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The era of Antarctic exploration that lasted from the early 19th century to about 1920 was known as The Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. During this period, expeditions from all over the world were launched toward the Antarctic continent -- often with few supplies and insufficient crews -- in the hopes of being the first to truly explore Antarctica. One such endeavor was called the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-17, led by Ernest Shackleton.
This voyage was ill-fated. Shackleton's ship, the Endeavor, became frozen solid in ice and was eventually dragged into the sea. The crew camped on an ice floe (basically, a large chunk of floating ice) and simply waited, hoping that they would miraculously drift toward land. After a few days, their ice floe broke in two, leaving Shackleton with only one choice: abandon the ice floe and set out in tiny life boats. What used to be an exploratory effort became solely about survival. Eventually, a large portion of the crew was rescued, though there were three casualties.
All of the crew members knew the risks going into it; Shackleton himself had set out for the Antarctic previously. Yet they all did it anyway, and for what? You have to think that they must have been crazy. For what some might call an inherent human desire to explore. To simply look in the distance upon a vast expanse of uncharted territory and feel nothing less than an unavoidable, nigh crippling desire to simply set forth and see what's there.
This is, of course, leading to videogames. I call this draw of exploration inherent in the human condition because I think that every gamer feels it. It's a part of who we, as humans, are, both outside of the world of videogames and within it. If we take a moment to really look at ourselves and our gaming desires, we'll find that we're not so different from Ernest Shackleton and his small crew of Antarctic explorers.
To do this, let's explore two games that many of us are either now playing or have played in the past:
The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and
Shadow Complex. These games are, on the surface, vastly different, both in subject matter, gameplay style, overall look, and (most importantly to this topic) length. Yet one thing that both of these games have in common is that they tap into our desire to explore, and they do so in two different ways that are equally effective.
Imagine this as a real map, and being tasked with filling it in. Let's start with
Oblivion, a game that is, in essence, built around exploration. From the moment your character exits the starting sewer area, you're able to wander the expansive world that is put before you. And massive it is: people have reported spending hundreds of hours with the game, yet still finding new places to discover.
It's easy to see how a game like this taps into our desire to explore. As we spy a massive city in the distance, we wonder "What's there?" A snowy mountain may seem out of reach, but that won't stop us from wondering what we might find if we travel to its peak. A thick forest might contain some ruins or shrines, yet we'll never know unless we set out and explore. We hope to see everything that there is to see. Just like Shackleton, we want to know what wonders this world holds, and we're going to be the ones to find out.
Yet there's more to it than simply offering us a large world. What we're presented with in
Oblivion is not only a huge, rich world, but a huge, rich,
uncharted world. When the player begins, the in-game map looks incredibly sparse, revealing a very small number of locations to help players get their bearings. Sure, civilization exists on nearly every corner of the map, but how is the player expected to know this?
We're not driven by the desire to see what we know is there, but rather to see what
might be there. We may find nothing at all, which isn't a rare occurrence in
Oblivion. Yet we continue our voyages anyway, hoping to find even one more marker on our map pointing the way to what could, in our minds, be the most amazing thing we've seen yet.
Jumping headlong into the unknown Shadow Complex is very different sort of game. Of course, we all know that it's billed as a "Metroidvania" game, in which the discovery of new equipment and hope of finding every inch of accessible real estate on the map are the primary motivators.
Despite the environment of the game being extremely confined in reality -- full of nothing more than a series of snaking corridors and a few outdoor areas -- the thrill of exploration is still present, thanks in large part to that ever-present counter at the top of the screen, letting us know just how close we are to seeing it all.
Imagine a dark, dank corner of a ship's cabin, where a tattered brown map is hung haphazardly on the wall, waiting to be filled in by some ambitious explorer. Is the underlying desire any different? There's a huge world out there for us, and, unfortunately, it's the curse of our time that nearly everything worth seeing has already been discovered by someone else.
Not so in a game like
Shadow Complex. We're given the map, and the percentage counter serves as the constant nagging voice reminding us that there's more to be found. It scratches the same itch that Shackleton's Voyage must have: we're going to be the ones to discover something that is, until now, completely virgin. Of course, the virginity of
Shadow Complex's map is just an illusion, as thousands of others are getting their 100% statistics at this very moment. Still, it's an effective tactic to make us, as gamers, revel in the love of discovery that we already have. If the possibility of fully exploring a world is presented to us, we'll take it every time.
I had never really considered how meaningful this shot is. Just feels like the beginning of an epic expedition, doesn't it? So, both
Shadow Complex and
Oblivion, despite being vastly different games and approaching exploration is divergent manners, manage to invoke in us a feeling of wonderment toward the unknown, which (in my case, at least), makes the game experience that much more fulfilling. It's something that I think nearly every game can benefit from in some way - and something that I think many games do very effectively. One of my most vivid memories of
Sacred 2 was the instance in which I stumbled, quite on accident, upon a huge series of waterfalls. I had no idea to expect such a sight, and I literally stopped my character, rested the controller on my leg, and took in the view, as if I, the explorer - not the gamer - had made this discovery.
There are few greater feelings in life -- it's one that explorers throughout history have risked or even given their lives to experience. When a game can replicate this feeling, I can't help but feel lucky to be a gamer.
Contest:
5:00 PM on 09.04.2009
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Have you seen Kenneth Branagh's miniseries about the explorer?
If anyone else is interested, it's simply called "Shackleton." Easy enough.
You had me at Branagh!
@Kauza
You had me at "The"!
Nice work!
Since most of the Earth is thoroughly explored (barring the ocean floor), it's interesting to think that games may be one of the few ways that most of us will ever approximate that feeling that Shackleton had. Nice post.
Side Note: I wish Shadow Complex would come to PSN or PC so I could actually get a chance to play it.
@Palidi: Zedla was truly one of the first and also did the exploration quite well.
FUCK....
:P
Nice write up, can't agree with most of the stuff in it, but Shadow Complex is different than most XBLA games I've played.
As for everything else, though, I make no promises. :)
The first thing I did in that game after unwrapping my brand new $60 day-one release copy of that game was play an online horse race. Two Worlds is no Oblivion by any means. Also, good blog- One of the main reasons I play games is to explore the virtual surroundings and get that sense of bewilderment as I find places and things no one else has seen before (even though thousands of people most likely have had the same experience as me).
A Super Mutant Behemoth was beyond that hill.
There was also Saints Row 2, but that map became oddly small feeling after you learned the tricks of movement.
I might have to get Oblivion just to check it out. I had Elder Scrolls III on PC but I never really got into it.
I wonder if any games will ever go that route again because it's not an obvious thing that most people appreciate. You wouldn't show up to a game show and tout "Get lost in a sandstorm!" as a feature.
When I see maps in exploration type games, you always get the big 'YOU ARE HERE' nonsense. Even Fallout 3 did it after that initial 'throw you into the deep end' moment. Admittedly, you really needed the directions in that game, but the moments where you just picked a direction based on a vague landmark were pretty special. I know people forget things after a period between gaming but I'd like to see more 'hardcore' stuff like Forbidden Siren's approach. Probably because I'm mean like that!
Congrats though Kauza.
Great article though, and congrats on the frontpage. While some games have that "just one more level" addiction Fallout 3 for me had the "just one more interesting looking spot in the distance." I remember just going out in the unknown and getting lost, totally absorbed into finding something new.
Guild Wars was another game where the scenery just struck me in my tender places. At one point I had over a hundred screenshots saved of the best of it.
And Skies of Arcadia's monuments and treasures that you can find really add to it as well.
I still like how Super Metroid does things. You get a map and you can find a map machine to fill in how the rooms go, but it's entirely up to you to figure out where to go and when. Shadow Complex's "THIS IS WHERE YOU SHOULD GO" approach kind of killed things because I knew I could just explore everything around that point before going on.