Pixel perfect places: the balance between realism and creativity in game design

Throughout the years video games have been getting more advanced and more detailed. With some games you can even walk and run through real-life cities while never leaving the comfort of your home. They make you feel as if you travelled the globe or even a multitude of imaginary lands. But how do these games achieve that? Is there still creativity in this or is it just developer laziness to bring real cities into games?

To begin, I think it will be worth looking into how game cities firstly reflect the game’s genre and characters before anything else. On that note, The Legend of Zelda : Breath of the Wild is a good place to start. Breath of the Wild is a good example of this idea as each location reflects a different area of the map and the people that live there.  For example, Zora’s Domain is full of water and structures that are made for the fish people that live there. There are waterfalls on the edges that let you move quickly between the ground and top floor, as long as you can swim well. We can also see how the places vary when we compare Zora’s Domain to Goron City, a hot lava-filled city that you can’t even begin to approach without the correct gear. Even Rito Village, which houses the bird-like flying characters is built to suit them, with the houses being scattered along a tall pillar, perfect for jumping off straight into the air. So to answer my previous question, I would say there is still plenty of creativity when it comes to creating gaming cities. However, Zelda has arguably no reflection of any real place so perhaps that’s why it feels very creative. So what about video games that take inspiration from real life?

These echoes of the real world can be seen and felt while you run around the city and you could lose hours by just walking around

Well, I think they still definitely reflect the genre of the game, even when inspired by real life. Cyberpunk 2077 is a perfect example of this. It is a gaming city that fully immerses you into the cyberpunk genre with its character design, city layout, music and gameplay. If you look up pictures from the game they all have a similar colour scheme showing how you’re always kept in this cyberpunk mood, no matter what part of the map you travel to. But Cyberpunk 2077 does one more thing that makes it so immersive, they take bits and pieces from the real world and adapt and change them. Mike Pondsmith, a game designer, mentioned that he took inspiration from San Francisco, Los Angeles, Singapore, Beijing and Tokyo for Night City. These echoes of the real world can be seen and felt while you run around the city and you could lose hours by just walking around and taking in the atmosphere, that is if you don’t stumble into a gang who wants to kill you. I think this use of real-life places shows how intricate and planned out the city is.

Another game that also takes inspiration from real-life locations is Vampyr. However, it also takes inspiration from real-life history, possibly giving it a more creative edge in comparison the Cyberpunk 2077. The game is set in 1918, in Whitechapel, England and the buildings and atmosphere feel very realistic to the time period. Within the game, your character is also aware of real-life historical events such as WWI and you play as a vampire doctor trying to cure the Spanish flu, both events which happened in real life. This use of both real-life places and real-life events makes the game feel immersive and almost like a form of time travel to the past. In addition to this, there is one more thing that Vampyr does which again gives it a more creative edge. Your choices can shape your surroundings. The map starts off with a mix of well-off and poor neighbourhoods. As a vampire, you get more XP if you feed off of people from better areas (as well as getting better goods from there). However, the more you feed, the more the area will deteriorate as the NPCs won’t feel safe or you’ll remove key characters such as innkeepers that make the area better. Arguably, these kinds of gaming cities can show that taking inspiration from reality isn’t developer laziness; they still change and develop these cities as well as add cool mechanics to make them even more fun.

These games allow you to experience the fictional in such a vivid way that writing and film cannot achieve

But what about those games that don’t shy away from the fact that they are modelled after a real-life city? Detroit: Become Human, set in 2038 where the city has been revitalized by the invention and introduction of androids into everyday life, shows a version of Detroit that is better and more advanced than the real Detroit we know. Unlike Cyberpunk 2077, Detroit: Become Human keeps the bones of real-life Detroit and tweaks some things here and there. This is really evident when comparing the skylines of real-life Detroit and the fictional one. The shapes still look the same but some of the buildings look more modern and high-tech, reflecting the games genre and story. On a smaller scale, the streets and shops are also those from real life, just a smidge more cyberpunk-y and of course filled with androids. I’d like to think that even this direct copying of a real-life city still doesn’t show developer laziness. If anything, it helps with the very deep immersion that I mentioned in the beginning, as it’s a perfect blend of fiction and reality. Because the city is modelled on the real one, it gives the player the illusion that they have been to Detroit, albeit a more futuristic one.

Another game that does the same is The Witcher 3. Since the game takes inspiration from real life, Slavic folklore and literature as well as the history of Poland, it contains historical buildings within the game that you can see sprinkled around real-world Poland. This time the player feels that they have been taken back in time when these historic buildings were functional. This again still shows creativity from the developers as they make the in-game cities feel more fleshed out, they have deep histories (some being semi-real) and real landmarks, making the imagery not so far from reality. These kinds of gaming easter eggs let you travel the world without having to leave your room.

Of course, the games I chose are just the tip of the iceberg, with some games being so true to reality that you can match images from the game to the exact shape of real-life buildings. Because they are open world you can see the city however you like, from a point of view that isn’t possible in reality. These games allow you to experience the fictional in such a vivid way that writing and film cannot achieve, proving that using realism in no way takes away from a developer’s creativity.