Games and Immersion

Well, hello there, dear reader! On this fateful day I will give you my two cents on immersion in video games.

But, first things first, what is this phenomenon called immersion? A dictionary, for the context I and many others are using this word, defines this state as representing a deep mental involvement in an activity. In video games, this feeling can only pop up when the gameplay systems, the graphics and the story, the three pillars supporting this interactive medium, resonate in harmony. In layman terms, immersion is just smoke and mirrors, but needs a good design to work as intended.

After the long-winded definition from above I think it is high time we speak about games. There are genres in which the lack of immersion can lead to disastrous results for the games. An on the nose example of such a genre is the, oh so precious, immersive sim, which has only one objective: to transport the player into the game world and to hook him on the experience, even after finishing the game.

It is important to note that all video game genres feature at least some quantity of immersion (really need to find a new word for this, I am repeating it ad infinitum). This mood I am making this post about can be broken through bugs, which nibble at your suspension of disbelief, reminding you that you are playing a game, not living it, but also through one big sin of game design, which has a pompous name: ludo-narrative dissonance.

When the gameplay and story do not see eye to eye, we get games like Tomb Raider (2013) and its sequel, which paint Lara as a fragile person who, by the skin of her teeth, manages to push on with the remnants of her sanity. Sounds good right? Now, think of the gameplay of these games: third person shooter, brutal takedowns, regenerating health. You can feel the ravine which intervenes between those two pillars, bringing the whole experience down, can't you? This kind of rift is present in a hefty chunk of modern games, where accessibility is a mainstay.

So, we established that there are games which try and fail to bring you into their world, but there are also games which sacrifice player convenience for their stories. One such game is Nier: Automata, which I am yet to fully complete. This very weird game does not feature autosaving for story reasons. When you save your game, at save stations, the characters upload a backup of themselves to an orbital station, effectively meaning that every death is canon for your character. Also, your character has a series of plugin chips, which remain on the body upon death, making you trek back to danger to be able to use them again. Another great inconvenience for the sake of the story is the fact that, at some point, a catastrophe takes place, killing most of the robotic life forms, effectively wiping away side quests. I could go on about the sacrifices of gameplay from this game, but all of them are more than justified in the context of the existential crisis they call a story. I do not agree with most of these decisions, especially the plugin chip loss upon death, but that is the magic of immersion: it is not there to make you feel nice, but to feel what the designers wanted you to feel. Happiness is not the only emotion from the spectrum of the human mind, a fact which should cross the mind of everyone involved in gaming, and any artistic medium for that matter.

All in all, I hope that immersion will be a priority in games in the foreseeable and unforeseeable future, in order to give us unforgettable experiences which we can share with others.

Sources: cover, 1, 2, 3, 4

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