Yes they are but this is a launch title that was long in production on other consoles before it was decided they’d port it over. Besides some games lend themselves to the gamepad, some don’t. I think the only other things they could really do with this game is rubbish gimmicky mini games or something. ZombiU is a game by the same company that was made with the gamepad in mind. Still I think having the map there at all times will help you navigate the frontier and make sure you don’t sail into a small bit of land when you’re at sea. Plus having your whole inventory at the click of a button is going to make for some awesome combos instead of having to cycle through them until you find what you want like on the other consoles, in fact being able to do that means you can use your imagination more to think up new combo kills so in a way it is actually awesome.