Until now. As of November 27th, Namco’s exclusive patent rights are finally up; thus allowing every other game publisher to encourage mini-game loading screens in future titles by developers.

Mini-game played during Onechanbara load screen

Gone are the days of static load screens, flavor text, or quirky animations. Can you imagine a Fallout 4 loading screen that doesn’t contain rotating 3D-models and pointless lore text but rather a cool mini-game? Developers now have the freedom to make creative loading screens any way they choose. Unless you’re a PC Gamer with an SSD, then you probably haven’t seen a loading screen in quite some time…

What do you guys think of Namco losing its rights to mini-games in loading screens? Sound off on the comments below.

Namco s mini game loading screen patent is up - 82Namco s mini game loading screen patent is up - 92