What Does "Immersion" Actually Mean?
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- Опубліковано 31 січ 2021
- Support the channel on patreon!: / architectofgames
Follow me on Twitter!: / thefearalcarrot
For decades video game discourse has been dominated by a single word, one with no clear meaning but a whole lot of promises to deliver: Immersion. As much as we love to use the word immersion to describe gripping experiences that draw us into fantasy worlds - it's becoming harder and harder to define what, if anything, immersion actually means.
So, what is the deal with immersion? That's something The Architect has been pondering for Eons and it's about time we got some answers. It took diving to the deepest oceans and getting stuck into far-flung worlds, but The Architect has got a few ideas about what immersion actually means to us gamers, and how understanding it can improve the way we talk about our favorite games.
Check out the Snoman Archive: / @snomangameplay
You Saw:
Abzu - 2016
Cyberpunk 2077 - 2077
The Last of Us 2 - 2020
Red Dead Redemption 2- 2018
Bioshock - 2007
Bubsy 3D - 1996
Far cry 5 - 2018
Jumanji - 1995
Resident Evil 8 - Not Released Yet
Assassin's Creed Odyssey - 2018
Death Stranding - 2019
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim - 2011
Papers Please - 2013
Metroid Prime - 2002
Dishonored 2 - 2016
In Other Waters - 2020
No Man's Sky - pffffffff
Deep Rock Galactic
Hitman 3 - 2021
Shadow of Mordor - 2014
Shadow of War - 2017
Prey - 2017
Superliminal - 2019
Breath of the Wild - 2017
What Remains of Edith Finch - 2017
Deus Ex: Human Revolution - 2011
Deus Ex - 2000
Dishonored - 2012
System Shock 2 - 1999
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided - 2016
Antichamber - 2013
Monster Hunter World - 2017
Hades - 2020
Divinity: Original Sin 2 - 2018
Rimworld - 2016
Animal Crossing: New Horizons - 2020
Paradise Killer - 2020
Heaven's Vault - 2019
Disco Elysium - 2019
Yoshi's Island - 1995
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - 2006
Resident Evil 4 - 2005
Mass Effect 3 - 2012
God of War -2018
The Last of Us - 2013
Fallout: New Vegas
Dead Space - 2008
Metro 2033 - 2010
F-Zero GX - 2003
Apex Legends - 2019
Descenders - 2019
DOOM Eternal - 2020
Crusader Kings 3 - 2020
Rise of Industry - 2018
Sid Meir's Civilization 6 - 2016
Factorio - 2020
Satisfactory - Early Access
Subanutica - 2018
Her Story - 2015
Hypnospace Outlaw - 2019
New Super Mario Bros U - 2012
NERTS - 2021 - Ігри
Want to get immersed in the experience of giving me money? Try Patreon! It's so realistic you could swear you were really there!!: www.patreon.com/ArchitectofGames
Twitter on the other hand is a little too immersive, I don't want to feel anything like it ever again: twitter.com/Thefearalcarrot
Found a problem, I was actually in a video game (in vr)
((Troll face))
also, have you heard about the spiffing brit community tab exploit? please use it into forcing youtube fix the issue. anyway thank you for your work on the topic of video games
Hey just letting you know the link to the Snoman archive is currently broken
@@tennistwig it's working for me!
Okay now that the microtransactions are gone I will FIGHT you on your "eh" Shadow of War. It improves on pretty much EVERYTHING. Anything Shadow of Mordor did "good" Shadow of War did "great". (Love your videos by the way)
"If a game looks gorgeous, is polished to a mirror shine and is built on a foundation of dead developers then we are told that it's immersive and that that's a good thing." ooof starting off strong I see.
"It really FEELS like you are exploiting your employees! 10/10 IGN"
Always start the year as you mean to go on.
Starting off strong is the only acceptable way
Gotta call out those rotten game companies somehow lmao
Love the subtle emphasis on
“Most” people want to protect children
ew kids
Meanwhile there's me installing mods in Skyrim to allow kids to be killed. There can be no invincible witnesses.
@@jakeread9668 meanwhile there's me installing 450 mods on Skyrim SE taking months and getting my save corrupted after 80hrs and uninstalling and can't stop thinking of installing it again so I can mod it for 450 mods play more 80 hrs and get my save corrupted again just so I can uninstall it again and after a while wish to reinstall it again and restart the suffering loop.
fuck the rules that prevent us from hurting children in games, thats just stupid.
its the same people who think playing gta gonna make you go rob banks in real life, so stupid
killable children mods... activate!
"At no point has anyone immersed in a video game ever thought that they were actually inside it." Tell that to everyone who has lost themselves in VR enough to try to lean on a table. It doesn't end well.
or has hit their hands on thier glass table, or his head on the floor
@@ophilia or, if your tall or have a short ceiling, accidentally hit your $150 controller against the ceiling fan.
@@tiddlez3948 smashed through a glass light fixture thing and sliced my hand up. Still have a semicolon carved into my hand
Never happened to me funnily enough, had a vr headset for years, just physically can't get that immersed
@@dragonicbladex7574 maybe you just have great spacial awareness
"As much as I wish that could be the case"
Shows RE8 lady.
Man's just saying what we were all thinking (Plus darn you for beating me to this comment)
@@paula194 Yeah, I wanted to say that lol
*Lady Dimitrescu
literally, as i saw that, i made the connection and immediately went to see if anyone said what was on my mind, and here it is.
Adam has some goddamn taste.
"Built on a foundation of dead developers"
[AAA studio executive disliked that]
“Immersion is subjective” I actually really liked the weapon degradation in BotW. As SuperButterBuns put it: “your weapons break every five steps but you find a new one every three”. And since I am the kind of gamer who Must Collect All The Things, I never really ran out of weapons (except this one time but that was entirely my fault, pro tip: don’t try to tackle a major test of strength shrine until after you’ve figured out how to fight guardians). So the weapons breaking just meant that I had to figure out how to fight using weapons and strategies that I probably wouldn’t have normally used otherwise. I really liked it.
Plus there's the fact that unlike Dark Cloud or Fire emblem where its just gone when it breaks in BotW it *explodes* in the enemies face which can be hilarious.
The big fascinating implication of much of this video is that immersion, systemic immersion at least, requires a bunch of friction; so the game making things harder for you so that you have to keep being involved and planning new approaches all the time. This notion of a necessary brokenness goes against all those widely accepted "user centered frictionless snackfood fun" type design ideologies. And the brokenness that people are willing to tolerate, or which a game is able to make palatable for a player, is indeed a very subjective thing.
For my part, I tend to go with whatever broken systems any game pushes on me, as long as it seems meaningful to the plot, drama, themes or worldbuilding that that game's going for. I just might not finish some games more than once, or just skip out on half of that game, if it's too crunchy to get through and I've already seen most of what the thing's going to tell me. Very few games get more meaningful from a full longterm investment in them, I think, and I like deciding for myself when to disengage.
I think the real issue with the weapon degradation wasn't in it's existence but how irritating it was in it's implementation. Oh cool nice sword, two fights later sword breaks, grabs other sword, two fights later broken again, over and over and over and over. It made it feel like a chore to constantly have to load up Link's bag with weapons because apparently in Hyrule they make swords out of paper mache. It also had the side effect of causing me to actively avoid combat a lot of the time just so I didn't have to use up my weapons supply and then need to gather more and if I found a really cool weapon rather than equipping and enjoying it I'm tucking it away because I may need it later. I feel like if they'd slowed things down a bit it would have worked better. Let weapons last longer, let the player have more time to enjoy the weapon before it breaks and they are forced to switch, don't make it feel like the player is being punished with busy work because they choose to fight enemies. They don't need to ditch the whole system just adjust it to be more of a mechanic to intermittently interact with and keep an eye on rather than a constant annoyance.
The weapon degradation initially put me off of the game, but it actually gave me a reason to use all the weapons I would pick up and inevitably not use. It could be a bit annoying, but I think it ultimately made for a better experience by forcing you to learn how to most effectively fight the enemies.
This is a great point! I'm not sure realism is the primary reason BotW uses weapon degradation. Like you alluded to, I think that feature exists to force you into making choices-- small, surprisingly important choices-- over and over again. And in a systemic game like BotW, it leads to a lot of surprises and sudden reversals!
-Stephen
Nothing has immersed me more than Outer Wilds. No action, no voice acting - just music, sound design, and a brilliant giant galaxy sized puzzle. With all that in mind, the fact that I empathized with every character so heavily just goes to show how incredibly creative that game is and I wish more people could play it - if you’re thinking about it, buy it now!
Definitely the most immersive game I’ve played
Interestingly, the retro-lofi colonialist-trapper aesthetic of that game clashed with its hifi NASA spectacle and its simulational/cryptographic complexity, for me, in a way that constantly pushed me out of the game whenever I ran into characters, trees or the oldtimey country music. Definitely one of the most involving physics-driven clockworks and scifi epics to get lost in and think through, though, I agree. Immersion is subjective!
If you haven't check out firewatch
@@michelottens6083 interesting, I never even noticed any clashing of aesthetic, thank you for your take! I can see how it could be very subjective
To me Outer Wilds started off pretty well but i became lost around the mid game with no clear objective and no indication of what to do next, which broke immersion really badly for me and i ended up just looking up the endings on UA-cam just to try and get some closure.
So yeah, that game is no more than a 5/10 for me and it's all very subjective.
Ya'll aren't appreciating how he time the ''at no point has anyone who's been immersed in a videogame ever been inside it. As much as I wish that could be the case.'' with Lady Dimitrescu from the new RE8 appearing on screen.
Sly fox that he is... Always trying to sneak something past us.
That was the joke. What are we supposed to do?
Chappelle's audience laughs. They dont run on stage and point out that he made a funny.
Who discusses an obvious joke
@@phant0mdummy chill bro
Fair
@@phant0mdummy I’m gonna be honest, obviously I don’t know you but you don’t seem very happy. Take a break from the internet and work on yourself.
Immersion - The action of immersing someone or something in a liquid.
Boom, debate over you're welcome
Facts and logic amirite
*jaunty tavern music*
Now this just brings it back to the baptism debate of immersion vs sprinkling.
So it comes down to sex?
As almost all things do :p
they changed the dictionary again
I was gonna joke about how only swimming simulators like Abzu and Subnautica count as immersive, but you literally opened the video with Abzu. So, well-played.
(Also, In Other Waters is great and more people should play it.)
^
Ah yes, submersive sims :p
I think of immersion as similar to a "flow state". So when a game strikes a balance between skill required & the mechanics being satisfying it sucks my attention in to a lull state and blocks out all else. Contrived story beats, obtuse controls, confusing mechanics, frustrating puzzles, or not being able to do what you think you should be able to are all ways to break that flow, which I think is why "immersive sims" work. They know how to give you a set of satisfying mechanics, and a playground to use them in, and hopefully the freedom to use them in unexpected ways.
I generally see 3 distinct things called Immersion:
1) forgetting - however briefly - that you are in a game and/or having the line between the game and world breaking. This happens tons with VR and you know it happened because you're now worried your hand/controller is broken because you just smashed it into the floor, wall or ceiling. If you hadn't forgotten the world existed outside the VR space at all, there is no way you would have smashed your face into the floor like that. Obviously your face can't go lower than where your body is resting on the ground, obviously. Obvious--smash.
2) having the sense that the interfaces you are using to engage with a game are melting away. If you've been driving a car for years, often you don't think about the car's operation literally anymore. You just drive - when you stop you are stopping - you aren't pushing down on the brake pedal. It is automatic.
3) finding something about the game - usually the narrative, graphics, game play or all of them - so engaging that you _want_ to be inside the world. You don't ever feel as if you are, but you are so obsessed with it that you want to be inside that world. In your video you really only talked about this one. You categorized some experiences under it that I would have put in the other two, but I don't think you were considering them this way.
You did a great job of describing the third kind, so I'll break down the first two more here.
1) Is probably better called "Sensory Immersion" and I think is the only category that deserves the title. In your video you said it doesn't exist, but I have a cracked Oculus Quest faceplate that proves you wrong. It is very rare in non-vr games after childhood. This is why adult game reviewers and analysts forget it exists. When I was young, I would get immersed in this way in certain games. Ocarina of Time, Ultima Online, various Final Fantasies; these were all games that I got so immersed into that my memories of them are essentially first person. I would "hang out" with Saria. I was pretty lonely as a kid, so this felt real to me in a way that I just simply don't experience anymore and have not since being a kid with an overactive imagination. Imagine an invisible friend type situation, that's what this was and that's what happens for a lot of kids playing certain games. As VR becomes more and more convincing - and if we ever get holodeck or Matrix style interfaces - this will become more and more commonplace but it is always present to some degree even with non-vr games.
2) Is better called "Cyberization" which is when you merge with a machine in a way in which the interface through which you are literally communicating with that machine vanishes. In other words, becoming a cyborg. And in this case I am using the broader scientific definition of cyborg. When you drive your car as I described above you are a cyborg. When you write using a pen, you are a cyborg. When you use a spoon, you're a cyborg. You know that sensation you have holding a spoon where you can feel the cereal even though the actual forces the cereal are imparting are small and you don't actually have nerves in your spoon? Well that's also actually how all of your senses work and how you feel with fingers too. You just have lived with the fingers longer and have sensors closer to the places they are being used. You had to learn to feel things with your hands. You had to learn what the signals meant to understand roughness and slipperiness. You can also feel those things through a pen or a spoon. Pick one up and try it. This is called cyberization. We tend to think of it in terms of an artificial limb or brain interface, but it has been with us forever. When you play a game you love and have put enough time into - or if the game was well designed enough to leverage existing patterns or uses a novel one that maps well onto what we cyberize well - the game can become second nature to us. We stop thinking about what buttons we need to press and when, and start utilizing it "through muscle memory" which is another word for cyberization. When we do this with a game, the game's interfaces vanish and we stop being full conscious of them and this can make us feel like the game's interfaces are extensions of our body, and that in turn leads us to more closely experience things in the game. A really cool example of this is the body language of Minecraft. One of the key elements Minecraft has in its multiplayer is gaze tracking. Since you can see what people are looking at, the minecraft avatars around you stop feeling like blocky avatars and start feeling real and when you are yourself one you tend to crouch and punch and otherwise gesticulate like you would in real life. Entirely naturally, a kind of body language has evolved. Watch some Minecraft UA-camrs, which use the other key thing they added that made Minecraft as big as it became - the face-on 3rd person camera. Watch how they move. If you play a lot of Minecraft or watch a lot of UA-cam Minecrafters you can turn the sound off and have a pretty good idea of what they are saying anyway. Just like real world body language, and for the most part it is entirely subconscious.
3) You explained this well. However, I wouldn't call this immersion. What you're describing is no different than how I feel when I am watching a really good movie. I would call this "Qualitative Engagement". Or possibly just "Engagement", but then it really should be broken down more because...
All of these things, though, are largely hampered by the same flaws. Bugs, slow downs, bad _things_, unexpected unpleasantries, annoyance. Anything that "brings you out of the game" will harm all of these things. They are all related in that they all are kinds of engagement. When you are engaged with something the world around that thing fades out. We all have memories of when we've experienced something we'd call immersive in a game, but we've had a lot of trouble nailing down just what this word means. It is too broad as it is used now as it basically just means engaged. And engagement really should be the minimum a game has to offer. And saying "really engaging" just sounds lame.
On point 3, my biggest thing is that wanting to be within a world, and experiencing said world are different...I can be immersed in the Warhammer 40k universe but fuck no do I want to be in it.
Immersion comes with an internal consistency that allows the 'experiencing' party to imbed themselves within the creation. Rather than a 'desire' to do so. I know this is a bit light in regards to your point, but for the most part you are on the right track :)
This^ all of this.
Well put
trihard, lmao
When used with "Immersive sims" though, it usually means that the game's systemic interactions are internally consistent
I think the best game to use as an example of mechanical immersion is Far Cry 2. That same strength is its weakness and that's why people either love it or hate it.
I still play it daily
Issue is that it didn't commit. Weapons breaking every 5 mins or weirdly recovering after a pill isn't realistic. You are left with an interesting concept and executed in a way that's just annoying without the benefit of it feeling "genuine".
@@Sarackosmo Still better than far cry 3 where deranged groups of 100 pirates charge you like a Japanese BANZAI
@@Sarackosmo maybe try having good quality guns instead of grabbing the ones on the ground. I played FC2 on the hardest difficulty back to back and my guns broke maybe twice the whole playthrough. Don’t mistake bad design with being bad at the game.
Cluster truck
For me immersion is about creating a mood, forgetting the outside world and feeling time passing differently while playing !
I think thats more flow than immersion
I definitely agree! Thats part of flow state and immersion
@@dudep504 It's a hard line to define. A lot that explains immersion comes from the flow state.
I agree, I don't feel immersed in a game unless I get up to go pee and realize its been 4 hours and I feel like I just hopped on my computer 10 minutes ago
Factori and Rimworld where 8hrs feel like 30 minutes
This is a good starting point as a definition for immersion.
However, I'd argue that one has to look at the game as a whole to fully understand what can cause one to feel immersed in it. Or the other way around: It is not entirely possible to seperate the contributing factors into strict categories like this since they might belong to different categories. Take the NPCs telling stories not related to the main narrative. Is this now narrative or spacial immersion? The answer is: It's both.
For me, a game is immersive if it's various parts are coherent and support each other. Having great mechanics alone usually does not make a game immersive by itself; it's the combination of mechanics, narrative, setting, characters, world design, etc.
So I'd say taking a look at the "immersion factors" from the three points of view mentioned here is a good starting point. However, I believe the key part is understanding how these findings are interconnected with other features of the game to form a coherent experience.
I don't think he was implying that these categories can't be mixed, there are definitely obvious examples of things that fall into more than one
@@julianxamo7835 Indeed. It wasn't my intention to imply this.
Honestly, I feel like "Meta Immersion Resonance" would be the perfect way to describe that
What does “world design” mean? Is it lore, or visual design?
@@legendarytat8278 I would say it's how the environment in which you are playing talks to you, the player. So it has to do, of course, with its visuals and topography, and how the other elements (such as npcs or animals + the context in which the world is set) interact with said world
Immersion is the game's ability to trick our brain into thinking that a bunch of computer generated graphics, generated asserts, pre-recorded voice lines, and mathematic systems, is not that, but in fact a separate world, that responds to the actions of our character, just like the real world does to ours. Its the veil on the game, that let's us imagine that there is more.
good observation, but im gonna present a counter argument
immersion has always been a thing in all history. ancient people always re tell the great stories of their heroes and the masses are immersed to the story being told. but here is what i think: at no point in ancient peoples immersion and our modern peoples immersion, has the legitibility of the story matters. the great heroes might as well was the real people who fought their battle, but there is no evidence of that, or should i say they dont need evidence to be told. there are great heroes stories that might as well be fake, but it does not matter in the way people are immersed.
so i think immersion is the ability of a media to absorb us through our emotions. it has nothing to do with it being fake or real, its just about our ability to empathize or projecting
@@hizand.5346 Yes, but we only feel emotions towards things that feel "alive" (Not the best word, but you know what I mean). You don't empathize with a beer bottle. Making you feel those emotions is the *goal* of immersion, but not immersion itself. That is the process of painting a world and characters that feel "alive", so we can start to empathize with them.
That perfectly describes it for me. Moreover, it also explains why I hate adding mods to games. I don't want to see what makes them tick, it ruins the magic
When I played half-life: alyx, vrchat and Walking Dead: Saint's and Sinners, there were points I actually felt I was inside of it. Specially Alyx and WDSS, for both of these I also had dreams the night after I spent hrs playing, I had memories like I was inside and when thinking of how to get through a hard part my memories were vivid. I realized when I think of regular games, my brain usually pictures them on some sort of screen like a rectangle. Not these games.
Thats cool and freaky at the same time
I've seen this discussed once before. The privilege of not having had VR until recent years means that our brains still take VR quite seriously like how the first movie audience did when they panicked at the train approaching the camara. At least for us and maybe just for now, VR games seem to have an advantage in achieving immersiveness
The rectangular and not rectangular mental imagery is also mentioned.
My first time playing TWD Saints and Sinners, I crouched down behind a car to not get spotted, and afterwards I instinctively tried grabbing the car to hoist myself back up IRL, which sent me stumbling into my couch.
@@derekeidum1307 You got immersed in being a blindfolded hallucinating person, trying to navigate your own living room.
@@michelottens6083 Lol thats an apt description of VR
I could not believe how enthralled I was playing In other waters. It's just a fuckin map, but I was hooked till the end
Fallout 3 was the first real time that I felt the barrier between really life and fiction get thinner. I was the lone wanderer every time I played that game. I spent hours exploring and trying to survive the wasteland.
ah yeah, I remember the first time I went into the metro and encountered a bunch of feral ghouls... I had never felt fear in a videogame up until that point
I rushed the story line, but it actually felt like my character had an organic arc throughout it.
"Immersive" is basically the new form of "addictive" for the PR people who've figured out it was an awful quality to advertise the whole time.
The cursed word immersion
Sounds like it should be replaced with the word engaging
immersive game is engaging, engaging game doesn't need to be immersive. I think at least xD
@@ramsoofkyo9047 An immersive game doesn't have to be engaging either. You could have something that is completely immersive, yet it doesn't engage you at all.
@@penttikoivuniemi2146 if game isn't engaging, then you don't play it >
@@ramsoofkyo9047 Practically yeah. Still possible.
I would say that many people by immersive do not mean believability, realism or simulation.
It's more about the moment when only the game counts. Things that can be described as "the zone", "inside the flow", "focus"...
It's that moment when time goes by faster and you don't have all your problems, troubles and worries in your head anymore.
This focus state is caused more often and longer in an Engaging game. You are not sucked into the game like an illusion. Rather, the game manages to unlock such a great self-worth that it supersedes everything else at that moment.
I think that's what people mean by immersive.
"no matter where i go, i always see his face"
*"Immersive"*
Imo a very good example of recovering the immersion is in Outer Wilds. The first thing you see after each reset is the orbital probe cannon firing. It bugged me the entire time that it fires in a different direction each time loop. That's not how time loops are supposed to work, right? So i started investigating and after finding the probe tracking module and the purpose of the orbital cannon everything makes not only sense, actually it would not make any sense when it would fire in the same direction every time.
I think all that was most likely done on purpose by the game designers to make you explore the cannon, so ... well played Mobius.
one time i was playing a game for so long, that when someone came up to me from behind irl, i turned around in game, lol
There have been two games lately that have had me feeling especially spatially immersed; one positively, one negatively. I often play Minecraft just to wind down and relax -- I explore and map a new area, for example. And despite Minecraft having no realism worth speaking of, I do feel like I am inside of it in a way. I scoff at people who talk about the "ugly graphics" as if Minecraft were defective when compared to a more photorealistic game. I actually feel that spatial immersion is easily broken by uncanny valley effects of rendering that distorts textures, and I personally find it easier to feel spatially connected with a much more stylized world; realism is absolutely not required to feel immersed. In Minecraft I build waterfalls and ride them down into a river, and rollercoasters that cover mountain ranges, and long, winding tracks that I can travel with a horse or a llama caravan to catch the best views -- I do things I can't easily do in real life, but wish I could.
The negative one is -- very unfortunately -- The Long Dark (aptly named in every which way). It's a beautiful game, and it's precisely the kind of survival game I like. But the atmosphere is so well rendered (if stylized) and so pervasive that I feel constantly cold and depressed in it, and so I play it very rarely despite really enjoying the actual gameplay. I wish Hinterland gave us seasons, *sigh*.
My dad has been trying VR recently, and we’ve both been playing No Man’s Sky together (him in VR, me on PS5) - the surprising part is when we found an abandoned freighter in space that we could explore for incredibly valuable loot.
I showed him the coordinates and told him how it worked and what the rewards might be if we explored, but there were alien eggs and nests that would hatch if you got too close. He absolutely refused to explore the ship, not because he was scared, but because he was worried if he explored the ship and he died, then his immersion would be ruined, even if he didn’t lose much of his inventory.
This really surprised me, but I figured it was a testament to the power of VR!
There is nothing more immersive than expensive horse balls
as an expensive horse ball can confirm
I know some folks that can get fully immersed on horse tests.
Immesion is when you look at the window and be like: is that the sun? 😯
ngl, this video is kinda immersive, but it could use more immersion 7/10
(jk, love the vid x)
So interesting to see you and Mark from Game Maker's Toolkit coincidentally discussing the same system in Shadow of Mordor, and seeing how your opinions are based on the same aspects of the system -- i.e. Mark sees the procedurally generated narrative as an immense strength and you see it as a huge disappointment.
So cool to see your ideas in conversation with one-another, especially since you included a GMTK thumbnail in this video!
I think the crux is the feeling that you "see" the cogs that run the generation. Life has this blurred set of notions that you use to approximate what your future interactions will be, but when you see the cogs, unlike in real life, you will know what you'll get. So it works, until you truly "get" how it works.
Haven't played the games, but looking at the footage I can see why. The way the game highlights the things that happen to the npc's feel very gamey as they present them to the player. Like they are just a set of variables put there to fit in some sort of mold.
I think one of the most important parts of "immersion" is presenting the game in a manner where the player does not see or know where it's edges lie. To have things happen in a game that you don't know if they were scripted or random. To have the edges of maps not deductible from maps and vistas in the game. Things like that.
This reminds me of the discussion about Cyberpunk going for 1st person instead of 3rd person camera. People continuously defended the 1st person choice, because "1st person is more immersive".... as if it's some kind of inescapable truth of the universe or something.
But I'm glad this video gives the term some nuance. That there are multiple forms of immersion and that even within these different types, people can have vastly different experience of immersion.
Personally, I've felt more immersed in 3rd person games like Red Dead 2, Ghost of Tsuchima and God of War, than I've ever felt in any 1st person game I've played. Immersion is unique to every person
The next words people use to describe a game are “souls-like” and “breath of the wild” 😭
Let's be clear here, Zelda-like has already been a term used
" the Dark Souls of *[insert genre]* "
Don't forget "feel-like-spiderman"
I swear to god i'm getting tired of hearing "souls-like"
I saw that as a tag on a game once and i was like "In what fucking way is it 'souls-like'!?"
Games aren't 1-dimensional, they certainly have no place being compressed into one term or idea
10:12 immediately reminded me of ∆V: Rings of Saturn
The hud is completely in the game world, and controlled by your ship's computer; If your computer gets fried, your hud disappears. Especially cool when your computer gets _damaged_ as then there's visual effects, such as the screen pixelating and number readouts becoming more inaccurate.
Really liked the part about changing the immersion conversation. Great video, glad I subbed
Just finished a video about spelunky 2, and i was thinking i have seen everyone of your video... Right on point Adam ! :D
I'm definitely one of those people who finds their immersion broken by things that many people find increasing their immersion. The Dead Space UI is a good example. Because I have a hard enough time parsing the information I need with obvious health bars and a generally clear UI, there is no way I can keep track when it becomes part of the set and is made less obvious and clear instead of more.
It makes me think of this one MMO a friend wanted me to help him Kickstart. It was sold as an "Immersive" MMORPG where there was permadeath, almost everywhere was a PvP zone, and magic was incredibly hard to get in exchange for being extremely powerful. I don't know if it ever got enough money, but at the very least I would never describe such an anarchy-prone concept as "Immersive" for me.
I feel like Dead Space is not that immersive because the protag's ui is visible for you, the third person.
Metroid Prime is more immersive because you are seeing what Samus sees and what Samus sees is her suits health readout and ammo.
For first person shooters, I like having a crosshair. I know where the center of my vision is irl buts it hard to tell on a screen. However the bullet count inside a gun is something I would prefer hidden.
I like when fps games make you take out your clip and look at the bullets inside to see the count lol.
At least make it where I have to look at the clip when pickin up an enemies gun.
Edit: Said Super Metroid instead of Metroid Prime lel.
That MMO ended up being a scam btw.
@@sonwig5186 Which MMO was it?
Z S Chronicles of Elyria if I'm not mistaken. I thought it looked really cool a couple of years ago, but it was obviously a scam looking back on it.
Thank you so much for including the list of media used in the video! ♥♥♥
06:15 "Pile on some realism" - your writing and cutting is sooo good. ❤️
Immersion is when you really _feel_ like Batman.
It's like feeling Immersive at Joker's House - Gex
Sad and angry all the time that your wealth hasn't stopped crime, and neither has vigilante justice. That your parents' deaths have left you feeling incapable of ever caring for anything anymore, because a rich kid isolated in his rich estate was never going to be raised with healthy sociality and humanity after that.
This is what I feel when I get drawn into a good Mario level.
More than often AAA studios seem to try to sell "realism" as immersion; this however in most cases leads to a sort of uncanny valley, where the slight imperfections cause the illusion of realism to fail. (more than often this also seems to boil down to making pretty graphics the ONLY realistic part of the game).
IMHO what works FAR better is games trying to seem "believable" as in: they set their own rules for how the game/world work and then stick to it. This way, even cartoony games can be incredibly immersive, like The Outer Wilds for an example.
Another thing is making the game world seem dynamic and have it react to the player in a believable way. Like when a grenade goes off inside a building, I expect the shrapnell to visibly tear apart the stuff inside it and not just go off with a puff of smoke. Cryis 1 for an example did this, you could even cut down trees with guns, which (despite being unrealistic) made the world seem "real".
So much food for thought as always, thank you!
Heaven’s Vault really makes you feel like an archeologist even though it has none of the “usual” immersive expectations.
And so glad you pointed out In Other Waters too, this was such a cool, unique experience!
Paradise Killer needs more shoutouts. It's so good.
0:49
Interesting choice of footage
I like the word 'Immersion' when talking about VR games, because you can completely lose yourself in a realistic, believable, and engaging VR experience.
true 1st person perspective definitely is helping a lot!
Tried laying my arm on to the window panel after a long race in automobilista 2. Took me a while to figure out why my arm fell down. First time I've really felt immersed.
@@impact224488 I at one point tried to kick an enemy in Boneworks. Only when I hit my desk I realized that someting was wrong...
Even when the topics are different, you and Mark get intertwined (like the Mordor connection here). As always, great video and even better insight!
The thing I find about "immersive" is how the game communicates it's experience to you. Games, as all art, is about evoking feelings. Feelings of being a hero, feeling of winning over odds, feelings of frustration, etc.etc. The game is immersive when gameplay, narrative, art and everything else synergise together towards those feelings the game tries to build up. When the game tries to sell you an experience and feeling of being a deadly silent hitman, then suddenly have a ddr minigame, or have a pastel colourful world, it draws away and the game doesn't feel as immersive. But the great thing is that this also allows great freedom, as there can be a multiple amount of ways to create such experience/feelings.
Immersion is when you start playing at 7 P.M. only to look to the side and see that your phone says it's now 4 A.M.
Immersion is when you enter "the zone" playing a game.
nah that's flow state and does not require immersion
@@npc6817 It's kinda both
Immersion and flow state are not the same thing flow is your subconscious being fully engaged with the mechanics while immersion is having your concious mind be fully engaged in the game world
@@i_fish6657 yeah but "the zone" sounds more like a description of flow state than immersion
@@npc6817 yes that was the point of that comment to make sure people don't confuse flow state for immersion
I‘m an old guy. My first and to this day deepest immersive experience has been playing „Elite“ on a Commodore 64. Combined with the excellent Novella that came with the game the whole galaxie came alive. Despite of the, by todays standards, abstract 8-bit wireframe vector grafiks I really felt like a Starship-Pilot and totally forgot the world around me.
Thanks for putting the games in the description. Though, it would be even better if you'd put the title on screen when footage of a game is shown.
Immersion is all about atmosphere. Even games like Noita or can immerse you incredibly well just through the music and the tense situations you find yourself in in-game.
one o the most immersion breaking feelings I ever had in a video game was during LA Noir. Mid way through the game when you're solving a series of murder trials it becomes apparent that they're all being committed by the same killer and you've been arresting the wrong guys. However despite knowing this you're still bottle necked into arresting the same incorrect perpetrators despite knowing they're innocent. At that point no longer felt like a detective solving crimes but a guy playing a video game with predetermined outcomes. Didn't matter how good a detective I was, the game was gonna have me arrest who it wanted me to arrest. Completely ruined the game for me.
It honestly amazes me every single time that I watch one of your videos. You're insightful, deep, analytical and engaging. I give your infinite props. Keep up the legendary work! Cheers.
I love your video description:
"You Saw:
Abzu - 2016
*Cyberpunk 2077 - 2077*
*No Man's Sky - pffffffff* ..."
Immersion is a successful suspension of your disbelief that you're playing a game.
which never happens
@@jex-the-notebook-guy1002 Happens all the time.
NERTS is some of the most fun I've had in quite a while
Is that the battle theme from Colosseum at the end? That's the battle theme from Colosseum at the end!!!
I never thought I'd see a virtual version of Nerts... That was definitely a surprise to see at the end of video Patreon thank you portion.
11:27 Nice.
When I think of immersion I think of STALKER
STALKER + Anomaly mod + gas mask on irl + lights off = the ultimate immersive experience
Stopped doing that when I got radiation poisoning in real life for that
@@aurin_komak just drink 10 bottles of vodka in 5 minutes bro.
@@garchomowner I'm afraid that will just give you alcohol poisoning instead...
Thank you for this great video.
Personally, I always described immersion as the feeling
of being "really" connected to the game and your view
of things gave me a new perspective to look at.
Best regards.
This channel is literally the best game design insight out there and inspires me on my game dev journey. Really appreciate the content Adam :)
therapist: 8 ft tall vampires aren't real they can't hurt you
me: I know :(
first original variant of this meme, congratulations sir
When studying game design at uni, the lecturers made sure to ban the words 'fun' and 'immersive'.
This was just the right video at just the right time (for me), because I needed a tutorial on that to create an immersive experience :D
Really knocked it out of the park with this video, think its my favourite one so far
“As much as I wish that were the case.”
*giggity*
Gothic Is a masterclass on what immersion in games mean: a little yet cohesive world, no loading screens, people have routines and react to your actions, animals behave like animals, inventory access DOES NOT pause game, map is acquired by the protagonist and doesn't have markers but forces you to understand your place in it
lol Gothic was also the first thing that came to my mind for immersion. The fact that your nameless ego doesnt get any sympathy bonus for being the protagonist also helps. You're nothing of value at the start and that's the way you get treated.
Kinda like Arx Fatalis. It had a few loading screens though.
6:50 sneaky dunkey reference
Your content is genuinely very enjoyable and have a very lovely vibe to it
Never head the word “Diegesis” before. Is that an old term being applied to games or is it just a noun for diegetic that you though of? Either way it’s a pretty great way to specify immersion
It's a word that comes from ancient Greek, it's very old!
It’s also used in Film to describe the world presented and to describe elements belonging to the world(e.g. music a character hears) as opposed to non-diegetic elements(e.g. music only the audience hears)
@@ArchitectofGames Ok, that makes sense now. Thanks for the reply by the way!
Watch GMTK , he has a pretty good video on it 👍🏼
I think immersion is when you are playing a game but you forget time and yust enjoy the game
Lets say I begin playing terraria at 12 o'clock but I enjoy it so much that like a snap of a finger it's 1 o'clock the next day or something like that
That jumanji clip is just perfectly placed :D
Well done!
The mechanical friction you briefly mentioned is a concept that I’ve been really interested in for a few years now. Like what Resident evil 4 gained by making you choose between offensive defense, and evasion. Would play and feel dramatically different if you had access to both
"It's impossible for your factory to reach 100% efficiency".
Every hardcore Satisfactory player: Allow us to introduce ourselves.
I find weight systems immersion shattering because they immediately make me open menus, inspect stats and decide which gear to scrap
The fix for inventory weight, I think, is having the character literally put items in a backpack that fills up. It certainly wouldn't be *easy* (I could totally see all of your items exploding out of your backpack and killing you in a bethesda physics glitch), but having your inventory being physically on you and contriving ways to carry more stuff would absolutely be a more immersive inventory system.
As a novelty I think it'd be a lot of fun, but not as a mainstream way of handling inventory.
that sounds kinda immersive xD
@@kevingriffith6011 Delta V Rings of Saturn has the best cargo system tbh. The cargo is actually bouncing around inside your ship. Hitting an iceroid in the wrong way will make some of your cargo spill out.
this was the first time I heard the word without following up with dissonance and hoo boy that was a bit of excitement I wasn't prepared for on a Monday morning
is that pokemon coliseum music at the end? Really loved this video, and been loving "In Other Waters" too!
0:43 I disagree. Nearly everytime I'm playing Minecraft in the livingroom and someone asks me something, I move my mouse and then realise that's not my real head. If you're high it's also way easier to replicate.
Dude, you don't even need to be high. I've jumped at things that certainly weren't creepers.
To me, immersion is a game that makes you forget that you are playing a game. It's when you stumble into that boss arena and don't immediately think "why do I hear boss music?". It's when you get a collectable, not because you want 100% on your game file, but because you just wanted to explore a bit and stumbled across it. It's when you make a big decision not based on what gives you the best loot, but because you care about a specific character.
During the end credits, that was some kind of, competitive solitaire being played in the background?
I don't remember what it's called, but I know it's on Steam and is free.
Awesome dive into how it works for video games. "Immersive" for games is probably on par with a "page turner" for fiction, overused but well understood and always fun to try to work out the mechanics behind it when it happens :).
For me, Immersion means that something stops feeling like a game or any other media, and you feel like your part of the whole thing, be it spectator or the main charakter.
1:48 what game is that I need to know
Phew! Incredible work, Mr. Millard! That was fantastic 🎉
One really interesting thing here that you touched on is that it's a relationship between the player and the game world, and a relationship is a two way street. When I first played The Division i was absolutely enthralled. Going back to it only a few years later, at a different point in my life, and besides nostalgia I just dont have the same connection. I feel this goes part of the way to explaining why my mate might find a game absolutely immersive, and I "just cant get into it". It's about how you relate.
Hey, Adam! Ever played cultist sim? I feel like its a strange entry to the story-immersive type you were describing... Try to go in blind if you give it a try. Considering the videos you've made, I think you'd like it.
I remember playing "In Other Waters"
It is an amazing story with innovative gameplay .
I cannot recommend that game enough!
Another amazing video! Thanks for all your effort and quality content. I love how well you can distill concepts down and communicate them in an interesting and engaging manner. Also, I see your pokemon colosseum ending music there ;) (I'm a huge fan of that soundtrack)
1:52 Immersion is totally a state of mind. But I agree this only shifts the question on what induces this kind of state. Also books can be "immersive". I would generally say, it's state of "plausible believably" the brain is willing to put it itself to. And in a book if a character suddenly acts totally out of character because the writer wanted to get the plot in a certain direction, it breaks this willingful delusion we wanted to engage in. It's not that we never knew it's all made up words by a writer, but it's the act we were ready to engage in the make-believe it is not.
Analogous to games, where there are only more levels of interface things to confuse us about what we're talking about. PS: Inbetween you got text adventures, that were also able to be "immersive" or not. Where the second would break on unlogic/stupid puzzle designs.
"I would generally say, it's state of "plausible believably" the brain is willing to put it itself to" - This. Alot of games seem to try to convey "realism" as a form of immersion, but more then often this hurts it due to a sort of "uncanny valley" of realism. What works far better imho is a game that tries to be "believable", as in: set rules for the world and stick to them, aswell as write a story that makes sense in the context. This way, even cartoonish games can be immersive or "real".
The most immersive games I’ve ever played are Metro Exodus, Breath of the Wild, and Far Cry 2
My man
@@GMTK oh, hi Mark
Far cry 3 for me
We should ask this question to people that are watching porn in VR. Not sure that we will get a well-articulated answer but still worth a try.
VR is immersive by definition I guess :P Basically it makes you main character
@@ramsoofkyo9047 I guess, but after trying VR once I don't see myself being lost in it with visually and mechanically simplistic games as there isn't much to keep my mind from remembering that it is just a game.
@@DarkThagan I mean it's as good as it gets. Otherwise you might wake up one day in capsule with liquid while machine unplugs cable from back of you head.
I liked how the ghostbusters game had all the relevant character stats displayed by the lights on your energy pack. It kept the hud info close to the aim reticle instead of at the farthest screen edge, keeping the action moving.
This is something I find Screwfly Studio's games to do really well. They are able to use mechanical and narrative immersion to create titles with large and complex perceived worlds while limiting what players actually see throughout the whole thing. In Deadnaut players stay at the controls of a ship and keep track of a team of npc's who are exploring everything, but it's not an environment you can see or explore yourself. This way they are able to invest players into a large and detailed world without actually having to make it, something their small team of 2 people wouldn't be able to feasibly do.
The most immersive game that I have ever played is hollow knight.
Yeah! The most beautiful game I've ever played and I've only bought it on Saturday
Definitely a high point from recent years. Another one that comes to mind is Subnautica.
BotW and Horizon: Zero Dawn are my other two points, but HK is definitely with them in the top three
@@krenze1164 Horizon Dawn is ass
Outer wilds for me, although hollow knight is a close second
I want a bagel
Immersion for me is when you are in the zone, and once you are done playing, you look left and right and wonder, woah, I felt like I was inside of that!
This video made me realize just how many different versions of immersion there are. The different kinds of games I find myself getting stuck in vary so widely. Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead is one of the densest, mechanic heavy games I know, but the stories of how every mechanic interacts with the rest can lead to just as unforgettable moments as those from the Mass Effect trilogy, one of my favorite examples of story driven rpgs. The amazing soundtrack and sound design of Risk of Rain 2 along with the gameplay loop can give me just as much enjoyment as exploring the dungeons of The Elder Scrolls games, sneaking around every corner looking to put arrows into the knees of whatever might be lurking there. This is such a diverse and explorative medium. I can't wait to see what game grabs me next.