Immersion, immersion, immersion. Ever since Half Life it’s been one of the biggest buzzwords the industry can muster- bigger than even “User Created Content”, or “Casual Audience”. It’s what all the kids were raving about, back in the day, and it still hasn’t lost it’s punch: It’s one of the biggest reasons people are complaining about certain perspective-related decisions in the newly-announced Deus Ex 3 right now.
Half Life and it’s sequel are generally held up as the pinacles of immersion, but lately I’ve begun to wonder. Is Immersion really all-important – and does the Half-Life series really deliver the best in the biz?
Well, here’s what I think, anyway.
Right off the bat, let’s make some attempt to define the thing. Immersion, as I see it, is the encroaching sense that nothing but the game exists. You are entirely a part of this game-world, and the player character is YOU. There is no mouse, no keyboard, no controller, no Screen- you are involved to the fullest extent. In a state of true immersion, a phone ringing or someone calling your name will jolt you back in your seat, to look at the outside world with a sense of bewilderment. Where was I? Who am I? Why am I sitting in this chair, again? You might take a while to re-acclimatise back to the real world.
Immersion is generally considered one of the most base-line important things of a game because it’s the go-to method for making a setting and bunch of characters feel real. The moment you stop being immersed and start seeing the screen, you’ve lost an emotional connection to the NPC’s and background art of the game- and seeing as the impression of human emotions and a living world is only ever smoke-and-mirrors, it can be very hard to get back. The more they see AI routines and game-rules, the less they see the human characters and world you’re trying to build.
Every game has a different way of trying to create this immersion. Half Life and it’s successors, for instance, attempt to take away any indication that you are playing a game- putting you in first person, making the HUD as unintrusive as possible, and taking away most of the “Game-ish” elements (Although oddly enough, they still feature plenty of crates and exploding barrels). Metro 2033 is one of the most recent examples. Ico, interestingly, takes this approach in to third person, to great effect.The Guitar-Hero peripheral stuff also attempts this in a different way, I believe, connecting you to the game through a real-world implement. I hereby dub it: Immersion through Realism. Attempting to make you think the game world and it’s denizens are completely real, the TV merely a crystal-ball through which you can view them.
The other way is an anti Half-Life approach that I feel can be underated in comparison. It’s based around building up the world, and the player’s connection to the world, as much as possible. They might put readable books or emails everywhere, and recruit vast numbers of conversable NPCs to make a strong, consistent setting. They often let the player role-play as the protagonist to strengthen your relation to them, even if it’s obvious it’s just an in-game avatar. By making their worlds seem full and real, games like this (Mostly RPG’s, of course) attempt to immerse you in the same way that Lord of the Rings does as a book. Almost all western RPG’s, Deus Ex, etc etc. Dub two: Immersion through Escapism. Attempting to make a deep, intricate, escapist pool of a world that you can just fall into and never leave.
Out of these two approaches, it’s the first that’s brought up whenever Immersion is discussed. And really, I’m not sure if I buy it anymore.
The problem with the Half-life thing, I feel, is the attempt to try and make you feel like you ARE your character is always going to fall flat. Any attempt to remove gameplay elements from the world is going to be foiled as soon as you see a loading screen, or have to restart your game -Half life 2 in particular had it’s strong attempts at immersion completely thrashed by the regular freeze-frame loading screens. Any attempt to make you feel like you ARE Gordon Freeman sort of falls to bits when everyone is addressing you as Gordon Freeman, and talking about all the amazing times they had with Gordon back at black mesa. It’s obvious that you are not gordon, and that you haven’t actually seen these people before in your life. Presumably Gordon has. Pity he can’t talk, then, eh?
Really, it’s the second approach that I relate to best. World building drags me in far more effectively than sticking the HUD on the Player-Characters Backside. But then, the Immersion debate really trails on forever.
Well. I’ll end this by saying that, out of all the games I’ve ever played – the Silent Hills, the Ico’s, the Half-Life’s, The RPGs and the FPS’s and the what-have-you and the so-forth, the one game that immersed me the most I’ve ever really seen in a story-oriented game was a tiny, barely-played game from russia. You may have heard of it: It’s called The Void.
How does it accomplish it’s superhuman feat of immersion? Well, quite simply. It makes your character you.
I don’t mean it makes your character change depend on how you act, or that it has roleplaying options, or that it tries to make you emphasise with your avatar: I mean that, quite simply, your avatar is you. That’s it. Your “character”, the story explains, is a lone, transparent spirit who has wondered into the afterlife, and if there’s a better explanation for a transparent player-avatar I’ve yet to see it. He has no character- he doesn’t really exist. You never hear from him, interacting with the world doesn’t involve him, and the other characters don’t talk to him- they talk to YOU. There is no barrier between you and the world but him, and he is merely the invisible screen of your moniter.
And that, I believe, is true immersion.
-Jack McNamee
As much I don’t know if immersion is always my personal goal regard to enjoying games, I must say that The Void looks beautiful and I am having a moral crisis on whether to purchase that or Metro 2033 first.
The Void won. I could probably find Metro 2033 when I’m in Melbourne and not need to pay the epic postage.
Dude, when are you in Melbourne? We totally need to see each other from across the street and exchange knowing glances.
On the subject of immersion, I really want to discuss Metro 2033, but I’ll probably spoil something if I rattle off ideas here.
Oh, and I believe you can pick up Metro 2033 in the EB sale for $50; I got the special edition for $50 last week, and what do you know, I’m using it for an assignment on suspension of disbelief and narrative dilivery technique.
I think that immersion is only one facet of a greater appreciation of gaming as an artform, or even just as appreciating gaming as a piece of entertainment.
A book can be as immersive as a film. To me, games should be primarily about:
1) Interactivity – any minute in which you are not playing is a minute when you aren’t having fun. Metal Gear Solid wins the Golden Turd award in this category.
2) Addictiveness – I find story-heavy games to be one-time-only events. But if a game can compel the player to play and replay (perhaps to earn awesome stuff a la Resident Evil 2), then it’s onto a winner. Games that encourage replay enourage players to properly explore the gameworld and gain a greater appreciation of the game.
Oh, and if you want a game where you play as a total blank slate, give Maestro a go – http://tubular.net/
It’s on the brown bar on the right-hand side.
Immersion is always an interesting topic, and of the two given, escapism is the one that I feel works best. The ability to create a whole world, and suck us into it is the dream of many writers and game designers alike.
Books, like Lord of the Rings, as mentioned, compel the reader to almost live in the book, until they aren’t turning pages, but living a story. Games can achieve the same result, but, in my opinion, it is much harder. A World written by the Author can be described in minute detail, words taking place of the senses, whereas a Game directly interacts with two of the senses, but often leaves out, or poorly attempts to describe how the other three senses react to the world.
In addition, as mentioned by Jack McNamee, a game is plagued by Loading screens, game crashes and even the ability to save and reload a game can quite easily remove you from living in it. The only way to counter this, is the same way that books counter the daily needs of readers, by making their world so engrossing, that the audience hurries to come back, waits impatiently during the times without their dose of escapism, and in the end will once again gladly jump back into the story, regardless of what happens in real life.
On the other hand, I think Mr. McNamee has missed a certain type of immersion, and I think one that is often overlooked. Of course, I could be completely wrong, and the reason why Jack here didn’t talk about it is because it ain’t immersion, but I have a go at it;
Another type is where the user is caught by the challenge of the game. This can be experienced in almost all games, but there is still a right way of doing it.
For example, a simple RTS game, pick one at random. Most RTS games don’t appeal to users due to their believable, escapism world, or their ability to make you think that Mr. Insert your Name is in the game. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone say that they really thought that they were that poor person on the left flank about to be shot to pieces by the opponents super weapon. I guess the anomaly though, is that I have heard of people constantly fighting over a certain stretch of land, not because its worth anything, but because of some emotional attachment. Again, I’ve heard of people refusing to ally with certain races in games, simply because they absolutely hated them last game they thrashed them. I guess that is a form of escapism.
But, the real catch of RTS games, is the ability to challenge the player. To suck the player into the game, until all they think about is how they can possibly overthrow that Empire without getting thrashed by their more extensive military, or who to ally with, and how to achieve that goal, or how to respond to that situation. A player can quite easily become immersed in the game, simply trying to beat it. On the other hand, if a player beats the game too easily, they walk away, or if they can’t beat the game, they still walk away. A well designed game will wait until the player almost manages to beat a challenge, before throwing another complication at them, and forcing them onto greater mental problems.
Of course, this isn’t only for RTS games, this was the concept that most old platformer games worked on. Many Role Playing Games also try to challenge the player, A First Person Shooter will try and push the player to their limits, putting them in more and more complex situations. There are many good games out there that don’t rely on a complex world, or connection with the game itself. So, I think there are more ways of immersing a player.
OH WHY DIDN’T I CHECK THIS THREAD BEFORE I LEFT. Somehow I thought you are based in New South Wales or Queensland. Hmmm. Come to think about it I live so close to Melbourne I should go there more often, every time I’m there I felt so much more alive.
Pity that Metro 2033 was uber expensive when I was there, at $94.00 preowned. So off to eBay for a copy now. Out of the bits I’ve read about it, very little may I add fear of spoilers, I can safely guess that it’s a game that has my heart scribbled all over it.
Actually, I live in Queensland, I was just down on holiday. It was cold, however the Tim Burton exhibition was excellent.
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