The importance of immersion in games

You’re driving a car in a racing game and you turn your body to make a turn; you crane your neck to look around the corner of the wall in a horror game, or you feel sad about the fate of your favorite character. After a while, you turn off the video game and realize that you didn’t even notice the time passing, having played for hours and feeling like it was only a few minutes. 

But wait a minute, let’s take advantage of this return to reality to think a little: Electronic games are nothing more than a set of pre-programmed systems and polygons with the purpose of entertaining – nothing you see on the screen is organic or real, so how is it possible for us to get so involved? The answer may be a little complex, but it will always revolve around a term that has been used a lot in recent years when it comes to video games: Immersion.  

According to our dictionary, immersion is the act or effect of immersing oneself; immersion, submersion. The use of this term is perfect because this is exactly the feeling we have when playing an immersive game, that of diving into a virtual environment and, for a while, taking it as reality. 

Immersion can transform the experience of playing a video game, bringing characters to life, giving purpose to certain actions and even getting us emotionally involved; but while the result is clear, the path to achieving it may not be so clear. Is it enough for a game to have cutting-edge graphics? A good story? Realistic gameplay? Why can such a subjective aspect be so important to the overall experience? In the current era of gaming, in which we even have hardware dedicated to this – the famous virtual reality glasses – it is worth taking a closer look at an aspect that has become a constant in almost every analysis and debate about games.  

The path to immersion 

Let’s start with the most obvious aspect and the first one usually associated with immersion: graphics. Our first contact with the game is through the graphic elements that form the images on the screen, presenting us with the appearance of the characters and a general idea of ​​what that new reality will look like. But although it is an aspect that can in fact be important, I would say that it is one of the smallest – or the smallest of them.

The first Silent Hill is, to this day, a game that is still in my top 10 when I think of immersive games, even with the square and pixelated look of the time. It is already common knowledge that the fog was used to hide technical limitations of the Playstation, but lo and behold, it ended up being not only a trademark of the franchise, but also a feature that brought a different immersion compared to other games of the time.  

In addition to the fog, Silent Hill also made extensive use of sound resources, ranging from suspenseful music to the famous radio sound, which played whenever danger lurked. Silent Hill brought to light the term “psychological horror” to define games that did not rely on jump scares and grotesque visuals to scare the player, but rather on the subtle use of various elements that together entered the player’s mind and made him feel fear all the time. Do you see? The game sought to enter the player’s mind and did so with such mastery that it stood the test of time, making the graphics take a back seat.

Given the example of Silent Hill, it is safe to say that immersion comes from the combination of several aspects, but I think it is worth highlighting one: Sound. There are two types of sound: the environment, which includes everything from the sound of gunshots to the character’s footsteps; and the musical sound, which includes the soundtrack responsible for dictating the tone that the moment requires. Both are crucial to convey feelings to the player, and if worked correctly, they can make the experience immersive to the point of not being limited to the moment when the controller is in your hands, but also beyond that – who has never turned off the video game and still thought about the direction of the story, or listened to a certain song years later and felt a wave of nostalgia? 

The path to making an immersive game requires, above all, creativity to use all the resources in order to compose a great puzzle, but I believe that a little extra help from the target audience is also necessary. 

A joint effort 

Even though games are becoming more complex and immersive, they are still just… games. Characters won’t always move naturally, they won’t always be free from bugs, and realism will often be sacrificed for the sake of gameplay. All of this can end up breaking the immersion if the player isn’t “working” along.

There is a term called “suspension of disbelief,” used to describe our willingness to accept certain premises as truth in exchange for entertainment, even if those premises are impossible or contradictory. When you are watching a horror movie, you realize that the character’s attitude of walking around looking for that noise in the dark is not exactly the most natural decision in the world, but deep down you know that it is necessary for the plot of the movie to unfold, so you simply accept it; just as it is impossible for a human to fly, but within a universe like that of superheroes you simply accept that as truth, almost unconsciously. In games, this suspension of disbelief is much more required of the player, after all, how else would we be able to stay immersed after the character constantly takes several shots and heals himself with a bandage? 

This “work” by the player can even differentiate the way they play the game from other players, shaping the experience in a much more personal way. A player who values ​​coherence within the Red Dead Redemption 2 universe, for example, tends to use fast travel less to get around, in the same way that they tend to do non-obligatory activities, such as taking food to the camp, because after all, that is what Arthur Morgan would do. If you, the reader, have ever played a tabletop RPG, you will understand this issue better, as it is a type of activity that constantly requires the active use of imagination so that you can feel like you are within the reality proposed by the master, and not in the living room around a table holding tokens and a dice.

But what about games that aren’t immersive?

While immersion is undoubtedly a great addition to the experience, not all games can or even try to be immersive, and it’s important to understand that this doesn’t make the game bad. Some games are more laid-back, making the player feel more “outside” of the experience, but still generating a lot of fun. Astrobot is a great example, the recently awarded game of the year is a more cartoonish game, which encourages the player to play without headphones (the game makes heavy use of the DualSense speakers) and enjoy the fun and charisma of the bots in a light-hearted way. Well… we’re talking about a game of the year, right? It works. 

Video games in their early days were not exactly immersive experiences in the strictest sense of the word that we are discussing here. This never stopped people from having fun, and many even argue that video games are essentially just that: picking up the controller, calling your friends and laughing around the TV, completing levels, taking a casual beating in a fighting game, listening to those 8 and 16-bit sounds typical of the time, and that’s it. Well, maybe this type of experience is immersive in its own way. There is no right or wrong, just different approaches and sensations.  

Essential? 

We live in an era in which we are constantly bombarded with information and distractions all the time. The entertainment industry has to fight an increasingly difficult battle to gain the attention of consumers. Given this, it is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid the term “immersion” when it comes to video games. First, because it is increasingly used as a marketing tool, and second, because we have an ever-increasing need to feel “hooked” by the game, to have that more cinematic and memorable experience, to get our hard-earned money’s worth. The fact is that immersion is indeed important for us to connect with the game, with the characters, and, above all, with the experience of playing video games, a type of entertainment media that can benefit immensely from the sensation that the term suggests. Important? Without a doubt. Essential? Maybe, the answer is up to you.