Cairn follows the world’s best mountain climber, Aava as she attempts to climb Kami, the world’s most deadly mountain. Ascending the mountain accentuates how lonely these types of journeys can be, and Aava seems hellbent on rejecting attempts of connection from loved ones and business partners. It’s hard to like Aava for most of the journey, but when she hits the point of no return, I start to understand her. A story rarely features a main character who knows they don’t belong in society. It’s clear that she feels alone in the world, and this fool’s endeavor is her way of trying to be part of something greater.

Aava also passes many folks living on the mountainside who have made a decision to “Live Vertically”. They live in abandoned vertical villages or crevices in walls with their own unique architecture. The mountain itself takes on its own personality in these moments.

The loneliness I felt playing this game was overwhelming. Seeing Marco, a young climber who looks up to you, is the only reprieve Aava has from her self-imposed loneliness, and she is so rude to him. I never understood why until I understood where she was going. These types of emotions start to thaw when I find a save location and pull out Aava’s bivouac. The warm yellow tent feels like the only home we’ll ever know. By designing the inside of the tent to be so much larger than the outside insinuates, the designers have made this the only reprieve from the loneliness as you lounge, read, and eat with your only consistent companion, your climb bot. Many games have bases or ships that try to capture a fraction of the coziness the bivouac in Cairn captures, and I think they can take some notes on how to design these types of spaces.

Scale

The scale of the bivouac is the most influential design decision on how the bivouac feels. By making the bivouac so compact on the outside, the player feels small. The mountain becomes an imposing figure. Sometimes the bivouac barely fits into a tight doorway. Other times, the scale of the mountain alongside your suspended bivouac is an ego-crushing experience. However, the inside of the tent seems to be many times larger than one would think. This is as much a function of the different tasks you need to be able to perform to survive as it is a conscious decision to maintain a fixed camera angle displaying each of these tasks.

Atmosphere

The glow of the tent creates a sense of refuge that breaks the stress of the climb. After the stress is broken, the inside has a purple/orange ombre with splashes of bright colors, creating a cozy atmosphere. The tent flap is open, and as Aava ascends, the view out changes from green and lush to snowy and dark. This creates the most potent sense of safety I’ve ever felt in a game. Aava’s description at the beginning of the game of the bivouac is oddly calming despite mentioning the possibility that a carabiner could fail at any moment as the wind whips the outside of the tent. You never feel endangered, even once, while in the bivouac.

Cairn has many other cool architectural features, like the opening climbing gym that has a sawtooth roof. It’s interesting because it acts as a conscious leaving of society. It kicks off the sense of loneliness immediately, and it only gets more potent as the game continues.

There are also many ruins along the way. These abandoned villages are exciting and encouraging.

Cairn is the most beautiful game I’ve played this year, and I’d love to see more games like this or Jusant. Games that make people question their place in the world are more important than ever.

Skip to 2025, and this year had a bunch of 30+ hour games that absorbed my gaming habits. I didn’t have many games to write about, and many of those games didn’t have particularly interesting architectural design. Some of my favorite games this year, Borderlands 4 and Outer Worlds 2, don’t have challenging takes on the built environment. Towns aren’t large or full of life, and the buildings are rehashed tropes of their genres. I spent a lot of time in Peak, and though I loved how weird the airport is, there really isn’t architecture to speak of.

I did have 4 games (3 of which I have written about so far) that had exceptional architectural design, and once again, they are all indies.

4. Wheel World

Annapurna Interactive doesn’t seem to have missed a beat since their entire team quit. I’m not quite sure how you maintain any kind of quality when 100% of your workforce quits on the spot, but here we are. Wheel World may not have blown up the way some of their other games have, but it built the best atmosphere in a game since Sable. Like Sable, the beautiful hues, expansive prospect, wacky building designs, and an unforgettable soundtrack (Wheel World was super high on my year-end rewind). I found myself engrossed in the world despite unsatisfying gameplay and shallow build-crafting. I won’t forget my time here.

3. Dispatch

This game is an all-timer. It’s games like this that make me hope eternal sunshine of the spotless mind technology is real. I’d love to be able to erase memories of this game so I can play it again completely fresh. Besides the excellent writing, the depiction of architecture and the flourishes it uses to flesh out this world are magnificent. The mixing of rendering styles worked excellently, and I can’t wait to see what this successor to Telltale Games will bring us next.

2. The Secret Game I Didn’t Mention: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Yes, I played this game, and it was, like Dispatch, an all-timer. These are two of my favorite games of all time, cementing 2025 as one of my favorite years in gaming. Clair Obscur is a hard one to box in, which is one of the reasons I haven’t written about it. What makes it such an enigma is that it features many criticisms I have about architecture in video games. The style is trope-filled, but it has a reason to be. A lot of the buildings aren’t accessible, but the ones that are accessible are stunning. There aren’t realistic towns, but that all makes sense once the story advances far enough (no spoilers). I think it just flips a lot of the issues I have with AAA games on their heads by actually having a reason for these choices. The best comparison I can think of is in Outer Worlds 2, Auntie’s Choice buildings are Art Nouveau in style, and I have no idea why other than nostalgia bait. Clair Obscur has a compelling reason for being tropey, and I’ll leave it at that.

1. Blue Prince

I have to put Blue Prince as my most interesting take on architecture this year. It studied the relationships of building programs in a completely novel and innovative way (for a video game). Yes, it draws on tile-laying board games, but it does so much with those mechanisms. The architecture drives the story, it drives the puzzles, and it drives your understanding of the world. It sets a bunch of restrictions on you as the player, only to allow you to break those restrictions. When you think you understand the design of the world, it expands. And then it does it again. And then it does it again. And then it does it again. I think it’s still doing it.

Bye-bye 2025.

Telltale Games made several of my favorite games of all time. The Walking Dead Season 1, The Wolf Among Us, and Tales from the Borderlands still rank as some of the best storytelling in any medium. I still cry thinking about The Walking Dead Season 1, especially now that I have kids of my own. So, when Dispatch was announced, I was hopeful that many members of the original Telltale team were able to recapture that magic.

The old Telltale games used a strict formula that allowed stories to exist in a specific sandbox. Levels needed to be simple with blocky architecture to allow rudimentary controls, as this was available on iPad, to move freely and interact with the environments without fuss. Spaces were often oversized in plan, creating necessary distortions, to give wide berths for awkwardly walking around all the crap on the ground. This streamlined gameplay to avoid frustrations with the weakest part of the game (the escape room-style searching).

The downfall of the genre (and reemergence) was/is based on the strength of the writing. When the writing became bland and the decisions became obvious (i.e. Guardians of the Galaxy Telltale game), the games lost their luster. All that was left is the dullest wandering from clunky level to clunky level, clicking on the glowy thing for my force-fed, yawn-inducing decisions. Telltale Games closed down in 2018, and after a bit of time, AdHoc, the developer of Dispatch, was formed.

Dispatch follows Robert Robertson, the washed-up world-famous superhero Mecha Man. He takes on a new gig, sending reformed superheroes on missions to help them get better at their jobs. The overall plot proceeds the way you might imagine, but the relationships being developed are deep and thoughtful. I’d love to talk for hours about how interesting characters like Chase and Waterboy are, and the ways they tap into feelings of nostalgia/loss and fatherhood/protection, respectively. It’s important to discuss how the game innovates beyond escape-room mechanisms. Instead, I stumbled onto an interesting idea that I’d like to explore as an architect rather than LARPing as a game reviewer.

Architecture without Space

Dispatch is part of a medium made up of 2-dimensional representation of a 3-dimensional space. Most video games and films fall into this category, but Dispatch pushed me to think about it the way I think about films that use practical effects and set designs. It’s not about the faithful representation of space, but rather creating an experience that the space is meant to create.

If you’ve ever watched an old movie that uses models rather than green screen technology with CGI, there is an interesting interpretation of detail that happens between shots. Guillermo Del Toro is a master of manipulating space in this way. I recall an interview with Charlie Day where he talks about his experience on the set of Pacific Rim, in which he recounts the scene where he drops his glasses, and instead of trying to get a shot of his glasses, there is a replica made that was “the size of a couch” to get the scene to evoke a specific experience. He does it in Pinocchio as well, by utilizing many different scales of the titular character depending on the type of scene.

These are mostly examples of the manipulation of 3-dimensional spaces and how much detail is shown. If you ask an architect what architecture is, it involves some sort of manipulation of 3-D space. What happens when a 3-D space is recreated with 2-D techniques and stitched in with 3-D techniques? It’s an interesting question because that is more or less a question that architects ask themselves every day. Our entire job is to design something in 3-D, then translate it to 2-D, but it’s not about recreating the experience; rather, it is about creating instructions to build the building.

Dispatch utilizes a type of 2-dimensional digital rendering to convey feelings (in this case, a bland office or expansive city). It’s a technique used frequently in comics and animation to help limit costly modeling time. In this case, it creates landscapes and vignettes to fill out emotional moments. Flying through the city with a new friend becomes a moment of connection brimming with atmosphere. Wes Andersonesque visuals of an office accentuating the inane lighting layouts of a thoughtlessly crafted acoustic tile ceiling fill me with the same sense of hopelessness I have when walking through a cubicle-filled office floor. In some ways, these moments are deeper than if they had been perfectly modeled and rendered. Being reliant on computers to evoke the atmosphere that we want can be difficult; in reality, we are only in control of a handful of settings for a computer to spit out an image the way we want it. The more of a medium you push to other entities, the less room we have to expand our creativity.

As game budgets balloon to unreal numbers, developers need creative ways to craft their visions. I consider this type of art direction to be low-hanging fruit. Supergiant has been a master at utilizing this type of art direction. Hades and Hades 2 create these deep, thoughtful backgrounds that create space to exhibit lore or imagine characters the way we want them to be. At some point, I’ll try to write about how they accomplish this in Hades 2, but for now, I’m happy with the strides that Dispatch has made in artistic representation.

My family and friends may already know this, as I’ve been playing the Wheel World soundtrack (by Johnny Jewel of Drive Soundtrack fame) anytime I get the aux, but I love Wheel World. The soundtrack is the driving soul of Wheel World, as there is no voice acting and few sound effects in the world. I tried to imagine the game without a soundtrack, and it was hard to separate the two. It’s rare to find a game with a soundtrack this impactful. The world itself is understated, but beautifully painted with an art direction reminiscent of the beautiful indie games by Hollow Ponds. The perfect environment to enter a flow state as I rip through the atmosphere on my designer bike (it’s me, I’m the designer).

The world of Wheel World is nicely designed with many paths designed for two-wheeled transportation, as well as streets designed for the most evil of all transportation… cars. I would liken the road design more closely to Europe than America, as there aren’t any 15-lane highways. This aspect of the game is as thoughtfully designed as anything from the Forza Horizon series. Another element Wheel World shares with the Forza Horizon games is its full-hearted embrace of Prospect. You can see structures in the distance in other areas from most areas of the game. Though the exploration is brief, it pulls you in your next adventure with little input from the designers.

The buildings are, again, understated; simple designs with exaggerated features that enhance the simple modernism and create a style all of its own. There are two main areas, the first is a small city full of buildings no taller than three or four stories, except for some extremely tall windmills. The surrounding areas feature refreshing natural settings, including relaxing vineyards and tall pine forests. The buildings are either simple, modern white, or European earth tones, which evoke associations with the European Mediterranean. The details give these buildings their character, whether it be a single tiny window offset near an oddly placed air conditioner or a bike shop that looks like a converted tiny house. It isn’t thoughtfully designed, but it isn’t kit-bashed at random either. It tells you exactly where the focus is, but also lets you know this is lovingly crafted.

The second style is a cyberpunk trash city. The way the city is designed reminds me of Cyber City Oedo 808. The buildings are a fabric that doesn’t indicate the function of the building; it’s a simple background. The green hue of the setting makes these large, lightly windowed structures feel encroaching and creepy. The street lights are cage-like structures that add to this corporate overreach nightmare. It’s amazing that a small game like this worked in some simple but effective political criticism.

Wheel World is a short adventure that is more than worth your time. The soundtrack alone will keep you in this world, and just when you think the game may start overstaying its welcome, it ends. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see more Wheel World, but I’d want to restart anew, with a new world (hoping for a sequel, but I don’t have my hopes up). It’s a game that respects your time, provides a unique experience, and leaves you with an absolute BANGER of a soundtrack. You really can’t ask for more than that from a game.

By now, many of you have played, or at least heard of, Blue Prince (I honestly did not understand the word play until I started trying to write the headline for this post). It has a LOT of early game-of-the-year buzz, and it is honestly difficult to see any other game taking that title so far. The moment I finished Indiana Jones (architecture review incoming?) I downloaded this game (it’s been a good month for gamepass for me), and the game hooked my architecture-addled brain.

Blue Prince is a game that borrows mechanisms from many video games and board games, which coalesce into fascinating decisions about space planning, resource management, and prospect. It uses tile laying from board games like Castles of Mad King Ludwig and Betrayal at House on the Hill, then combines it with roguelite drafting mechanisms and some deck building to work your way through your deck of tiles (more on that later). In many ways, this game exercises architect muscles in a safe space that also rewards those thoughts frequently and meaningfully.

Comparisons are floating around about Blue Prince and Outer Wilds (GOAT), but I do not think this game feels much like Outer Wilds. It is much closer to The Witness in its reverence for architecture and its layered puzzles that grow and morph as you begin to understand them, as well as its sprinkling of lore through these abandoned rooms. Blue Prince feels less like communion with the universe a la Outer Wilds and more like manipulating and crafting your world to fit your needs. What is an architect if not one that crafts the world to fit our needs?

Space Planning

Each run of Blue Prince starts in the foyer with 3 directions one can go. After approaching a door three room tiles are revealed, and the entire game is deciding which of these rooms makes the most sense to go adjacent to the current room AND how that room can help achieve goals in the future. Each of these rooms contains interesting experiences that are plump with minigames, puzzles, lore, and sometimes an awe-inspiring view. Do we really want three closets off the foyer? Of course not, that would finish your building excruciatingly quickly. It is easy to tune your building too tightly providing no flexibility, ending your promising run right before you get to the meet of the game. The entire idea is to build a solid design that leaves you options for rooms that might not make sense. Anyone that has laid out a building knows that this type of flexibility in design is critical to laying out complex building program, which is important in games like the Castles of Mad King Ludwig (which is why I recommended that game in my first ever Substack).

Resource Management

Architecture is as much about managing resources as it is about actually designing a structure. Understanding material limitations, shipping logistics, budget considerations are part of the chaotic mess that is the project delivery process. While there are efficiencies to be had, those rarely gel with client realities and design schedules that are increasingly compressed. Success within this process is understanding how to manipulate and order these resources so that you have what you need when you need it amidst the chaos, rather than trying to get everything out the door as quickly as possible.

The way Blue Prince presents plenty of opportunities for every single tile to be successful and every single tile to be completely worthless. A dead end that is going to make me draw more red tiles? No thanks… except, because I have an experiment that gives me extra crap when I place red rooms.

Prospect

There are many times in this game that placing a tile is about the experience within that tile and not about advancing a particular goal. Prospect is the most commonly missing element from bad architecture. A building, regardless of how expertly detailed and built, needs to have some kind of prospect to elevate it to architecture. There needs to be interplay with users for it to cross that line even if it goes against resource management goals or gums up the space planning.

This is where Blue Prince shines the most. There are a number of times I had a promising run I sacrificed because I got a rare tile that I had never seen. Perfect runs are meant to end with the office or the Lady’s bedchamber, because these are important spaces. It is the embodiment of “it’s the journey not the destination.”

Though I completed the main goal of Blue Prince, there are many massive puzzles I have yet to solve, adventures to experience, and stories to hear.

Postscript

This game also has Cross programming!

The Brutalist is a movie about an architect. That’s the easiest way to describe a movie that is really about immigrants, drug abuse, tense relationships, and how a creative genius prioritizes each of those aspects of his life to soaring heights and crushing lows. That is a microcosm of what it means to be an architect.

When I speak to non-architects about what it is to be an architect, I speak about the bureaucracy, coordination, and the spinning of proverbial plates. It’s designing a building AND it’s managing the entire process of designing a building. It explains why so many architects treat buildings as simple repetition of a previous project and process to maximize profit. It’s the reason architecture has been, by and large, creatively bankrupt over the last few decades. At any one time an architect is carrying out dozens of unrelated tasks that need to come together in a precise way followed by the next series of unrelated tasks that need to come together in a precise way. Now imagine this process with several other buildings all under design/construction at the same time. This leaves very little time to create in the way Laszlo is allowed to in The Brutalist. That is being an architect. I imagine that is being a film director as well.

In order to accomplish this authentic atmosphere and historical recreation, architects and professors were consulted. I was impressed by the understanding of what the Bauhaus, the different eras of the Bauhaus, and direct references to members of the Bauhaus in the designs shown and ideas presented.

Most of the scenes are framed exquisitely showcasing many different styles of architecture and a full-chested appreciation of all of them. A scene at a coal mine features a neoclassical factory building in the distance. A scene at a marble quarry frames the scene perfectly as light is surrounded by shadow. The scene of a nostalgic house party features classical trim details in deep dark wood tones. The scene of bringing immigrants to this country is framed by melancholy industrial beams and aquamarine concrete. Each of these architectural features are foreshadowing and full of metaphor.

The main creative endeavor of Laszlo is a cavernous Brutalist monolith. A Tower of Babel-esque project that has it’s own set of issues (complete with contentious community meetings). Without spoiling too much, in some ways the building is the catalyst for every important plot point of the entire movie, which leads me to something I like to think about whenever I get down about our industry. Architecture frames nearly every moment of people’s lives. It is the backdrop of every moment, every plot point of our lives. It is the same for architects, just from the other direction. The designing of buildings is the backdrop to our lives and it is the backdrop of Laszlo’s life.

It’s been a few months since I wrote. I spent the last several months playing a mix of:

1. Games that don’t have much in the way of architecture. I highly recommend Emberward and Flock (shout out to hollow ponds, whose games I frequently write about).

2. Games that I just can’t bring myself to finish or write about.

3. Destiny 2.

Destiny 2 used to be the only game I played before I wrote about games and architecture. I played it religiously (or as religiously as a casual gamer could, forgive me Zavala for I have sinned). I liked the first Destiny, but I didn’t fall in love with the franchise until Destiny 2. I was enamored from release all the way through Shadowkeep at which point I realized I was in a relationship with a game that did not respect my time whatsoever. However, when I heard that the 10 year story was coming to a close, I wanted to see it through and look back at what I consider to be some really incredible world building through architectural design and storytelling, despite some terrible world building through architectural design and storytelling.

Uploading My Destiny 2 Memory

The first part of this post is going to revisit Destiny 2 from what feels like centuries ago, but was only actually like 4 years ago. This is going to be washed in nostalgia, descriptions of vibes, and a lack of hard examples. This is because Bungie wiped a LOT of what was in the game back when I played. Places like Mercury, parts of Mars, and the Tangled shore no longer exist in game, and even if they did, the context in which they existed no longer makes any sense. In fact there are several places like the Dreaming City which lack any meaningful context due to the way Bungie handled large parts of the story and removal of campaigns. Therefore this entire portion of the story is going to be based on how I felt about the architecture, what I remember it as, and why it makes me so sad to not be able to go back and experience any of it.

When Destiny 2 launched the idea was ambitious; wipe everything that came before in Destiny and either rebuild it or leave it in the past. This idea was exciting as it gave a chance to replace some of the simple utility of Destiny’s locations with all new locations full of character and interesting spaces. I am probably in the minority on my love for Destiny 2 base game and the first two expansions, but I feel that they exceeded any expectation I ever had in how they designed the patrol spaces and the tower.

The tower was designed in such a way that every area felt inhabited and unique. Future War Cult was in a futuristic tube, Ikora was surrounded by her instruments, etc. It lacked some of the coziness that was created in the Farm during the base game campaign, but it carried some of that forward and created a sense of professionalism. Something I really like about the tower design over the years is the ability for it to change and expand. Bungie left many unopened doors, some of which eventually opened and populated creating senses of excitement with each expansion.

There are SOME issues with tower, however. In order to create a space this expansive, designing systems and infrastructure that make sense between the old and the new is a challenge and instead of getting bogged down in the details, it is easier to just fill the space with architectural gobbledygook. Signs that make no sense and HVAC ducts that can not function as built.

The patrols zones were immaculate. Each zone was opened up through the campaign and then became playable piece by piece. One of the most striking moments for me was landing on the golden era city on Titan. My emotions were overwhelming during this point in the campaign. Upon losing everything and trying to restore the light and trying to reassemble the shambles of the Vanguard, I never felt lonelier and less powerful which made the eventual return of the light all that much more important. Titan’s architectural design reflected this tension. Futuristic biopunk architecture whose soul was tainted by time and the hive aliens that laid their eggs in their halls. The idea that this was once the golden age of man, and we are the only remaining guardian with our light is such a strong narrative moment, a “vibe” if you will. Titan is still my all time favorite patrol zone. Its compactness and thoughtfulness are unmatched and the fact that it is no longer playable still makes me sad to this day.

The Dreaming City during Forsaken and upon my return during the Final Shape could not feel more different. During Forsaken the soaring space fantasy structures cloaked in fog and mystery were full of life and interest. As the weeks changed the city changed and became corrupted and hideous only for it to reset every three weeks. The design of this system was thoughtful and most people agree this was the most well designed space of any space Bungie has ever touched. After returning from my hiatus, separated from the no longer playable campaign, the space makes no sense, holds no relevance and only serves to lessen my memory of the area. Like returning to my high school a decade after attending only to realize it was much dumpier than I remember.

Needless to say, nostalgia is painting quite a rosy picture of these spaces and honestly at this point I don’t want them to fix it, it would probably just further ruin my memories.

The Final Shape

The Final Shape is intended to be the last hoorah for the story that I spent roughly a third of my life experiencing (that sounds weirdly pathetic). I played through the Witch Queen and Lightfall as well and will touch on briefly before moving onto my thoughts about the Final Shape.

The Witch Queen more or less wrapped the story of our fight with the Hive Gods (I know Xivu Arath is still unresolved, but I’m not optimistic that will be touched on again anytime soon). Helping Savathun through her repressed trauma was… interesting. Not sure I loved the story, but I did love the cool blue glowy versions of the poky hive Gothic architectures. I didn’t think they tried anything too innovative with the architecture in this expansion, but it did make me appreciate how much a coat of paint really can do.

Lightfall is a total waste of potential. The city lacked any character or story relevance. This is echoed in pretty much every part of the campaign in Lightfall. Just really disappointing stuff and I wish I didn’t feel like I had to buy it to understand what was happening in Final Shape (it only served to confuse me further).

The Final Shape is an avant-garde experiment in spatial design. The idea is that the final shape is a frozen point in space time that the Witness (a misunderstood steam engine with a unobrow)

decided to create for ultimate order or something like that. The thing I find interesting is that the form selected is some whacked out version of postmodern deconstructivism. Pieces of buildings and objects shift and change materiality. It’s like Peter Eisenmann got ahold of the remote control for the universe.

Anyway, the Guardian (me) sets off on a mission to save architecture. I jump through the giant post-modern triangle in the middle of the giant post-modern sphere to tell this guy “hey, other styles of architecture are cool too” and then proceed to murder them. All the while I’m running through spaces that are some combination of unhinged body parts pushing through walls in shades of jade and stone, as well as the scene from Interstellar where Matthew Mcconaughey gets stuck behind a bookshelf and screams at his daughter.

I’ve been trying to write more without using as many photographs, but after reading how unhinged my last paragraph was, I felt like I had to prove it. Oh yeah and there was something that I’m almost certain has to be a reference to Corbusier’s weird Shangri-La hand monument.

There is also a good deal of nostalgia bait laced throughout this experience. Highways full of cars from the Cosmodrome, ramen shops from the tower, the old original tower from D1 reconstructed and modified. I think they really just tried to cram every idea they had into this expansion and I have no clue how it worked, but it was one of the best gaming experiences I have ever had, and I think I’m done with Destiny 2.

Thanks Bungie. It was a good run.

I did it.

After watching a bunch of lore videos and watching explanation videos, I’m still not really sure what “it” is, but I did “it” (thanks Comet Azur for taking all of the stress out of the game).

I’m back to Elden Ring to analyze The Lands Between after diving into some supplementary lore videos and seeing a lot of the mid-end game environments, I was much more impressed by what I saw. Special shoutout to Tarnished Archaeologist for creating and or compiling a lot of great theories around the ruins and historic architecture and what they could mean in the game. I’m going to avoid rehashing a lot of their theories, BUT they provide in depth analyses around architectural styles of different areas, the proposed timelines and events, and why there are matchy-matchy buildings a continent away from each other.

What I want to focus on is one of the best abuses of prospect-refuge theory mixed with incredible monumentality, as well as a dash of atmosphere.

PROSPECT:

I designed schools in America for 7 years, so one thing that became engrained in my design vernacular is creating a sense of safety by allowing views of ones surroundings. This is often referred to as the “prospect” aspect of prospect-refuge theory. Before I delve too deeply into this, I do want to point out that I recently stumbled on to this nearly decade old meta analysis of prospect-refuge theory at multiple scales and their conclusion is that the sense of safety is mostly derived from prospect rather than refuge. I think Elden Ring makes that point as well, as I don’t think there is such a thing as refuge (with the exception of some sites of grace)in The Lands Between, but there are many moments that create a sense of safety through prospect.

Elden Ring is a difficult and unrelenting journey, equal parts frustrating and confusing. The number of times I finally beat a difficult enemy only to get slaughtered by an unseen enemy crouching behind a wall right before you complete a dungeon is maddening (not sure how many “shame on me’s” I deserve at this point). Enemies can be extremely tough (unless you are a magical coward (like me)) and moments of safety are SO refreshing. These moments are almost always some variation of awe-inspiring, fore-shadowing, and curious. Running through a gauntlet of death to be greeted by a Byzantine skyline seemingly under attack by a petrified dragon made me say “gee willikers!”. The gold roofs, gray mystery, and storytelling creates a unique feeling that took my breath away dozens of times (or maybe I was still out of breath drenched in sweat from those 2 or 3 zombies I had to work my way through). I love that these moments are that coupled with the difficulty (of 2 or 3 zombies, they really were pretty hard), you want to spend some time here, not only to take it all in, and not only to wipe the sweat from your brow, but also to try and figure out what happened here and to formulate your plan of action.

ATMOSPHERE:

The second thing that I think I touched on in my first writing (I don’t actually remember as it was a bit of clickbaity cringe and I don’t want to reread it out of embarrassment) is that the Lands Between features some *raises the sultry eyebrows* At-mo-sphere.

There are so many moments where the use of fog silhouettes buildings, enemies, etc. and reminds me of J.M.W. Turner’s ability to obscure and his depth of color. This depth of experience enhances the emotion of every difficult boss fight and major event. It is the only thing that kept my spirits high when times got frustrating. It makes it a lot easier to sprint through a dozen enemies to a boss for the 30th time, when it looks this good (I had to keep myself from flirting with the tornado on the way to Dragonlord Placidusax).

Atmosphere often goes hand in hand with Prospect as well. The moments of safety are deepened. Like this one below (IYKYK).

Elden Ring also shares DNA with a lot of open world games with different Biomes in that the lore often explains why zones feature certain colors and aesthetics. It does a good job, but if you don’t do a crap load of research outside of the game it feels a bit random. I personally like games with outside lore, but I shouldn’t have to watch a 30 hour video to understand what the hell I just spent 100 hours doing. Honestly, I still have no clue what I was doing and I’m not even really sure I had fun, but I am glad I did it.

My introduction to Jusant was a brief reveal featuring a unique idea and incredible art. However, the unique idea and the beautiful art took a back seat to a soundscape that peels back an onion layer of anxiety and rubs the shoulders of your soul.

A Unique Idea

The unique idea is a single continuous level featuring fleshed out climbing mechanics and shifting biomes as the player ascends. The idea of vertical cities is powerful despite the practicality of such structures being non-existent. Vertical cities are full of soaring, layered, interconnected spaces that are some of the most difficult and courageous experiences to design.

Games that feature collectibles usually trigger my FOMO which leads to me wasting hours back tracking to make sure I hit everything. Jusant has three types of collectibles (more on that later) scattered over many paths that lead up the pillar. Because of how accomplished the game made me feel as I climbed, I never felt obliged to spend my time tracking down missed collectibles despite the sense of communion with the pillar that grew with each found secret. Backtracking to grab them all would have cheapened that experience.

Shoutout to the actual climbing mechanics. The clack of snapping one of your climbing anchors into the rock after sprinting along the face of the rock is both exhilarating and relieving. There is some use of the “squeeze” between two rock faces to hide loading screens (that sucked in Fallen Order), but Jusant is ABOUT that sort of exploration. It scratches a desire I’ve always had to go spelunking without having to worry about getting stuck. Spelunking is a small man’s game.

Incredible Art (and Fun Architecture)

There has been a trend of beautifully rendered flat color texture art in games. This type of art is warmly disarming and deeply comforting in games that would otherwise feel excruciatingly lonely.

The architecture of each biome was unique, however within the biomes the vernacular is particularly strict and lacks meaningful variation. I had hoped that within each biome there might be more variation, but the typologies that did exist were fun and engaging. Many featured funky windows and provocative vents as well as material representative of the biome. Plaster is used near the ground where sand is plentiful. Red stone is used in the red stone area. The vernacular seems to match the described climates as well. Near the ground where there were once vast oceans, stout rounded structures are typical. The density of the buildings also made the stories of the people visiting or living at various camps believable.

Symphonic Architecture

There’s a bit of an inside joke in architecture that occupants rarely notice how rooms sound (or any design details), unless they sound (or look) like shit. Obviously programs like symphony halls and stages are exceptions because you might notice the sound design (it’s why you are there after all). Jusant DOES think about how the architecture sounds through one of my favorite collectibles in any video game ever.

The mighty conch.

Every now and then a conch appears on the ground and the climber does what anyone would do with a conch they found on the ground miles high on a massive pillar… they pick it up and listen. In this case each conch features the sounds of the nearby settings with a focus the buildings and their sounds. The creaking of the floor boards, the clanking echoes ricocheting off the barrel vaults, etc. were memorable immersive experiences. It’s effective in bringing the long lost civilizations to life. I would have loved something like this in Outer Wilds (file this under how to make a perfect game more perfect).

This type of focus on sound in architecture is usually regulated to architecture school theory and a handful of specific building typologies, but there are some interesting symphonic architectural masterpieces that draw in the sound and hone it before it reaches the ears of the denizens. My favorite example of this is the Stretto House by Stephen Holl.

Sited adjacent to three ponds with existing dams, the house projects the character of the site through a series of concrete “spatial dams” with metal framed “aqueous space” flowing through them. Pouring over the dams, like the overlapping stretto in music, water reflects the landscape outside and the spaces overlapping inside. Bartok’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste has a materiality in instrumentation which the architecture approaches in light and space. Formed in four sections, the building consists of two modes: heavy orthogonal masonry and light, curvilinear metal. The main house is aqueous space: floor planes pull one space to the next, roof planes pull space over walls and an arched wall pulls light from a skylight. Materials continue the concept in poured concrete, cast glass in fluid shapes, slumped glass and liquid terrazzo.

Gotta love that level of word vomit. Still, if you can scrape away the made-up and misappropriated words (aqueous space?) there’s a beautiful idea of harnessing a natural setting to create a sort of “Symphonic Architecture” (yes I know I just made fun of this kind of thing)

2023 was an incredible year for video games, and I probably played less than half the games I wanted to write about, and wrote about less than half the games I played. I might revise this list in the middle of the year if I get around to playing those games, permitting that there aren’t five massive releases with in a month (looking at you September to October 2023). I think there were a few games that blew me away with their design and what they allowed the architecture to do and here they are.

Honorable mention: Baldur’s Gate 3. Couldn’t put it on my list because I had such massive performance issues, but it did seem nice. I’ve since built a custom PC with a CPU I think could handle it, so I’ll touch base on this if I ever play it again.

5. The Case of the Golden Idol

The Case of the Golden Idol I haven’t gotten all the way through yet, but I love creepy puzzle games. The pixelated design creates an eerie aura that games like The Return of the Obra Dinn implemented to perfection. I plan to write about this if and when I finish it, but I think its worth getting on the radar.

4. American Arcadia

Along the same lines as The Case of the Golden Idol, I have not finished American Arcadia. I was looking forward to this as Out of the Blue’s follow up to the also creepy puzzle game Call of the Sea. The game is a side scrolling adventure and rather than let the game’s linear horizontality crunch down (like the Ninja Turtle arcade game) the architecture is soaring and everything is extra tall and extra stretched. My instinct is that this is to fill out the screen, but I think some of it is the unique art direction. The framing of each scene has been one of the more interesting aspects, but it’s hard to pin down what feels so weird about it. Maybe it’s the one-point perspective, or the layering. I’m not really sure, but I’ll try to figure it out?

3. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Alright, getting into the games I’ve actually finished and had interesting architectural ideas. Even though I liked Tears of the Kingdom’s predecessor much better, I found the architectural exploration far more interesting here. Besides the impressive crafting system and the absolutely busted and awful build your own house system, there were some specific acknowledgements to the architectural design this time around. It also allowed us to experience far more of the architecture in a new and innovative way, but traversing through ceilings and floors.

2. Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty

I hesitated putting this on the list since Cyberpunk 2077 was an existing game, and one I’ve played several times before this year so I had a lot of experience and biased attachment to Night City. That said, I felt there were an incredible number of architecturally significant additions to the game that blew me away. The references to Las Vegas and the way in which it forced me to reevaluate the architecture and urban design of Night City. I think the games industry (especially the AAA game makers) need to pay attention to what was created here (indies keep doing your own thing).

1. Jusant

Jusant came out of nowhere. I’ve long-loved the idea of climbing and spelunking games (I always wanted to be a spelunker, but being as tall as I am makes it hard). When this was revealed during the Xbox Showcase I figured I would give it a shot at some point, due to the great art direction, innovative game mechanisms, and it was created by Dontnod, which is a studio I greatly respect. What I didn’t expect was a game that took Shadow of the Colossus’ climbing scale amplified to orders of magnitude and littered with unique architectural styles intertwined with microclimates and story beats. Jusant makes it clear that (and is something I mentioned as one of the positive things in Viewfinder) architecture is rarely only about building material, light, and level design. There are so many parts of architecture that rarely get explored in video games and Jusant’s focus on the sounds of space as a core reward for exploration is inspired. I can’t recommend this game highly enough and not only from the architectural perspective. This is one of the most original, thoughtful, and awe inspiring games I have ever played. It shocked me with its beauty at least 7 times in the 6 hours I spent playing it. That’s a high “wow”/hour.

Viewfinder is a puzzle game set in the far future (hopefully) on a climate change ravaged planet (guessing Earth) that uses a virtual reality simulation to recreate some scenes from a group of… randos? But here’s the cool part, you can do some crazy shit with photographs.

According to the wikipedia (I’m the research king) the developers (Sad Owl Studios) cited puzzle games like Portal as an influence. The influence of Portal has an outsized impact on the architectural and artistic expression in Viewfinder. Other games that fit the mold of puzzle games that have weird uses of architecture include The Witness and Maquette. I have a deep soft spot for these types of games, but they don’t have a great track record with creating meaningful architectural design, instead opting for coating their puzzles with a (term I invented) style wash tm. Given the unique 2D photo to 3D space, this game SHOULD have something interesting to say about architecture considering all of architecture is turning 2D drawings into 3D space.

So, how does it do?

Chapter 1

Each chapter is colored by the personality of a different member of some sort of climate change supergroup. Each of these chapters rely on a brutalist concrete backbone, an interesting decision considering the embodied energy of concrete, not that I would expect a developer to know or consider that. Unfortunately, this backbone becomes repetitive since there is almost no variation on this theme. What does change from chapter to chapter is the decor, whether that be paintings, guitars, etc.

the first chapter of Viewport is from an artists point of view. This is by far the strongest chapter of the game, especially architecturally. It’s the colorful, well designed, and well lit. There were some interesting programmatic ideas, my favorite of which was a personal beach on a rooftop like something out of MVRDV’s Rooftop Catalogue.

The lighting is deeply fascinating. It takes cues from contemporary phenomenology movements in architecture. The borrowed light feels fresh, expansive, and emotional as if an early Steven Holl project was the inspiration.

One of the technological innovations in this area is that introduction of non-photograph images. 2D images not only cut through the 3D space like previous photographs, but it carries the style of the image as well. The theme of the images are so thoroughly thought through that sounds are crafted to match the style (my favorite is the jump sound “boing” in the cartoon). The sound designer of Viewfinder needs to be recognized for a masterful achievement.

At one point when doing one of the more clever puzzles the walls break in the illusion as part of the story. A Blade Runner 2049-esque dystopian nightmare awaits. It’s thematic and impactful, but such an interesting world is so briefly explored that it feels like something more that was eventually cut.

The rest of the Chapters

For some reason rest of game felt quickly pieced together without the same sort of love and attention to detail as Chapter 1. Despite some cool references to video games there really wasn’t as much depth. There were also some really fun De Stijl references, but these cameos felt like a distraction from the standard game outlasting its welcome.

Ending

Viewfinder ends in a similar way to many of these types of emotional and mysterious puzzle games. It creates a final series of levels that slightly alter your powers as the world is collapsing and the illusion is being broken. Ultimately the stakes just seem so low that I couldn’t fully comprehend why everyone was being so dramatic in the story we discovered. Like someone was being selfish so the 4 people that set out the save the world from climate change ended up failing their experiment? Maquette did a similar thing to a much more successful emotional payoff. In Maquette the stakes were so high because the player was experiencing the blossom and collapse of a romantic relationship (think scenes of a marriage) and at the end as the city looms and encloses and the main character is experiencing deep depression and trauma, hope blooms. In Viewfinder you find a seedling and “hooray the world is saved” but why couldn’t the first group just do it? Seemed like they knew what was going on. Anyway, the architecture is nice to look at, but it didn’t do much more than that.

This will contain significant spoilers for Cyberpunk 2077 and its Phantom Liberty DLC!!

I also recommend listening to Tapes of Night City as it was the soundtrack for writing this.

Since I started playing Cyberpunk in late 2021 (well after its abysmal launch) I have been obsessed with the world built by Mike Pondsmith and brought to life by CD Projekt Red. I wrote to defend the architectural design from some well-written critical pieces that were tinted by the distaste for the soggy bottom that was the Cyberpunk launch. In hindsight, it feels silly to “defend” a game as well loved as Cyberpunk, but at the time the perspective of public opinion only STARTED to shift.

Cyberpunk 2077 Critique Revisited

Last time I wrote about Cyberpunk I was directly responding to critique and not really diving too deeply into the architecture of Night City. To recap the criticism was:

“

1. For a Cyberpunk game it loses the political message.

2. The expression of utilities doesn’t make any sense.

3. The rooms are oversized and out of scale.

“

I still think the first point is moot considering the ideas that the story explores and the second and third points are pretty nitpicky.

Over a few playthroughs I had a few ideas around how architecture is treated in game design in general as well as a lot of new ideas that cropped up around Dogtown newly created in the Phantom Liberty DLC.

Asset Reuse Theory

One of the most important successes of Cyberpunk is that the reuse of assets in Night City. The reason it is so important is that reuse of assets plays into the lore of a world ruled by corporations. Corporations will often reuse design and branding standards between locations and products. Typically, when assets are reused it becomes a balancing act between optimizing labor and preventing broken immersion by overused assets. The reason Night City can reuse as many assets as it does is, if I see the same sign, ad, or building in multiple locations, it fits into that idea of brand standards. In addition, an enormous amount of the city is still handcrafted around those reused assets.

A game like Forza Horizon 4 reuses assets to fill in city and towns so they don’t feel empty, but also so they don’t take an 84 years to model every cranny. It works in FH4 because the assets are experienced at high speed. It relies on the player not taking time to stop and investigate each building and interior. It fails when players break out of the typical gameplay systems.

Similarly NieR:Automata reuses many assets to fill out the ruined cities. Unlike FH4, it works because it functions as a driving force AND a way to reveal unique and important structures and vistas. Nier breaks down the most easily of the three games because it doesn’t require breaking the gameplay systems to break immersion. However, the pay off is worth it (i.e. seeing the amusement park or the castle for the first time).

Urban Design Theory

Everyone knows architects are experts in adjacent fields like Urban Design, just ask any urban designer I’ve ever worked with. Joking aside I think the way CDPR has designed the urban fabric of Night City reveals a surprising European bias. This allowed Night City to be more walkable than any current American cities with the exception of some of the oldest east coast cities like NYC, Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston. The reason this is so interesting is because the critical philosophy of Cyberpunk is that a Corpocratic future has little to no redeeming qualities, yet the walkability and human scale of urban fabrics in Cyberpunk 2077 is largely improved.

American urban design has historically been car-centric. A car-centric culture results in high ratios of surface level parking and parking garages to actual buildings. While parking exists in Night City, the number of spaces per building is almost non existent. On top of that there are very few street parking spaces. No cars that drive around Night City park their cars, whether it be in a parking garage, surface parking, or on-street parking. Also, the parking garages and surface level lots are barely populated by cars. NCART, Night City’s metro and bus systems, must be making some serious eddies.

Gameplay-wise the lack of parking isn’t a big deal since one can park anywhere they want with no consequences. You can park on a sidewalk, in the middle of a 8-lane highway, or at the bottom of Coronado Bay. This also results in a fabulous walking and driving experience (ignoring the horrible steering controls. Light poles in Night City never stood a chance). Facades of buildings are open, sidewalks are bustling, and vistas are clear, creating an atmosphere common in European cities. My guess is that CDPR being based in Poland has lead to that all important European bias. As much as I love living in Columbus, I can’t say it would make a good video game city.

Is the DLC well designed?

The majority of the added content since the last time I critiqued this game was added in the Phantom Liberty DLC by way of Dogtown. Dogtown is a part of Pacifica, the playground for the ultrawealthy that ran out of money and was abandoned, that has been walled off from the rest of Pacifica for both political and security reasons. This is important because Pacifica is already known as one of the most dangerous areas in all of Night City, so to have a more dangerous version of that walled off is saying something.

When entering Dogtown for the first time, the first building V enters is the massive unfinished perfectly cylindrical sports arena. Within is a well designed platforming adventure through the abandoned parking garage. Eventually it opens up to the black market of Dogtown a series of shanty shops flank the central concourse. I found this moment so much more impactful than the mirrored experience you would have recently had when entering Pacifica proper with my mortal enemy Placide (all my homies hate Placide). The original moment is… well its fine, but kneecapped by the fact that I wandered into the area prior to this reveal and there really isn’t anything special about it (except for the crazy helicopter blasting explosive rounds into a construction site presumably murdering dozens of Scavs).

After your initial exploration of the stadium concourse, the center of the stadium is available to explore. There isn’t a LOT to do here, but you get a pretty great view of one of the massive flying ships you see coming in and out of Night City. This was the first time that I realized that these are the Cyberpunk version of massive shipping container barges, as one is crashed in the center of the stadium and the crates are being harvested by the gang in charge of Dogtown. The containers become a central part of the architecture of Dogtown slums. After leaving the stadium for the area that is Dogtown proper, the area is surrounded by a canyon of half-built skyscrapers and high rises.

The rest of Dogtown is broken into two parts.

Dogtown Part 1. Shipping Container Architecture.

All of the buildings built after the Pacifica project was abandoned were constructed with left over shipping containers that, as mentioned above, have been illegally harvested. Shipping container architecture is not a legitimate design solution in our reality (it drives me crazy, such a bad trend), but Dogtown creates an environment where the biproduct of criminal activity (shipping containers) is an effective building material. This is such a deep cut architectural idea that I’m not even sure whether it was intentionally explored.

Dogtown Part 2. Learned From Learning from Las Vegas.

The other set of structures in Dogtown are a series of “Ducks” and “Decorated Sheds”. In Learning from Las Vegas, Denise Scott Brown, Robert Venturi and Steven Izenour analyze the non-City of Las Vegas and its programs (parking lots, casinos, churches, and hotels). It also analyzes the main types of structures that house these programs, the “Duck” and the “Decorated Shed”.

A “Duck” is a structure that doesn’t need a sign for you to know what it is. These often appear as a caricature of a symbol or object. An example would be this absolute banger. Some obvious examples from the Dogtown include the Heavy Hearts Club, a giant pyramid similar to the Luxor

and the greatest Bass Pro Shop on Earth

and Brainporium which is shaped like a giant head and sells brain dances.

A “Decorated Shed” is a structure that relies on signage to tell you what is inside. Obvious examples are big box stores and Holiday Inns. In Dogtown there are signs everywhere, including on the stadium we can in through. Examples of this in Dogtown include the church and The Grand Azalea.

The Symbolism at the Black Sapphire.

During the main storyline V enters the Black Sapphire, a massive skyscraper hotel that the Warlord that rules over Dogtown stays. There is a party where many politicians and the well connected of Night City come to Dogtown to watch a pretty incredibly rendered performance by Lizzy Wizzy (Grimes). During normal operating hours the Black Sapphire is coated in black and gold Art Deco motif, but during event they want show off power so they implemen hologram Neo Classical columns and fascist inspired detailing coat the Art Deco ornamentation to create an Albert Spear inspired fever dream (complete with a Cathedral of Light reference). The idea that the designers had the architectural understanding to allow a building to reflect political intent is incredibly nuanced and not something I would ever expect a game studio to understand. It is a really impressive reference.

I love that a handful of buildings was able to spark this many ideas and references. It’s such an incredible achievement that this game was able to end in the state it is in. I can’t wait for the sequel in the distant future.

Good Thing Numba 1: Lurelin Village Structures 101.

I’m a sucker for a quest in a game that focuses on explaining architecture. Forza Horizon 5 features a jaunt around Mexico including an architecture tour around Guanajuato. While wandering around Hyrule, I stumbled upon Lurelin Village (again) which has been overrun and destroyed by pirates. After murdering these landlubbers, the villagers practically BEGGED me to fix their buildings. Lucky for them… I’m an architect (only licensed in Ohio).

A few details about how the buildings are built become readily apparent. Foundations are built from thick logs, which is worrisome due to the fact that organic material is likely to rot and deteriorate (not good). I was, however, a fan of the interesting structural column used in the smaller huts. Similar to the single column point load of the Dymaxion House, many of the huts are supported by a single coconut tree trunk, just make sure it’s a straight one.

I’m not sure if this is an intentional reference, but I’m going to pretend these folks are card-carrying members of the Bucky Fuller fan club. All praise the geodesic dome.

Good Thing Numba 2: Experiencing the World in Section.

In architecture school the virtues of the mythical “section” drawing are extolled upon uninitiated students who only have experience drawing in “plans”… PLANS. Can you imagine? Video games rarely explore the mighty “section”, instead opting for weak “elevation” often used in traditional 3D platformers. Nintendo, always the creative dork, has an ace up their sleeve to change the way that we interact with their world. Tears of the Kingdom gives players the ability to leap several meters into the air and swim (infinitely as far as I can tell) through solid ground. Every ceiling becomes accessible granting access to completely new areas inaccessible in Breath of the Wild. Not only that, but it alters the fundamental way which humans have ALWAYS operated in enclosed areas. It’s delightful and way more impactful than the much lauded crafting system (in my opinion). My architecture professors would have been so proud.

The Big Horrible Thing: High Altitude Transit.

Breath of the Wild has perhaps the greatest implementation of Jay Appleton’s Prospect-Refuge theory ever in video games (until perhaps Elden Ring), the idea that you can be in a perceivably safe place with the ability to see opportunities in the distance. In the case of Breath of the Wild, distant volcanoes, towers, and flying dragons create a series of exciting journeys. These manifest as jaunts on foot or climbing expeditions to the top of a big thing to try to jump to an adjacent big thing. Seeing Naydra in the distance while a thunderstorm rages is one of my favorite experiences from any game. Tears of the Kingdom eliminates this sense of journey stemming from the Prospect-Refuge condition due largely to the sky level and skytowers granting the ability to bypass ground level challenges. I can’t help feeling like I missed a significant amount of the ground level exploration. I know the game grants the choice to run everywhere, but Tears of the Kingdom did not provide compelling reasons to explore the world by foot. I consider Tears of the Kingdom to be a creative set of systems that fixed all of my problems with the first game (especially the weapon durability issue), but it also introduces a problem that ruins the game.

To give an analogy of why I think this ruined the game, it reminds me of my experience taking taxis while travelling abroad. One robs themselves of understanding a city for a bit of convenience. Unlike Tears of the Kingdom, the real world DOES provide compelling experiences that push me to take public transit or walk from place to place. I love the experiences of stumbling upon a unsung architectural masterpiece or a tiny plaza only frequented by a few locals. These experiences are what I love about the world and it’s what I loved about Breath of the Wild. Tears of the Kingdom is obviously a masterful game design from a mechanics perspective, but it falls short in topping my Breath of the Wild experience. But it does have a thatch Dymaxion House so it’s 10/10.

Hi-Fi Rush is a Rhythm based game with art an style reminiscent of Jet Grind Radio and Borderlands. It starts of with Chai, a person that has their arm replaced with a robotic appendage full of new magnetic powers and their heart is replaced by a musical rhythm and the music is JAMMIN’! Almost immediately you are given a view of the entire area as you are launched into the air. At this point, I’m thinking there might be some architectural magic in this game. Sadly it doesn’t deliver on that particular impression.

Each biome is lovely to look at, but almost immediately some of the classic level design/architecture design sins start to rear their heads. In the main city area, I am immediately struck by a mishandling of materials and a misunderstanding of basic building systems. Obviously, not every video game building has to be physically feasible or feature an energy efficient HVAC system, but pipes and ducts should feel like they are actually doing something not simply decoration. Glass on the Production Center should look like glass, not floating blocks several feet thick. The lateral bracing on the facade is only on a single floor rendering it virtually useless and the Richard Rogers inspired spires protruding from the facade lack any meaning or functionality. Why are there storage crates on several roofs, especially considering the structure seems to be non-existent on half the buildings, this seems like a risky proposition. Finally why are there ramps on roofs? This is almost as absurd as the haystacks on roofs of the earlier Assassin’s Creed games.

I don’t want to focus on this zone too much as I’m willing to let stuff like that pass, but there are far too many tropes that were used far too many times.

1. Doors are too small

2. Ducts are too big (and have uninsulated plumbing and random giant glowing buttons in them as if they are commonly traversed through). Also, is Die Hard responsible for climbing through ducts being a common trope or was it always a thing?

3. The hideout is considered “small” by the characters, but is actually enormous. This is probably a 10,000 SF room.

and these are all from the first hour or so.

There are a few architectural successes in the game, so I’d like to spotlight them as well including one thing in particular I think Hi-Fi Rush is actually quite good at.

1. Color Coordination! This is something common in Industrial buildings. In Hi-Fi Rush plumbing is blue, structural elements are red (they often come from manufacturers like this) etc.

   

2. I really enjoy texture of the materials. They are simple and affective.

   

3. The concept I think Hi-Fi Rush nails is Hildebrand’s principles safety. Refuge and Prospect. The concept that you can see out at things that may by threatening you without the ability of them to see you. This is easily tested for yourself in a room with many windows. During the day when you can see out, but it is difficult for others to see in due to the reflection on the brighter side of the glass versus during the night when you can’t see out due to the reflection of lights on your interior, but others are able to see in easily. Games like Elden Ring, Last of Us, and Breath of the Wild all do an incredible job of this. Hi-Fi rush does a masterful job of capturing this feeling. The way the beat of the game combines with the throbbing infrastructure with your finger snap makes it feel like your world. Each level has great views of the path from the starting platform. Rarely do enemies attack you on their own terms. Everything coalesces to form a feeling of excitement while not being anxiety inducing.

Another reason I am willing to ignore most of the negative issues is that a lot of them feel like they could be due to the corporate oversight of the nincompoop’s running this place. That coupled with how the game makes you feel overall, I can’t help but be charmed by the great writing and beautiful art. I just think it could have benefited from expressing a few architectural ideas and maybe a few expansion joints in the glass… and maybe some foundations for the guardrails… and perhaps a thorough inspection by the AHJ…

I’m doing things differently than last year in this year end review for two reasons.

1. I just haven’t played nearly as many games as life has been getting more and more full of other things. That and I’ve been obsessed with Cyberpunk 2077. I completed two more playthroughs in 2022, but I think I’m done until Phantom Liberty comes out next year. I have several games I’ve played this year that I’d love to write about, but are clogged in my tube of responsibilities (currently backed up by poopy underwear)

2. Most of the games I played this year are AAA titles that were on the back burner and I missed a few games because I’m waiting for physical copies (Stray and Eastward are both incoming). AAA games just don’t typically have unique architecture or interesting ways to express the architecture it does have as I have mentioned in this post. Not to mention some of the indies I spent a lot of time with didn’t really do a whole lot with the architecture despite being incredible games (Citizen Sleeper and Neon White are two of my favorite games, but didn’t give me much in the way of architectural expression).

That said, I’d like to highlight three games for their significant contributions to architecture.

1. Norco

NORCO Developed by Geography of Robots published by Raw Fury is a game that takes place in an area outside of New Orleans surrounded by oil refineries. I had a chance to see Yuts speak during the Baumer Series here in Columbus and he delved pretty deep into his inspirations for the game and summarized the urban (or lack there of) fabric surrounding Norco. He went on to describe some of the grim things that happen when massive oil corporations have found ways to cut corners environmentally and natural disasters strike with shocking regularity. The architecture in NORCO is a dark reflection to the narrative that is an emotional representation of the reality Yuts describes. I’ll do a deeper dive on this one in the future, but for now it occupies a place in my mind and my ever growing backlog of posts.

2. Elden Ring

Needs no introduction. I still haven’t and probably never will finish Elden Ring. My stress levels while playing Elden Ring cross the threshold from “a good stress that makes me think critically and plan out my moves” to “if I die to Radahn one more time I’m going to cry” and I don’t need that shit in my life. I already have a daughter that makes me cry (when she bites me in the back the leg). The early game has architectural creativity in a genre that often lacks it. Complexity and unique programming help the more typical Gothic ornamentation. I still would have liked to have seen a more thorough execution of architectural details. Regardless, I still think about the buildings in Elden Ring all the time and that’s either really good or really bad (it’s really good). If you want to read about this one, see here.

3. Immortality

Honestly this one blew me away. Immortality by Sam Barlow is a wild creepy Lynchian tragedy told in three[ish?] parts. This is also on my pile of shame of architectural critiques. The way the game weaves in and out of storylines is as innovative as it is exciting. Nearly every item in a scene can be selected which will take you to a parallel scene from the past or future or who the hell knows when. Details matter down to the mug sitting on an end table or a piece of clothing in a painting. Do you know that feeling when you recognize something in a TV show or movie was actively designed by someone (please tell me you know that feeling), like the octagonal paper in Battlestar Galactica? That’s the feeling I got from every single item in every single scene of this game. I found myself caring so much more about the design of the space than I ever have in any other game, show, or movie and I had no choice in the matter… I’m clicking on the damn lamp [above].

Even though the year didn’t have many architectural bangers, it did have some incredible story telling triumphs. Citizen Sleeper has one of my favorite narratives, so give that one a shot. I want to commend developers and publishers on a solid year in video games.

Timeout is a short detective adventure set in a Chicago where time has replaced fiat currency. There isn’t a lot of background on where time comes from and how it is functionally transferred. As a hard-boiled style detective you live in a semi-run down pixel alternative reality version of Chicago. In the surprisingly walkable street that you live on (I wonder what rents are in that area considering a detective can afford to live there), you run into a cultist wearing a Frank from Donny Darko style rabbit mask. He gives you some scam time and thus your investigation begins.

In your roughly 20 minutes playing Timeout you will encounter some bugs and clunky shooting mechanics, as well as some stunning skylines with a depth of field that you rarely see in such a small indie game. The streets feel realistic in density and pleasant in their character. There are some stylistic choices for the bar and casino that I did not appreciate as they feel like they belong in some Western setting instead of plopped in the center of the jazz filled alternate reality Chicago streets and alleys.

You may have realized that I keep referring it to alternate reality Chicago, and that is because the skyline is subtly unhinged. At first glance the yellow pixelized windows and building profiles are pleasant, and then you realize that there are three versions of the Chrysler building from New York City scattered in the skyline and each at a different height.

Something I found oddly satisfying in Timeout is the camera perspective. It has a typical side-view camera, which usually feels like an old-school arcade game, but something about the way the camera moves perpendicularly when you move away or towards the camera feels new and unique to this game.

Between the interesting take on pixel architecture in a video game and the new use of the side-view camera angle, I really enjoyed this sort of messy adventure. Still bummed I didn’t get the black Cadillac though.

A couple years ago I bought Itch.io’s “Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality” after George Floyd was murdered. I never really touched any of the games for years because I had such a large back log of games. I came to the realization that I’m never going to catch up on these 30+ hour AAA games because I have a kid and a demanding job and a love for movies and a decent social life. Time to look at some of the indie games I’ve been putting off. These will range from 20-30 minute jaunts (this game) to some beloved indie classics (like Celeste). I have roughly ten or so games that I plan to play and hopefully review, but given that they are pretty short games these will be pretty short reviews. Let’s kick it off with an unassuming series of shrewd vignettes.

Islands: Non-Places contains ten short spatial depictions that evolve as you interact with lit objects. These include sealing a broken fountain pipe, helping some eggs off a bus, and a flooding atrium with glorified standing desks. The twist in Islands is that all ten experiences have meaningful deliberate notions, none more impactful than experience 7

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Experience 7’s composition begins on a surface level parking lot, similar to ones you’d see in nearly any city in America. There is an elegant 4-direction parking lot light between 4-spots surrounded by an atmospheric fog as a sedan pulls into a spot. Considering the space on each side of the car, I think the spots are roughly 10’ (3m) wide.

Upon clicking on the two lights bordering the spot in front of the car a brick building rises from the spot. A single parking space is replaced by a three story home with a garage. The scale is off slightly, because this would mean the interior would likely be 8’ or 9’ wide, but the concept reminds me of the JBAD unbuilt project that won an AIA Columbus award last year.

The thing I did not like about the JBAD project is that it takes 2 spaces and doesn’t scale effectively to multiple spaces. Islands insinuates that in order for something like this to effectively address the surface parking issues in American cities, it has to scale. Two more cars show up, and buildings ascend from both spots.

As you may have guessed, the final spot eventually holds a building as well.

There are a few issues with the design. Given the scales of the buildings, these floor to floor heights seem to be 9’ which is really low. Also, the exterior stair is not to code unless the top floor is an unoccupied mechanical space. Relying on a building rising under your car to get you to your third floor garage is not exactly modest. Once each space is occupied, many balconies are blocked. Despite all of these issues, I think the metaphor and sensation of this experience are deeply impactful and important.

Even though experience 7 is the most effective architectural critique, the other nine are moving as well. I loved this game, what it had to say about architecture and urban design. I highly recommend taking a plunge into this quick experience.

Over the last couple of months I’ve been dipping into my back catalogue of games I decided not to play when they released for a few great reasons (Borderlands 3 which I encountered like 5 major glitches by the time I finished the first boss) and a game I played that meant a lot to me when it released and sort of holds up in some ways and falters in others (Fable 2). Both of these games are massive AAA titles and both, I would argue, are really good games. However, there is a quality to each game that breaks the 4th wall and not in the funny tongue in cheek way that both games are written to be. The architecture and building design are incredibly bland and unimaginative in a way that causes my brain to fall out of one reality into another and eventually seep out of my ears as I spend hours analyzing the architecture and what makes it so… boring.

I started to think about why I find the architecture in indie games so enjoyable and why architecture in AAA games might as well be a blank rectangular prism. Indie games are often crafted by a small team of deeply passionate individuals that will hand craft elements of their world. Sable created vernaculars for different building programs. It creates the sense that the world is lived in and renovated over time. The best example I can think of is the way it treats the largest city Eccria’s streetscapes. There are three different lamps that look like they were installed during three different eras creating the sense that lights were built, then more were added but the original fixture was no longer desirable for one reason or another, and then it happened again.

There are shrines schlepped on the side of a building similar to the many fountains of historic Italian cities like Florence. There are HVAC ducts venting directly on the street that feels like a retrofit without being heavy handed like Cyberpunk 2077 (still an incredibly underrated game, but these HVAC designs are over the line).

A game like Genesis Noir can string together art and architectural references in an engaging jazz chiaroscuro trip without breaking a sweat… it had me by the brain.

A game like Borderlands 3’s heavy lifting is in its core gameplay. It keeps me engaged in its randomized loot triggered dopamine releases [the only thing my degenerate gambler part of my heritage ever gave me] and attention shredding action. Story? doesn’t matter. Well crafted world? here’s a gun with legs. It had me by the crippling gambling addiction and undiagnosed ADHD.

In AAA games, architectural aesthetic is directly ripped from pop culture and pasted onto level design, and I get why. It takes a lot of brain power and effort to create a single act of architecture, let alone an entire architectural system and deep historical zoning codes. It’s way safer to reference that other thing we all like. A little Star Wars here, a dash of Mad Max there, a crumb of Lord of the Rings aesthetic, no one will notice when we hit them with a glowy purple thing they can pick up.

These are all safe references; they are lazy; and they are no brainers for AAA gaming companies. Lord of the Rings is one of the deepest fantasy worlds with oodles of history and caboodles of lore. Why risk years of hundreds of people’s lives on a new idea when you can just reference that history and lore by copying the Art Nouveau elvish architecture in Peter Jackson’s Fellowship of the Ring and focus on your gameplay? I get it. However, if you asked me to describe the architecture in The Witcher 3 (one of my all-time favorite games), I’d probably just say “generic fantasy”. I will remember the experience I had in Manifold Garden, a game without a real story and a game without gameplay I enjoyed. I would be willing to bet that I won’t remember my experience in Spiderman a year from now.

AAA games just don’t have a monetary incentive to create something new when easy accessible references are available. What are exactly (4) things I think make great architecture in games? I have you covered:

1. Zoning: Craft some zoning laws. Better yet, craft a history of zoning laws and zoning law rewrites. The likelihood of a city demolishing all of it’s old buildings for new is low. New York’s history of zoning laws is absolutely loaded with crazy shit. Fire escapes, disastrous scissor stairs, goofy interior courtyards, controversial setbacks, etc. I recommend reading Michael Sorkin for digestible versions of New York’s zoning issues over the years.

2. References: Don’t reference the same thing that everyone else references. Don’t even reference a thing you like, because that almost certainly references something else that everyone else has already referenced. Reference art and architecture that you don’t see in video games. Genesis Noir does a great job of pulling out references that are lightly broached in video games. Some interesting Japanese art references, an Edward Hopper reference, speakeasies, etc. Where is the game with the Post-Modern architecture?

3. Real Life Buildings: Even if you want a game to be a fantasy game or a sci-fi game, walk your real world street/city/town/park/anything and take a tape measure. Get a real world reference not a photograph or a video or a memory. This will help with sense of scale, spacing, density. You can change the style of the buildings obviously, but room scale is very important.

4. Integrate: I can’t tell you how many times I see ruins in a game that mean absolutely nothing other than to hold the magical item or mystical information you need. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is one of the worst offenders of this sin. Craft a history to these things. If you can integrate it with the Zoning history you crafted.

Some spoilers for Inside. Highly recommend seeing it prior to reading this.

“I hope this special can, maybe, do for you what it’s done for me these last couple months. Which is, to distract me from wanting to put a bullet into my head with a gun.”

This is how Bo Burnham introduces the concept of his one room somber comedy special. While clearly joking at this early junction of his creative process, it foreshadows the mental toll this process takes on its creator. Bo’s manic metaphor about his descent into madness is enforced by the pure white insane asylum-esque room in which the special takes place.

The room itself is roughly 12’x30’ with a glossy wide plank floor (I’m terrible with wood grain so I’m not even going to guess the species), large wood base painted white, gypsum board walls painted off-white, and hard gypsum board ceiling painted white. Light fixtures are almost exclusively recessed can lights. All of the accent pieces are white, the ceiling fan is grey, and the wall mounted VRF also white. The back of the room features a small kitchen with a badly finished quarter circle opening. On the surface this room is extremely basic. It is the perfect canvas for spraying rays of light, or casting long shadows, or projecting a perfect wooded background to accompany your sad folk song.

However, upon closer inspection all of the imperfections are unnerving. The can lights are too close to the wall. The windows are on a single side of the room. The door is far to short to feel comfortable for the 6’ 5” Bo Burnham. The vaulted ceiling comes not to a point, but to a thick ridge beam. The VRF is placed oddly close to the dropped soffit (not to mention it should be far closer to the windows). I honestly have no idea what the true function of the building is, but a brushed nickel commercial door hardware? Something’s up Bo…

One room movies feature deep context clues in the built environment and other characters engaging beyond the focus. While Bo MUST film in a single room due to the pandemic, he uses both mystery and context to their full effect. The medium forces me to analyze (over analyze?) every single detail of the room trying to find meaning. I can’t say how many times I focused on the crack in the door, and whether the light beaming through was an intentional taunt of Outside or just a badly installed door.

Throughout the special its clear that Bo is slowly losing his hard won mental health due to the isolation of the pandemic lockdown. How can a white room express this feeling? With some incredible lighting techniques that completely allow the viewer to traverse their own imaginations. Trying to escape the mundanity of lockdown is a shared human experience that Inside perfectly interprets and mimics.

The metaphor is a function of the emotion of the lockdown and the room being a nothing allows us to apply any emotion we want to it. The room continues to get more and more depressing as the special advances in large part due to Bo’s own mental deterioration. At one point he is making a humorous yet heartfelt plea for the audience not to take our own lives only to then project this plea onto his own shirt, realizing he is speaking as much to himself as he is to us. As dark as this scene is, many of us can relate to the sadness brought on by isolation, and this only continues to get darker after this scene. Eventually Bo struggles to even repeat a monologue about how long he has been making the special only to get frustrated, break down, and give up. Finally, when Bo gets out of the Inside room, his panic attack returns as he struggles to get back Inside and away from the audience.

I love this special. It might be because I’m a tall, blonde, liberal white guy and somehow I can relate to Bo. Or it might be because this special perfectly reflects the manic emotions of the pandemic lockdowns. When we look back, I believe that this will be the greatest piece of pandemic related art that will ever be created, and the weird little room it was shot in was a perfect supporting role.

Like a huge number of gamers (and architects) around the world, I’ve been playing Elden Ring (or as my wife calls it Elder Rings) and it’s the only From Software game that I have continued to play past the second boss. I am not a patient gamer. I haven’t beaten it, and I probably haven’t even seen half of the game yet, but I think I’ve seen enough to comment on the architectural design and it. is. chaotic.

I wish I had the time to read the lore (like I used to in my Destiny 2 days), because I’m sure there are hundreds upon hundreds of lore Easter Eggs (happy Easter, gang) hidden in the ornamentation and details of the buildings in the Land Between (the continent in Elden Ring). George R.R. Martin created a significant portion of the lore, so it’s probably, maybe, sort of interesting? My critique will mostly focus on the bravery of some of the immediately recognizable building features. Sorry for those of you hoping for a deep dive, but until building construction decides to cool it for a couple months, you’ll have to settle for shallow critique. Also, goes without saying, but there will be some spoilers for the first half of Elden Ring.

Elden Ring juggles several architectural theories and I want to break down two of them.

Form Follows Function.

See my post on Louis Sullivan for some words on Form Follows Function

The first idea I recognized was the embrace of “Form Follows Function”, even if it has been modified to fit a fantasy setting. Most of the buildings in the Lands Between were Gothic in form and program. Formally the buildings were draped in ornament prevalent in Gothic churches such as the Milan Duomo.

Programmatically most of the buildings were castles or churches or castles with churches or walking chapels with truck nuts or institutional academia. In a true form follows function format, the religious and governmental structures were covered in creepy Gothic ornamentation.

Prospect-Refuge Theory

A coworker was talking about the prospect-refuge aesthetic theory first proposed by Jay Appleton, and it occurred to me that Elden Ring explicitly expresses the tenants of prospect-refuge theory with different architectural vernaculars.

1.Prospect (Opportunity)

Prospect is expressed in a view of something from a distance that creates a desire to explore. Breath of the Wild was incredibly good at expressing this idea. In Elden Ring grants incredible views across magnificent landscapes, while expressing Prospect with the use of Gothic vernacular architecture. Every time Gothic architecture is displayed, it is time to die 18 times to see what is in that building (hint, it’s a gold rune, it’s always a gold rune).

2. Refuge (Safety)

Refuge allows the viewer to gaze at a prospect without fear if interruption. This gives us the opportunity scan the horizon and plan before setting off on a journey. A chance to bask in the details of life without having to worry about a zombie dog ripping your arm off (again). Elden Ring uses bonfires (also used in basically every From Software game) to express these safe spaces, but vernacularly these are often expressed with makeshift camps, wooden huts, and ruined chapels. Sometimes these are accompanied by magnificent views and sometimes they are directional to the next boss. Always, they are a relief to the player.

I will say that I have noticed some shoddy modeling in Elden Ring. Asymmetrical column layouts, inconsistent ornamentation, terrible distortion of column orders, bad materiality, etc. I think the experimentation in architectural theory certainly makes these sins easily forgivable, but they are noticeable enough to mention.

Due to my tumultuous relationship with From Software games I came into the game deeply skeptical that I would play the game for enough time to create even a vignette of a critique. Despite the gameplay frustrations, the worldbuilding and architectural experimentation has been thrilling. After all, suffering makes the refuge that much sweeter.

A few interesting conditions that did not fit in this story: