Realism in games is an age-old debate, and there are people firmly planted on both sides. It can be a fun question to pose, particularly when you’re looking at a game that’s wildly over into one spectrum or the other. What if crashing your car in Mario Kart utterly demolished it? What if Arthur Morgan could jump on your head and crush you?
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Realism (or lack thereof) in a game is just a mechanic, and whether making something realistic or not is the right choice is always going to come down to the intent of the developer(s). The question should be: does this mechanic make things more fun/interesting?
To get to the bottom of this, we’re going to give some examples of games that are planted in one camp or the other. Then, we’ll go into specific gameplay ideas and mechanics that a wider range of games share, and why they apply to either side.
8 Red Dead Redemption 2
Realism
Red Dead Redemption 2 is a gold-standard when it comes to games that handle realism in an impactful way. So much of RDR2 is there to make you feel immersed in the world. To make you walk through the trees and feel like you can smell the fresh air from the inside of your own house. To make you feel like you truly are Arthur Morgan.
RDR2 does certainly have plenty of gamification when it comes to mechanics. Things like smoking a cigarette to refill your dead-eye charge (and dead-eye in general) to the ability to survive multiple bullet wounds and walk it off. But when those mechanics are surrounded by so much realism in other areas, they somehow manage to fade into the background.
7 Mario Kart
Non-Realism
Mario Kart is an example in the opposite direction. While it would be a fun experiment to make the most realistic kart-racing game possible (you have my permission to steal this idea from me), that would be the worst thing that Mario Kart could possibly do.
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What makes Mario Kart work, and so many Nintendo games work, is their sense of wonder. Their tomfoolery. The fact that running into a banana peel in an automobile causes you to spin out of control is completely and entirely ridiculous, but we buy into it, because that’s how the world is presented to us.
In a way, a collection of ridiculous but consistent mechanics can immerse you in a world just as much as realistic ones.
6 Stalker 2
Realism/Non-Realism
Stalker 2 is an example of a game that mixes realism with fantasy in a way that immerses you immediately. There are plenty of ridiculous and horrifying things in Stalker, from invisible creatures to poppies that make you hallucinate.
But the game treats all of that as seriously as it possibly can, and everything else that it can afford to make realistic, like weapons and combat, it does. It all adds up to make you buy into the monsters and the despair, really putting you in that world.
5 Breath Of The Wild/Tears Of The Kingdom
Realism And Non-Realism
Breath of the Wild treads an interesting line. It’s obviously a fantasy game full of impossible creatures, people, and situations, including a sword-in-the-stone allegory and the ability to swim up waterfalls when you’re wearing the right kind of clothing.
What makes Breath of the Wild so cool is when it does treat specific things with realism. The ability to chop down a tree and have it fall to make a bridge over a gap. Lightning’s attraction to metal objects. Spicy food allowing you to survive in the cold.
Okay, maybe not that last one, but because so many other things make sense logically, it almost tricks you into thinking that is somehow legit, too.
4 Sports Games
Non-Realism
I might make some enemies with this one; I promise I’m not taking shots at any game in particular. Many sports games tend to try and realistically depict their sport to look as close to an actual game as possible. And that can be cool! I’ve played way too much Madden in my life, and I will play way too much Madden far into the future.
As evidence that I do truly enjoy Madden, I made custom player-rating algorithms to more accurately estimate a player’s rating in my own specific offense/defense. Much to my dismay, these algorithms worked exceptionally well. Please, someone, point me in the direction of grass for me to touch.
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But many of the best sports games have made an effort away from realism. Rocket League and Rematch are two prime examples; these games replicate Soccer (Football for my friends across the pond) in a way that could only be done in a video game. Realistic sports games show their gamification in one place or another, but because these others are just video games, they don’t share that issue.
3 Immersion Doesn’t Require Realism
Realism/Non-Realism
Immersion is the feeling of being immersed in a game, feeling connected to the world and your place inside of it. Many people attribute realistic mechanics as being immersive, and they’re not wrong! Realistic elements or mechanics in a game can make the world feel more recognizable and immersive. But that’s not the only way to immerse someone in a world.
In fact, some of the most immersive worlds aren’t inherently realistic. Arkane (Dishonored, Prey) has a reputation for building extremely immersive worlds (they do make Immersive Sims, after all), but those worlds aren’t quite realistic. For another, Stardew Valley is an isometric pixel art game, and I swear that I can close my eyes and feel myself inside Pierre’s General Store.
2 Power Fantasy Isn’t Realistic, But It Is Fun
Non-Realism
Many games have a bit of a power fantasy going on; take the Arkham games as an example. Being Batman is awesome, but it’s not realistic. And if the Arkham games were realistic, you wouldn’t feel like a proper Batman, and/or they would be pretty boring. That would be the case for any game where you get something resembling powers, impossible gadgets, or anything along those lines.
There are games that thrive on taking things away from you, especially horror games. Taking things away can be a very effective tool when it’s handled the right way. But that’s not what every game needs; sometimes, you just want to be able to fly.
1 Finding The Fun
They’re Two Sides Of The Coin
There are some people who prefer Hard Sci-Fi, which is generally thought of as Sci-Fi that’s plausible. It might not be able to happen now, but it’s presented in a way where it could, theoretically, happen in the future. These are things like The Expanse. Others prefer Sci-Fi Fantasy, where the science fiction is basically presented as magic. This would be something like Star Wars.
There is no right answer between the two; it comes down to taste. There are going to be people who are only interested in games that are as realistic as possible. They want to feel like they are truly managing a real, living and breathing situation. Other people want to do impossible things and see impossible places.
The only thing that matters is that, however the game is presented or works, it needs to be fun. It needs to have mechanics that, whether they feel real or completely fantastical, are a good time to play around with. We all come to games for different reasons and from different places, but we’re all here to have a good time.
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