Games that Don't Fake the Space

Sometimes, multiple creators spontaneously stumble onto very similar topics; this is definitely the case for me and "The Cursed Judge," who just released a video on empty worlds that features many of the same touchpoints as this essay. It's honestly a really interesting look at how two different people can take the same information and run in different directions with it. I recommend checking it out! https://youtu.be/PEocLl_dl5g

I've played videogames since the 80's and one of the key things for a 'big world' was always things like "you can go inside all the buildings". Nothing breaks immersion like a painted-on door.

this reminds me of freaking myself out as a kid by realising that even the smallest of distances feel enormous if you move slowly enough.

There was a guy on Penn and Teller Fool Us that did a magic trick where he would spring down cards and seemingly pick out the chosen card from the spring itself. There's a lot of ways to do the illusion, but the method which was used was the most bizarre and impressive trick of all. He simply did it. He practiced it so well for 18 years that he could basically pick out exactly whatever card he wanted in a split second from a rapidly falling card spring. This video somehow reminds me of that. There's a certain realness to it

I remember as a kid finishing the tutorial of Oblivion and looking out. It was my first ever open world rpg. I was legitimately shocked and excited for the first time when my brother said "See that mountain? You can go there."

man, I was really hoping you might quote or reference Hitchhiker's Guide at some point, because this bit has lived in my head since I first read the book and is absolutely relevant: "It wasn’t infinity in fact. Infinity itself looks flat and uninteresting. Looking up into the night sky is looking into infinity - distance is incomprehensible and therefore meaningless. The chamber into which the aircar emerged was anything but infinite, it was just very very very big, so big that it gave the impression of infinity far better than infinity itself."

The scale of the facility in Portal 2 has always stuck with me. Every time you feel like you're approaching the surface, that maybe you're seeing some natural light peek through, you always inevitably come across some monolithic constructs towering overhead. Love it.

I always remember the first time I went up to the top of the mountain in Skyrim, where the greybeards live. It felt like a "big" journey somehow. Even though that map isn't the biggest, and the climb doesn't take all that long, it truly felt like a long trek.

The first time i experienced true, massive scale was in my early 20s when i was working a gig at a convention center and walked through several of their biggest spaces. These are the spaces that usually hold entire conventions in a single "room"; individual stages hosting panels, huge groups of 15-20 booths, places to buy and eat food, etc. The kinds of spaces that are usually partitioned off into smaller, more individual spaces that still feel massive. It took me about 10 minutes to walk from one end of the room to the other, walking at a fast pace. When I hit the middle of the room it felt like I was in an ocean, and the first thought in my head was "If I had a heart attack or some kind of medical emergency, the closest people to me wouldn't even see me fall over. I'd just lay here and they wouldn't even be able to hear me scream, and they might not even find me for who knows how long." We've all felt that before when we're outside in a big park or a giant clearing, but to be walking through a carpeted, air conditioned, walled in, purpose-built structure that's so empty is something i'll remember the rest of my life. I felt completely isolated in a building full of hundreds of people.

This is why Jak and Daxter felt like such a game-changer when it first game out; the loading screens are hidden so as to deliver what feels like a seamlessly integrated and massive world to explore. And at the very end, you can even look back from the mountaintop and see the other levels in the distance, your entire massive journey stretched out before you in a single, glorious view.

The first game I remember being amazed by it's scale was Shadow of the Colossus. And not necessarily because it felt so big. But because the plains, mountains, architecture and colossi themselves made me feel so small.

man, that stair scene is even more freaky when viewed from out of bounds

This reminds me of a small indie game I used to play. Unfortunately, I don't remember the name anymore, but what made it so special is that after using console commands to enable flying and teleportation, if you went high enough, you could touch the sun. It was real. No skybox, no picture, but an actual, glowing orb hanging in the sky miles about any geometry you should be able to touch. It was really cool.

Not necessarily about space but I've felt this way about Dwarf Fortress before. There's a strange quality where the NPCs you meet seem much more real than video game NPCs usually do, because if they say "my daughter was slain by a dragon" they aren't reading a script – that literally happened at some point in the world's history.

When I learned the world outside of your submarine in Iron Lung was a real, rendered world and not just invisible with randomly selected photos when you use your camera, the game became scary again. It was scary the first playthrough and then became scary again on a second playthrough after learning that everything outside really is there.

you make me love games I've never played and experiences I've never had.

Funny that you mention Elite: Dangerous. If were talking 'emotional reaction to big' that was the game that did it for me. You're absolutely right that often times, things are just too big to register. I absolutely agree on No Man's Sky. What made Elite different for me was a combination of things. Let me tell you a story: I'd finally gotten my Cobra MkIII. A good little workhorse that can do whatever you ask of it. And me? I was going to explore*. I named her *Curiosity and spent an hour fitting her out. And then, I was ready to set out. My goal was Colonia. And I would explore hundreds of systems on my way out. So off I went. The first twenty jumps were quiet. All I ran into were planets already tagged with 'first discovered by:' So I kept going. And then... Poof, my first unexplored system. I was an awe inspiring feeling to know that I was the first person to ever enter that system, despite it just being a game. And so was the next one. And the next one. I continued on for hundreds than thousands of jumps. Each one into a system that no one had ever visited before. Two things struck me as I made that journey. One, and the thing that still sticks with me today, is what we're talking about. The sense of scale. It's one thing to hear there are 100 Billion stars in our galaxy. It's another to experience it. Star after star after star, as you visit but a handful of them. And what truly made it impactful for me? It's real. It's all there, twinkling in the night sky. I may have been traveling virtual representations of them, but many of those stars really are out there. And that leads onto the second thing that has stuck with me. The sense of loneliness. Much of the time, I was playing late at night, the world seemingly dead and quiet. And out there, so far from inhabited space, I felt so alone. At the height of my journey, I would have been thousands of light years away from the nearest player. It was just me, my ship, and the endless stars. To this day, I'm happy I did it. It was an experience like no other, and truly helped me comprehend the vastness of our universe. And with it, that boundless wonder and curiosity of a child I thought I'd grown out of. To be curious is one of my favorite feelings.

Jacob Geller videos are so good because you get philosophical conversations of how games use their physical space and how it relates to how you feel inside it, but also phrases like, "and the driving kinda feels like butt." Absolutely top tier shit especially for me. Great job as always

I was wondering if Shadow of the Colossus would get an honourable mention in this. It may still do some fakery, but having to traverse long distances across a strange forbidden land by horse was magical.

Fuel is a game, although unremarkable in many ways, that still amazes me. It has been years since I last played this game, but I still think about it. The ability to traverse as far as eyes can see, with the geography actually making sense as it changes, and that feeling of being lost and lonely in a world where you actually felt tiny, it was something no other game made me feel. This game did not try to make you feel important and big. I used to roam around rather than play for progression. The maps where quite beautiful for the time. Thank you for making this video. I'll definitely go back to this game someday. PS - Far Cry 2 is another such game. The feeling of loneliness in a big world is inescapable in the game.