Research Paper

Video games have become mediums and conduits for the hyper realistic and photo realistic, and this is especially true of Triple A titles, as is well described in Robert Yang’s blog post on realism in games, where developers and designers aim to move away from social context, while they also live within a static realism that assumes that reality is a singular unit. Indeed, it is the video game world’s hypothesis that players and audiences expect to see graphics of the highest quality that closely mimic elements of the real world in a bid to be immersed in a mimicry of the physical world. 

Nevertheless, there are many exceptions to this trend which strive to create more conceptual and revolutionizing games which touch on different types of realities and themes. A good example of these deviations from the norm can be found in Hideo Kojima’s approach to game design and how he works to create games that meticulously focus on the protagonist’s physical reality as well as their connection to the player.Here, Kojima’s approach to how he interprets reality in his games, such as Metal Gear 2 or Death Stranding, lies in his desire to prioritize the close intimacy of taking care of the protagonist’s body while also accentuating spatial awareness through stealth mechanics and level design in a way that brings the player closer to becoming connected to the protagonist himself, as though they were the ones moving through the environment. In this way, Kojima attempts to turn away from the traditional Call of Duty-esque conservatism of a game purely submerged in photo realistic ‘immersion’ that is extremely likened to Hollywood action movies. 

When discussing the ‘photo realistic’, it is good to also delve into both the inception of photography as well as more contemporary examples which deal with different types of realism. Early examples of photography in its birth years dealt with creating a staged scene in a bid to capture a perfect recreation of the ‘natural’ by paradoxically using artificial means. Examples include a daguerreotype portrait of a surveyor(see Figure 1) as well as a photograph of a tea gathering group by William Talbot(see Figure 2). Both of these photographs are perfect examples of the limitations of photography at the time and the need to create the most realistic scene possible, with no blemishes. In the Surveyor photograph, the man is propped so that his gaze may perfectly follow the direction of the tripod while the tripod’s leg also follows the gaze.Similarly, in the tea gathering photograph by Talbot, the subjects are meticulously and rigidly propped and placed against a blank backdrop outside so that the proper lighting and background could be achieved to give the illusion of being indoors. This was all done due to the obsession of creating as photo realistic an image as possible.Similarly, the majority of games in contemporary times aim for the same conceptual effect; to create characters and environments that feel like they are genuinely flesh and blood. In doing so, as was mentioned previously, they fail to be inclusive of other relevant elements, such as intimate connections between player and protagonist.

Circling back to the photography world, and this is especially true of more contemporary photographers, there have been photographers who have dealt with alternative types of realism, toying with the idea of a singular reality. Examples include Vik Muniz’s Cage photograph(see Figure 3) and Andreas Gursky’s Prada II(see Figure 4), where each touches on different types of realism. In Muniz’s Cage, Muniz attempts to create an optical illusion where reality is subverted to represent an alternate take on the ‘real world’. Indeed, the cage in the photograph is an actual three dimensional object, but Muniz photographs it to represent it as a two dimensional ‘drawing’.Similarly warping reality, Gursky in Prada II uses digital means to edit and stretch the underlying image, increasing the size of the store display to an unreal length. In his attempts, Gursky aims to destabilize what we perceive as the essential realism of the photograph and create something that does not exactly reflect the real object photographed.

Through observing how different realities can be presented and warped in games, I wish to look into a portrayal of emotional realism and how human emotions can be organically represented, while also having certain emotions, like anxiety and stress, be induced and manipulated by a game landscape. Games such as Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice or Outlast 2 represent examples of games which focus on the emotional more so than creating a hyper realistic environment which stays true to the ‘real world’. 

In fact, Hellblade follows a protagonist who is plagued by severe psychosis as well as anxiety and focuses on her depiction of reality as well as her emotional projections. In this fluid sense of reality, the player is encouraged to follow visual clues and hints related to the senses that are all part of a hallucinatory reality; trees may shift in position slightly, hidden patterns may appear in shadows and reflections. It is these elements of the game that the player needs to follow and pick up on. In doing so, the game thus strays away from having one set reality of the natural world and instead draws on perceiving the world differently through an alternate set of eyes. The game also features an interesting take on its protagonist. Being an RPG Viking themed game where you battle with numerous monstrosities, you are put in the shoes of a vulnerable and flawed individual who, throughout her journey, aims to make sense of her surroundings and experiences, while also cultivating a sense of bravery.By doing this, the designers and developers of the game, along with Paul Fletcher, a health neuroscience professor in Cambridge University, aim to construct a game around a character who actually depicts the emotional turmoil of a patient dealing with psychosis and mental health struggles. This comes in as a strong contrast to how games depict the realism of madness and mental illness: as characters who are inherently insane and who are immediately perceived as dangerous and evil.As a result, Hellblade represents an interesting case study of the idea of emotional depiction, use of landscape and how the elements within the game all work to create a unique hallucinatory reality.

Alternately, in Outlast 2, as much as it uses its environment to invoke both terror and anxiety in its player and protagonist (who are both intrinsically linked due to this use of environment similarly to Metal Gear Solid 2), it is the link between in-game item essentials and the need for survival which bring out the greatest sense of stress and fear in a player. Indeed, the protagonist is only armed with a camera which can use night vision and light to illuminate what lies ahead. However, it needs batteries to work and these are very scarce throughout the game. The mechanic and concept of needing this valuable resource or suffering stumbling around a deadly environment blindly creates a constant state of worry and anxiety in the player. As such, rather than focusing on creating  photo realistic characters and a painstakingly realistic environment, the game focuses on creating a harrowing experience for the player, that they can acutely feel through the protagonist. 

By taking into account these ideas of emotional representation and emotional evocation between the player and protagonist in the game, I have come to the conclusion that a game prototype which focuses on its use of audio and effects, rather than a rich depiction of environment and character design, to induce emotions like anxiety or stress in its players would best suit an accurate depiction of what was previously discussed on emotional realism. As such, my prototype centers around a simple environment where the player is goaded to move forward. As they move ever forward, various sounds will come into play, seemingly triggered by unknown sources, which will intensify in their assault on the player’s ears the further they move forward. These sounds include white noise, meal worms moving on top of each other as they feed and insect swarms, which are all sounds that are conceptually unpleasant or disturbing to listen to. While this is happening, intense screen shaking and a red hazy tinge will also slow down the player and add to the experience of discomfort. In terms of the lighting within the scene, I decided to mask the player’s surroundings in darkness, while adding a conical light source that, again, goads them to move forward as the light only points in a frontal direction. This is made to imply that the path ahead will be a forward one whereas any other direction is hindered by darkness. Furthermore, this function also aims to render the relief side corridors pointless as the light still looks upward, making it harder to illuminate those dead end corridors. It is my belief that using these effects, while also hindering player mobility, most effectively and simplistically induces a universal sense of anxiety and stress in the player. This prototype also seeks to explore a more subtle look into what it feels like to experience anxiety in a more conceptual way, which is based on personal experience. It seeks to follow and emulate the constant nauseous feeling in one’s stomach, from the moment that anxiety begins to settle in to when it uncontrollably turns into a throbbing and firm ache while the mind is left confused and terrified of something it can’t exactly pinpoint. In the prototype, I decided that the best representation of this would be a ‘throb’ on the player character itself where as it journeys further into the level, colliders will cause it to shake uncontrollably, weakly and for a small duration at first but more intensely deeper in. These throbs will also be more spacious at first, to emulate how anxiety begins to slowly seep in to gradually start to become an annoyance. The deeper down the level the player moves, the more frequent and intense these throbs will get, which will be coupled with the increasingly loud and uncomfortable noises around them. The sounds themselves act as representations of the mental scrambling, distortion and confusion that anxiety can cause, which breaks all focus and leaves one scrambling for any way to ignore it. In this way, each sound on its own does not have a significant representation or meaning, but rather they act together to create a discomforting annoyance. In turn, the prototype also features smaller dead end corridors on the main ‘hallway’ path where a player can enter to gain brief respite from the noise and shaking. These serve to represent brief respites which one can feel during anxiety and stress as their mind wanders to comfort zones or if they physically go to a location that calms them. Nevertheless, these are often temporary as the feeling soon returns one way or another. In the game this is replicated by having these be simple dead ends that do nothing, while they also get narrower and shorter as the player progresses down the hallway. In this way, although the player does not know where the hallway will lead (and this is of no importance to the prototype experience itself), they are made certain that these dead ends serve no purpose either, pushing them to return to the hallway and continue.

Lastly, the environment itself and the player are not the focus of this prototype as these have been given minimal attention. Rather it is the concept of creating a harrowing path that uses audio and other on-screen effects to induce emotions within the player, while also making the whole experience uncomfortable to go through that is important here. 

Bibliography

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Farough, Amanda, ‘‘Outlast 2’: Science explains why we love to be scared senseless by survival horror games’, Mic, April 26th, 2017, https://www.mic.com/articles/175163/outlast-2-the-science-behind-why-we-love-to-be-scared

Gursky, Andreas, Prada II, ca. 1996, Chromogenic print, 65 in. × 10 ft. 4 13/16 in., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, accessed March 12, 2020, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/817984?&exhibitionId=%7b29623f26-0eff-4974-8dff-de32c777e929%7d&oid=817984&pkgids=626&pg=0&rpp=20&pos=30&ft=*&offset=20

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Muniz, Vik, Cage from the series Pictures of Wire, ca. 1995, Gelatin silver print, 20 × 16 in., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, accessed March 12, 2020, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/817985?&exhibitionId=%7b29623f26-0eff-4974-8dff-de32c777e929%7d&oid=817985&pkgids=626&pg=0&rpp=20&pos=48&ft=*&offset=20

[Surveyor], ca. 1850, Daguerreotype, 5/8 × 3 5/8 × 3 1/8 in., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, accessed March 12, 2020, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/828471

Takahashi, Dean, ‘How Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice changed lives with its thoughtful portrayal of mental illness’, Venture Beat, October 26th, 2019, https://venturebeat.com/2019/10/26/how-hellblade-senuas-sacrifice-changed-lives-with-its-thoughtful-portrayal-of-mental-illness/

Talbot, William Henry Fox, Group Taking Tea at Lacock Abbey, ca.1843, Salted paper print from paper negative,  5 in. × 7 1/2 in., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, accessed March 12, 2020, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/306333?&exhibitionId=%7b524ab60e-6717-43f3-ac7a-24bc45398fa6%7d&oid=306333&pkgids=599&pg=0&rpp=20&pos=10&ft=*&offset=20

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