Worldbuilding in video games is one of the most important elements to en-sure the player receives the ultimate immersive experience, and it’s the developer’s job to create a world that feels as real as the characters they’ve introduced. Have you ever connected the dots between pieces of fictional lore or saw a cleverly placed detail and thought, ‘Oh, that’s clever!?' In books, authors will construct their worlds with various languages and types of people – both humanoid and not – and will create a timeline of historic lore for their characters to know or learn. Impressive worldbuilding will have rules with no loopholes and historic depth meticulously weaved into the creator’s fictional universe. A video game is one of the best forms of media for this to be demonstrated, because the type of worldbuilding can differ slightly from game to game.
In the Uncharted series, Nathan Drake keeps a journal with him. During your adventure he will add drawings, pictures and keepsakes to document his travels. While the player will know what Nathan is writing most of the time due to a prompt consisting of a line of dialogue where he will think out loud, the player will notice that extra drawings, jokes and thoughts have been added without prompts from Nathan or the player. Whether a mini caricature of Sullivan or remarks about an observation the group has made, opening the journal will reveal an extra insight into Nathan’s thoughts, which in turn creates a deeper look into Nathan’s inner world, including his attitudes toward his companions and more intricate lore for the player to absorb as they keep playing. The Last of Us 2 has a similar mechanism, where most of Ellie’s inner thoughts are transcribed into her journal, including a song that she tries to write to process her grief. In both The Last of Us and its sequel, the player can pick up notes throughout the lev- els, addressed to and from characters that the player will never meet, yet are still emotionally charged as the impact of the cordyceps virus across the country is slowly revealed – soldiers will leave each other instructions, a lookout who got bored has drawn a picture, families or lovers will write to say they’ll be right back, or how they waited for them to return until they couldn’t any more, and scouts who have been bitten write that they couldn’t bear to turn, and that’s how you’ve found their skeleton.
It’s not just complex storytelling, but world-building that makes the dystopia of The Last of Us convincing. In one instance, Joel and Ellie enter a room with one Infected that they must deal with, only to notice after that a human skeleton lies on the floor by itself, indicating that they must have been bitten as a pair, but one of them made a decision that the other could not. Even Red Dead Redemption 2 uses the journal mechanism, however unlike Uncharted, the player isn’t prompted to open it as often. As a result, understanding Arthur Morgan’s inner dialogue in the most intimate way is by reading his journal and watching his passion for drawing continue through the pages. This is one of the most significant ways in which the player can get to know Arthur Morgan, as his tough-on-the-outside countenance is countered by his delicate drawings of nature. Even interacting with a mirror contributes to this, as his self-loathing is revealed, evoking empathy and emotional connections from the player.
Notes and collectibles are a common way for games to create convincing worlds, with Baldur’s Gate 3 becoming one of the most
collectible-dense games in the industry. This is because many of these notes are completely hidden from the player, and contain lore that wouldn’t otherwise be revealed to them. If you don’t open Kagha’s hidden chest, you wouldn’t be able to find a note that opens an entire side quest to the player. The more people you pick-pocket or chests that you lockpick, the more you find, from tiny scraps of paper to whole books, some of which offer quests, but others enrich your understanding of the world that you’re exploring. Whether it be the history or the minds of the people who live in it, the sheer attention to detail given to these collectibles probably explains why I’m unable to get rid of most of them; my character’s pockets are full of wads of paper and notebooks that they’re sure they might need later... right?
World maps are another absolutely crucial element of worldbuilding in fiction. Baldur’s Gate 3 takes the crown with three enormous maps filled with details and interactions, but other games such as Red Dead Redemption 2, Skyrim, the Fallout series and the Bioshock series also use maps in the menu and mini maps to give the player a sense of direction in each world. Understanding the space the player has to move around in brings the level design to life, and immerses them in somewhere that feels more real, as if they are interacting with a setting that has its own fair share of history – something that is integral to the stability of its fictional world.
Video Games are a fast growing form of media and different types of games are being developed all the time. From making characters feel as real as people to paying close detail to the setting of their games, developers spend a lot of time adding easter eggs and depth into their works to bring them to life. Next time you spot a genius background detail in a game’s environment or through collectibles – whether it be signs, billboards, notes, or eavesdropping – you might spare a thought for the intelligent storytellers that put it there for you to discover.
