I love climbing in video games. There’s an inherent drama about it and a plausible, easily comprehensible goal. When games make climbing rewarding, they tend to be good video games. This video showcases Dying Light’s attempt at video game climbing and it’s fairly spectacular.
The thing that makes this so good, just to watch, is how palpable the fear is. Dying Light does a spectacular job of making you feel as though you are actually high; that there will be consequences if you fall. That’s key.
Also key: a sense of proper scale. In the above video the world of Dying Light feels huge. The size of it is hyper tangible. The struggle of getting to the top is worth it for that view. It looks spectacular.
I think I really want to just pick up this game and climb things.
But man, diving into water with zero consequences from that height? That breaks the illusion somewhat. Your body would snap in half from that height.
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