Mage hand is the kind of spell that is incredibly useful and dynamic in actual ttrpgs, and incredibly difficult to design around in a video game.

A GM is going to consider the distance and weight limits of the spell, and determine of it makes sense of not. If you stole The One Ring from Frodo, for example, the GM can pivot and make the world react to that.

The video game has to program all possible uses of the spell while also trying to keep a prewritten story on track. If you steal The One Ring from frodo, the game would have to reinvent the plot dynamically, which isn’t really possible. The end result is that they have to severely limit the uses of Mage Hand.

Because Mage Hand is so potentially chaotic, it can’t be as useful as it would seem. The same would go for the spells Fly and Invisibility. Imagine the Black Gate of Mordor. If there was a level 6 wizard, they could use fly + invisibility to get everyone safely over the wall. Now, sure, it would take a while waiting for spell slots, but this is supposed to be the most fortified pass in the entire world. Even GMs have problems with this. Suddenly every remotely secure area needs a mage on staff detecting intruders, or permanent enchantments. At that point, Fly might as well not exist.

Edit: I forgot that fly and invisibility both require concentration. Oops. Still, now you only need a level 6 mage and a level 4 mage, which is still pretty easy to pull off.

I came here to recommend Outer Wilds too

Bethesda games have always been incredibly shallow. How is there anyone that doesn’t see this?

I’ll die before I install Facebook Messenger

i is for index. j is simply the next letter and we’re too lazy to think up something meaningful

Consider the opposite. Every single person on the planet making 10 posts per day. It would be like Facebook on super meth.

You don’t let pedophiles babysit your kids, and you don’t let Facebook federate with your social network.

The same reason that a lot of crosswalks have fake buttons. So you feel like you have control.