The Beauty in Existence

Immersion is a term that's thrown around a lot in the gaming sphere, and recently, is something that many games strive for. Without a doubt, it is an incredible feeling when done right, but sometimes immersion and realism get a little too closely connected, which I feel misses the point. When thinking about games that use this tactic, the first to come to mind is Red Dead Redemption 2, which sadly misses the mark for me on this front. It leans into its realism heavily, regularly sacrificing quality-of-life for such things. For example, hunting animals can be a slog, as skinning them plays out a long animation every time, and having to carry heavier animals back to your horse can take quite a while. This isn’t limited to hunting either: maintaining weapons takes time as Arthur slowly polishes them up. By no means is this an insult to the game — it’s an artistic decision that some people enjoy, but for me, it pulled me out of the immersion. To me, immersion is the extent to which a game pulls me into it’s world, and regularly having the time to just put the controller down while I waited for Arthur to replay the same animation I’d seen a million times was something I was too aware of and pulled me out of the feeling.

I find immersion works best in fantastical worlds. For me, no game has ever done this quite as well as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. I do have a lot of issues with the game when looking at it critically — such as the combat feeling flat, the quest design being uninteresting, and a lot of the characters being underwhelming. Despite this, it regularly comes up in discussions about my favourite games of all time, and I think that's because of how much I love just being in the world. There’s something magical about this feeling, and it’s hard to describe, but I find myself absorbed into the world, wanting to see what more it has to offer despite having seen practically everything it has a multitude of times. A more recent title that’s dragged me into it’s world is Final Fantasy XVI. So many times across the game's runtime did I find myself just stopping to take it all in, slowing to a walk to enjoy my surroundings — especially in the Greatwood, which is one of the most gorgeous locales in any videogame ever.

Immersion is a weird thing, but why is it so important in videogames, now more than ever? To me, it all comes back to escapism; a lot of people play games as a means of getting away from real life, and I do think this is the primary driving force. The world changes at such a rapid pace — often for the worse — and games grow and evolve so quickly, it’s hard not to want to escape, especially with it being so easy now, and I do understand this feeling. Games often provide an incredibly good way to escape from reality, but I think they can also offer a new lens through which to look at life. The beauty within a lot of these fantasy worlds is easier to see when there are less obvious things clouding your vision, and much of this is mirrored within real life; you just have to look for it.

Immersion isn’t binary; some people might find something immersive that others don’t, but it’s a wonderful feeling when it finally clicks. Being pulled into a different world and fully embracing what it has to offer is one of the best feelings a game can bestow.