The Role of Geography in Video Games
The average person is generally comfortable with, and capable of reading and understanding a map within a certain context. Whether it be a simple road map, or a complex geopolitical map, most of us have experience within this realm. While there are definitely people who are more proficient in and enthusiastic about maps, there are certain hobbies that contain and rely on the use of maps more than we may realize.
Video games, whether they are made for children or adults, tend to utilize maps frequently. These maps come in many styles, shapes and sizes, and whether they depict real or fictional worlds, maps play a critical role in developing a sense of place within a player. A sense of place in this sense is important because it provides context to the world that the player is navigating. By using and playing with these maps, the games make the reading of maps, as well as the understanding of physical objectives, scale and dimensional transformations (2D to 3D), more accessible to the average person. Essentially, you do not need to be a geographer or cartographer to appreciate the utility of maps within video games.
There are jokes online about how an individual, who has never stepped foot in California, can generally know the layout of the City of Los Angeles, and know where they are in relation to major landmarks, simply because they have played the game ‘GTA V’ before. This is an interesting phenomenon that can be observed now because of the focus on hyper-realistic games, and therefore the life-like replications of real world localities (much like the replications of Paris and Rome for the Assassin’s Creed franchise, which employed LiDAR to accurately reconstruct landmarks such as Notre Dame). A recent example of this would be in relation to the fires currently in Los Angeles County. While I understood the scale and severity of this event, I couldn’t quite spatially wrap my head around the geographical extent of which had been destroyed. Interestingly enough, it was an instagram post, featuring the map of ‘Los Santos’ (the replication of Los Angeles for the GTA V game), overlaid with the areas of which had burnt down, which allowed me to understand. This was a really interesting concept for me personally as I went to Los Angeles once when I was young but never really spent any time within the city itself. I had however, spent many hours playing GTA V, and was then able to correlate the equivalent extent of gameplay areas to that of the actual disaster site.
While this may be a very ‘chronically online’ take on how maps and video games are culturally relevant within multiple contexts, I do believe that this type of comprehension of the digital and physical worlds around us will only continue to expand in the future. So whether the next game you play is ‘Mario Kart’, ‘Fortnite’ or ‘Cities Skylines’, I encourage you to take a moment to reflect on how those maps are contributing to your gameplay.
Also check out these sources!
https://canadiangeographic.ca/articles/inside-the-intricate-world-of-video-game-cartography/
https://geographyofvideogames.weebly.com/
-Written by GAPSS VP Internal Beth Bennett