Genshin Impact & the appeal of open-world games

I’ve been playing a lot of Genshin Impact lately. It's got me thinking about the appeal of open-world games, and what they say about our real lives — specifically, how freedom of movement in video games feels so refreshing compared to our largely prescribed patterns of moving in real life.

As an adventure game with gorgeous visuals and monster-slaying magic, it’s obvious why Genshin has amassed such worldwide appeal. One unique aspect of Genshin’s open world is that you can access any point in space. As long as the map shows it, you can go there. No mountain peak is too high, no chasm too deep. In one region, even the oceans are accessible through underwater breathing, and in another, you can briefly possess the local fauna to help navigate complicated terrain.

What struck me though, as my character foraged for mushrooms in a city center surrounded by NPCs, is that no property is off-limits. You can’t enter every home, but you can scale every building and pick up bird eggs on the roofs. You can use houses as launching pads for your glider, or as lookouts to watch for enemies. Parkour comes closest in real life to approximating this kind of play with the built environment, with the exception that you’re relegated to public spaces.

Of course, the set of available physical actions is much bigger in real life than in any video game. There are more ways to move your body, and things to do with that body, then a keyboard could possibly capture. Practices like dance, improv, and theater can help us exercise those muscles of spontaneous engagement with physical space that otherwise might go unused — but it’s precisely that atrophy of the play instinct in real life that speaks volumes to the way we’ve organized our society.

While our bodies are freer to move than video game characters, our movements in space are largely contained by walls, fences, sidewalks, locks, and social taboos. Our urban environments are designed for cars, not people. Our schedules demand we move efficiently from home to work and back again. Our financial system demands we pay money to exist in certain locations for longer than a few minutes. It’s not the case that any place you see on a map is accessible — even places that are physically easy to reach.

In Genshin, you can talk to anyone anywhere. Interacting with NPCs generates a dialogue and a set of responses to choose from, often leading to side quests that reveal more of the world or its backstory. Conversations in real life are not preprogrammed, and technically enjoy infinite variability. But there are social rules about how and when to approach people. We’re often taught to fear (or at least avoid) strangers, and our work environments often leave us too exhausted or distracted to break from routine interactions. Public or third spaces where people can intermingle are increasingly few and far between. These are all things we can work to change, but I feel like the ability to safely and rewardingly engage with strangers in a game should not strike me as particularly liberating.

There are other things you can do in Genshin besides practice combat, such as becoming a skilled cook, and crafting a beautiful living space. Here again real world possibilities eclipse in-game functionalities, but when most of us spend most of our time at work, how much of that potential is ever realized? For instance, while there are restaurants and refined ingredients in Genshin, and while your character cannot die of hunger, most of the supplies needed to make meals can be found in the open world. They got this idea from real life actually: while money doesn’t grow on trees, food literally does. It is unconscionable that we live in a nation so wealthy we can afford giant digital industries with virtual food in abundance, and yet still have millions go hungry.

What I’m saying is that we can make our real lives more like the world of Genshin Impact: we can create economies of gift and exchange that sustain us without having to keep score; we can foster cultures of curiosity and hospitality where people feel safe to engage; we can make our built environment more accessible to people of all abilities.

Videogames are a balance between a route for escapism and a reflection of society. Even when designed to distract us from real life, the best games tap into our deep yearnings for nature, purpose, camaraderie. Minecraft is by far the best-selling videogame ever, and it’s an open-world sandbox. The Halo franchise is one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time, and it explores stunning open-world landscapes.

We may soon enter a period where most people can no longer afford to play these games. I think regardless of who has access to these virtual spaces, our real lives should be freer in comparison.

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