Settings: Not Just a Backdrop

Now you might have been reading the previous entries and thought to yourselves, "well, this is good and all, but what about people who despise the mere mention of another human being and to whom all feeling was suctioned out the moment they hit thirteen." Well, have no fear, you sick fucks, for your forgetting one fundamental and vibrant character that doesn't require you to understand the full complexities in the fickle machinations of the human heart, the setting.

Now for those of you wiping a thin mist off your monitor, allow me to explain. The setting in any work of fiction can be as lively and entertaining as the characters who inhabit it, if not more in some cases. Take Middle Earth in the LOTR movies; so much went into ensuring that the world of Middle Earth felt alive and full of personality. It was chock full of history, intrigue, competing factions, and magic hobos that made it as engaging as Frodo and Gandalf.

But what about video games? I hear you say. I didn't come here to learn about books; books are for nerds. And while I would agree with that sentiment, I would also ask you to sit down and stop getting ahead of me. For a look into how to make Game settings come alive, I have two examples prepared for you, Resident Evil 7 and The Return of The Obra Din.

In both, the player encounters very few other speaking human characters; in the Obra Din, that's due to everyone being dead, and in RE7, that's due to everyone wanting you dead. So, it goes without saying that there's no award-winning characterization, but that excludes the setting. In both of these games, immense pressure is put on making the player feel like something horrible has happened in these locations, which is now marked by the atrocities that took place inside them. In the Obra Din, it's the mass disappearance and murder of the entire crew, while in RE7, it's the descent into insanity that befell the Baker family.

However, the point I am trying to make is best conveyed if we imagine for a second that these locations are actual characters. In both cases, the Obra Din and the Baker residence character arc would revolve around learning and exposing the details of the horrors both witnessed. Yet the Baker house is far worse for wear than the Obra Din. They have been warped by the horrors they have seen, twisted into a monstrous mockery of the decent human being they once were. While the Obra Din is traumatized by the events it witnessed, struggling to figure out what and when things went wrong, slowly becoming more disturbed by themselves the deeper they dig. See, your setting doesn't just have to be a backdrop for the events of the story; it can be an active participant in setting the tone or even enhancing the narrative.

As I said, the Baker house is a sick bastard. Everything inside decays like a slowly rotting corpse mirroring what the Bakers are going through as they become hollow and twisted reflections of who they once were. So the game environment reflects that with significant parts of the house either in disrepair or repurposed for far more insidious affairs, like the dining room and kitchen that now offers a smorgasbord of human remains. Or the old house that has become home to a swarm of giant killer insects as it seeps into the bayou. However, no matter how squalored the remains are, you can still find glimpses of who the house and its owners used to be. You'll find pictures, emails, and logs dating back to before their minds went to mush, painting them as just simple, kind farmers who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Showing us, the player, that there is far more to this place than meets the eye, making us move further into the depths to uncover the truth, reinforcing the decay motifs mentioned earlier. They are enhancing the overall story as we, the players, are now invested in finding what turned these ordinary people into zombie psychopaths. As I said before, discovery is the driving motivation behind both of these games, more so in the Obra Din, seeing how that's the stated goal in the plot.

For those of you who have not played it, do that, but for now, know the game revolves around discovering what happened to the crew of an East India Company Trade ship by examining the final moments of each of the deceased crew members.

The Obra Din shares commonality with the Baker house in that nasty things happened in both places. However, the Obra Din is far more crushing about that fact, as the Obra Din is far lonelier than the Baker house. Back there, they're at least some very clingy rednecks and Ethan's hot wife to keep your company and scare the crap out of you. On the Obra Din, there is no one, just the remains of the crew you're searching for. Every level of the ship is either devoid of life or holds the shattered aftermath of some fatal encounter; a large blood stain, a hanging corpse, a destroyed gun deck, or the hollow remains of an invader. The Obra Din knows what happened to these men and women. Still, it's too mortified to say anything—sharing glimpses of the madness that ensued for the player to unravel, revealing more death and misfortune around every corner until the entire ship is full of mementos of mortality.

What I'm trying to get at is that the best characterizing feature for your setting is the actual design of your environment—creating a dark and paranoid descent into the darkest bowels of the human psyche. Create something like the Baker house, a place that invites paranoia due to the uneasy tension of not knowing where and when your attackers will strike.

Or are you going for a more subtle and gradual exploration into unknown horrors? Create something like the Obra Din, a place that seems normal at first but becomes more twisted as you move on. Either way, remember what themes you are working with and how you chose to get them across through the set dressing.

Hope something was useful

Peace.