or in between the headstones, there is an invisible wall preventing the player from going there. After fighting the sub boss in the area there is a seal that is visible from behind the headstones. The player will naturally go towards the seal and the shortest route is a straight line. However, the player can't walk through the headstones and is forced to go around, following a different path to reach the seal. A fence should have been placed so that the player could clearly see that they can't walk in that space.

Chapter 12. Red light is correct for the purpose of an alarm sign, but in the context of guiding the player, all corridors have the same red light. Where is the player supposed to go? There is nothing to guide the player. Had the red alarm been placed on just one corridor it'd be natural for a player to follow that path. Or maybe not, if the player reads the red lights as a warning sign to not go that way.

There are many ways to solve this problem: block the unwanted paths, breadcrumbs in the form of footprints, ammo, objects that catch the player's eyes, lights, etc.

The older Tomb Raider games employed a camera shift that would focus on some door opening after the player activated some switch or lever. The games were designed around exploration but at the time they didn't care much about landmarks. Most of the time the door that opens is not in the same area that the player is in. The player has to backtrack a long way to a previous area. This is very time consuming and some levels can last up to an hour because all the backtracking and overextending exploration.

Now before criticising the developers of the game, bear in mind that the older Tomb Raider games were made when 3D graphics were in its infancy. Full 3D environments were pretty new and there wasn't as much knowledge about building full 3D worlds as we have today. If you look at the older Tomb Raider levels there was a lot of effort put into each level's theme and atmosphere, but not so much into guiding the player.

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

In this level the player has to follow the guard. There is a "T" junction with a wooden door to the right and another cell's grate's door to the left. Some rats run to the wrong side, the left side. It could be argued that this is wrong but I can't state that without knowing what the developers and designers were thinking. There may be decisions related to storyline and environment in play here. If the player follows the rats the guard shouts "Not that way". In here we don't have the same issues as in Shadow Warrior or Prey because the player is inside a linear corridor and there isn't room to get lost.