World Building is the process of creating the environments, lore, culture, and overall universe in which the game’s story and gameplay unfold. World building is essential for crafting immersive and memorable experiences that captivate players, allowing them to lose themselves in a rich and coherent virtual world. In video games, the world is not just a backdrop but an interactive, dynamic space that players explore, shape, and live in.
World building in video games goes beyond setting the scene. It influences the player's experience on multiple levels—narrative, gameplay, exploration, and emotional engagement. A well-designed game world draws players in, making them feel like they’re part of a living, breathing universe. Every element of the game world, from geography and architecture to the culture and history of its inhabitants, contributes to how players perceive and interact with the environment. It creates a context for the story and gives meaning to the player’s actions.
Let’s consider a few examples. In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the richly detailed world of Tamriel offers players an expansive realm to explore, filled with different cultures, politics, and conflicts. The lore and history embedded into every corner of the game world make the player feel like they are part of something much larger than just the main questline. Similarly, in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, the game world is filled with nuanced characters, locations with their own histories, and events that feel interconnected, creating an immersive experience where the world itself feels alive.
Geography and Environment
The geography of a game world is its physical layout—the landscapes, cities, villages, forests, mountains, and seas that make up the setting. These locations need to be visually distinct, coherent, and serve both narrative and gameplay functions. When designing the geography of a game, it’s important to think about how the environment affects the gameplay. Are there natural obstacles that influence player movement, such as rivers, cliffs, or dense forests? Is the world built in a way that encourages exploration, with hidden caves or secret areas to discover?
A well-crafted environment can tell a story on its own, without a single line of dialogue. For example, in Dark Souls, the decaying, desolate world is filled with environmental storytelling that hints at a once-great civilization now in ruins. The game’s world design reinforces the themes of loss and despair, while also shaping the player’s journey through its interconnected, labyrinthine architecture.
Culture and Society
No game world is complete without considering the people or creatures that inhabit it. The cultures, societies, and factions within a game world should feel unique, with their own belief systems, languages, traditions, and social structures. This diversity helps to create a sense of realism and complexity in the world.
In Mass Effect, for instance, the game’s universe is filled with different alien races, each with its own history, politics, and cultural norms. The interactions between these cultures shape much of the narrative and player choices. Players aren’t just moving through a static environment; they are navigating a complex web of relationships and ideologies that have real consequences for how the story unfolds.
History and Lore
The history and lore of a game world provide depth and context for the events happening in the present. Creating a detailed backstory for the world, even if much of it isn’t explicitly revealed to the player, adds a layer of richness that players can sense. Lore can be communicated through dialogue, books, environmental cues, or visual storytelling, giving players a sense of the world’s past.
A great example of this is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. As players explore Hyrule, they come across ruins, ancient technology, and references to a great calamity that occurred 100 years ago. The lore is woven seamlessly into the environment, allowing players to piece together the world’s history as they explore. This backstory isn’t just flavor—it directly informs the player’s mission and provides a deeper connection to the world.
Economics and Resource Systems
Many games involve resource management or economic systems that influence how the world operates. Whether it’s trading, crafting, or gathering materials, these systems help create a sense of realism and provide players with challenges that integrate into the game’s world. For example, in survival games like Don’t Starve or Minecraft, players are required to interact with the environment in meaningful ways—gathering resources, managing inventory, and crafting tools to survive. The economy of these worlds, whether simple or complex, is a key part of world building because it shapes how players engage with the environment.
Politics and Power Structures
A well-built game world often includes political systems, governing bodies, or factions that are in conflict with one another. These power structures not only add depth to the story but also create opportunities for the player to influence the game world through their choices. In games like The Witcher 3 or Dragon Age: Inquisition, players often navigate the complex relationships between rival kingdoms, guilds, or political factions, making decisions that can shift the balance of power.
Faction systems can also add dynamic elements to gameplay. In Fallout: New Vegas, players can align themselves with different factions, such as the New California Republic, Caesar’s Legion, or Mr. House’s forces. These alliances influence how the game world responds to the player, shaping the narrative and providing multiple pathways to the story’s conclusion.
Interactivity and Player Agency
What makes world building in games different from other media is the interactivity. Unlike books or films, where the world exists for the audience to observe, in games the world is there for players to explore, manipulate, and shape. This gives players a sense of agency and immersion, making them feel like they are truly part of the world.
In games like Red Dead Redemption 2, players can interact with almost every element of the environment, from hunting animals to engaging in conversations with NPCs, robbing trains, or even influencing how townspeople react to them based on their actions. These interactions make the world feel dynamic and responsive, rather than a static backdrop.
Open-world games like Grand Theft Auto V provide vast, explorable environments where players are free to pursue their own goals, whether they follow the main story or engage in side activities like racing cars or betting on horse races. This freedom enhances the player's connection to the world, making them feel like an active participant in shaping it.
Environmental Storytelling
Environmental storytelling is a powerful tool for world building. It involves using the environment itself to tell parts of the story without relying on explicit dialogue or exposition. This can include visual cues, such as the placement of objects, architectural design, or changes in the landscape, that suggest a history or narrative. In BioShock, the decaying, dystopian city of Rapture tells the player much about its fall from grace, even before they encounter the characters or hear the story.
Environmental storytelling engages players’ curiosity, allowing them to piece together the world’s story as they explore. It also provides opportunities for subtle world-building details, creating a richer, more immersive experience.
Pacing and Discovery
World building should be paced throughout the game, allowing players to gradually discover new aspects of the world rather than overwhelming them with information upfront. This can be achieved through exploration, unlocking new areas, or revealing hidden backstories as players progress.
Games like Hollow Knight and Dark Souls do this well by offering bits of lore and world-building details as players advance through different regions, creating a sense of mystery and encouraging exploration. This sense of discovery is key to keeping players engaged with the world over long periods.
Consistency and Internal Logic
To create a believable world, it’s important to maintain internal consistency. The rules of the world—whether they relate to magic systems, technology, or social structures—must be clear and follow logical patterns that players can understand. Even in fantastical settings, maintaining this internal logic allows players to suspend disbelief and immerse themselves fully.
For example, in The Elder Scrolls series, the use of magic, the existence of different races, and the political landscape all adhere to a consistent set of rules that players come to understand. This consistency helps the world feel more real, even when it’s full of dragons and magic.
Soft world building and hard world building represent two distinct approaches to crafting a game’s universe. Hard world building is characterized by clear, detailed, and well-defined rules, systems, and lore. In this approach, every element of the world has a logical explanation, and the internal consistency of these rules is paramount. Players can expect to understand the mechanics behind magic systems, technology, politics, and cultures, as seen in games like The Witcher 3 or The Elder Scrolls series, where extensive lore and codified systems create a structured world. On the other hand, soft world building takes a more abstract, impressionistic approach. It provides hints and suggestions about the world without offering complete explanations or rigid rules. This leaves much to the player’s imagination, creating an aura of mystery and ambiguity. Games like Dark Souls or Shadow of the Colossus excel in soft world building, where players are left to piece together fragments of lore from environmental clues, vague dialogue, or symbolic storytelling. While hard world building offers depth and clarity, soft world building often invokes a sense of wonder and intrigue, giving players the freedom to interpret the world on their own terms.
World building in video games is a multifaceted process that involves not only creating visually stunning environments but also developing the cultures, histories, politics, and systems that breathe life into the game world. It’s a balance between narrative depth, gameplay design, and interactivity. When done well, world building makes a game not just a series of levels or quests, but a truly immersive experience that resonates with players long after they’ve put down the controller.
As we move forward, think about how you can use world building to enhance the games you design. Consider how geography, culture, history, and interactivity can combine to create worlds that feel alive and responsive.
We've now covered narrative design, storytelling, characters, and worldbuilding. It's time to start thinking about our own game. Not all games have story, but for the context of this assignment they will. Having a story is a player engagement strategy, and all games can have a story added to them.
What is your game's story?
How will the story be presented to the player? (Narrative Design)
Create a character. What is their backstory, what do they want, and what are their struggles?
What kind of world building will your game use? (Soft or hard.)