A Special Spark: What Makes a Game Feel Alive
Something I love about video games that I never get to experience in other media is the feeling of existing inside a fictional world. If I read a book or watch a movie, I can look into another world, but games are different. I have an avatar, whether it’s one I customized or a named character, who can move through the world, talk to people, and interact with things. Some games I enjoy because I like the feeling of existing in certain worlds.
Some games have an extra spark to their worlds, a little extra something that makes them feel alive. There’s a sense that this is a place that existed before you arrived and will continue to exist after you leave. That the people inside have their own lives and are doing things that have nothing to do with you. There’s a richness to how the world is constructed and presented, and it takes a lot of work to create.
I’ll talk about a few of the things I think help make a game world feel alive.
What do I mean when I say a game feels alive? A game is a constructed space, and a developer has to make every decision with the player in mind. The player is the center of the universe in this way, the only thing in this space with true agency. The real world isn’t like that, so developers can have a secondary goal of creating an illusion of life. The player is de-centered in a positive way, they still have agency but they don’t feel like the only force at work. If the player does nothing, the world will move on without them. This requires a lot of thought and work by developers, but when done right, it can heighten the stakes of the story and engage the player more deeply.
[caption id="attachment_182818" align="aligncenter" width="640"] V Rising was built from the ground up with the goal of creating a vampire fantasy. This includes everything from gameplay mechanics to UI design to art style.[/caption]
If I had to pick only one thing to point to that makes games feel alive, it would be strong direction. All components of a game are created to be parts of a whole, where there is a strong and unique concept driving the whole development.
V Rising is a game whose parts all come together to create a vampire fantasy. One of my favorite bits is the thought put into the unique weaknesses a vampire has, and sunlight is the big one. The mechanic is simple: when the sun is up and the player stands in its rays, there will be a visual and audio warning for a couple seconds, then the player starts to take significant damage until they move into the shade or die. It's possible to delay the onset of the damage, but no way to mitigate it.
There are several knock-on effects from this: since most bosses are roaming out in the world, you will need to take into account the time of day when you go to fight them. If the sun rises in the middle of a boss fight, especially if their arena doesn't have many shaded spots, the fight will become that much more difficult. It also means that the player behaves very differently depending on the time of day. At night you're free to go wherever you please, you can rob and kill whoever crosses your path. Once the sun comes up, the player becomes a frightened roach, scuttling between shady spots to avoid frying. That said, there are dangers at night too. In an early zone there are werewolves who will be significantly stronger than you when you first arrive, but during the day, they'll be normal villagers. Sunlight means the player is always making risk and reward decisions during their gameplay.
The thought that went into what it would be like as a vampire in this world is what makes this game so much fun. There's the castle fortress the player can build as a base, there's the blood mechanic, shapeshifting, and more. It's what makes that feeling for me, that there are so many parts that all come together beautifully.
[caption id="attachment_182815" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Warframe 's vendors are stationary, but most have unique animations, dialogue, and will comment on events related to their faction.[/caption]
A world is only as alive as the people in it. Yes, the NPCs are literally algorithms programmed to behave a particular way, but there are ways to create the illusion of life. We’ve all played a game where the NPCs stand around in the exact same spot at all times and never say or do anything unless a player is directly speaking to them, and that’s boring.
Warframe does a great job at giving its NPCs that kind of life. The best examples are in the player hubs attached to the open world zones. In Fortuna on Venus, there's a variety of reactions from the inhabitants when the player first shows up. The faction leader, Eudico, is hostile because she fears the player will endanger the people she's responsible for. There's a young man who thinks the player is an opportunity to make money and avoid being 'brain shelved'. There's a vendor named Rude Zuud, and the player quickly learns where she earned the nickname. Ticker is the most friendly of the bunch, but also the character least involved in the events prior to the player's arrival.
In the Necralisk on Deimos, there’s additional story content as you gain ranks in the local faction. All the vendors react differently to story events, reflected through changing dialogue. It’s such a small thing, but it does so much to make them feel more like people than static NPCs. There's even a rare event, earned by playing through specific parts of the most recent update, that briefly returns the story to the Necralisk, which ties two related parts of the story together. It was a reunion I wanted to see for over a year. These characters having relationships with others helps make them feel more like people who exist beyond their job, and less like item dispensers that exist in only one place.
[caption id="attachment_151834" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean is a game I first played as a kid, and it had a big impact on me. It still holds a special place in my heart.[/caption]
There’s always going to be a part of experiencing a video game that’s purely subjective. It’s a creative art form; subjectivity is inevitable. We can talk about craft and technique and what makes a good game, but that isn’t the same as something feeling special or compelling to a person, and that can come from several places. Maybe they played a game at an important time in their life, maybe the story or characters resonated with them, maybe it was a way to create community and make friends.
If a player loves a game, that will imbue it with life all on its own.
I first played Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean as a teenager. I hadn’t played many console games at that time, getting my first, the Gamecube, only a couple of years before. Baten Kaitos was the first time I was sucked into a game and immersed in the world. It presented such a unique aesthetic, fresh gameplay, and a story I found genuinely moving. Playing it was such a formative experience for me, and I know that makes me biased towards it. It will always be a bit special to me because of that; there will be a little more magic in it.
[caption id="attachment_70893" align="aligncenter" width="640"] The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was revolutionary for the size of its world and the sheer amount of stuff inside it.[/caption]
This sense of life isn’t something every game needs, or even wants. The more linear a game is, the harder such a feeling is to create since the player’s ability to interact with it is limited by necessity. This is fine; those games are looking to deliver a different kind of experience, and maybe the artificiality of the situation is part of the fun. Maybe the developers had different priorities, less interested in constructing a world to exist within and more on what the player can do inside it. Genre is a big decider; for example, a racing game probably won't gain much by trying to flesh out its world.
RPGs in particular lend themselves towards this kind of experience; the point is to play a role after all. The player is meant to be a part of a larger setting and decide who they are and what to do with what they're given. Even then, playing a game can be very different from other kinds of roleplay. The feeling of existing inside a living world is something only video games can deliver; that's what makes it a worthwhile idea to explore and examine.
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