In the first few Assassin’s Creed games, they did use the idea of a Puppeteer system for the control scheme, although it wasn’t physics-based or anywhere near as hard as QWOP. Each of the controllers face buttons performed actions associated with each limb, and the right trigger would swap between low profile actions and high profile actions.

In the top right of the screen, there was always a UI element showing what the buttons did at that moment in that context, which might’ve been why you thought it was a QWOP style system. It’s not exactly what you were thinking of at the time, but you were closer than you realise.

Lemme get uhhh… B O N E L E S S C A T

It’s more complicated than anger for me. There’s the disappointment that they’ve sunk so far, worry that other programs that I use could follow, but also some relief that I switched when I did.

That’s a lot fairer and makes a lot more sense than what I was imagining. Although I’m still a little wary of the devs designing a purposefully limited time-intensive system, and the publishers then dangling a paid solution in front of players. Even when it’s just a part of the solution.

From my understanding, the game doesn’t lack fast travel, the resources for it are just incredibly rare unless you use micro-transactions.