Photography has become one of the most popular ways we interact with video games. Through the simple act of taking a photo, photography games and photo modes implore us to notice our surroundings, document our experience, and take a moment to remember the images and emotions we felt along the way. As Game Developer launches its Photography Week, join us as we take a quick look at the history of photography in video games and its popular uses within the genre, and preview new interviews, essays, and insights we’ll be releasing in the coming days.
In video games, there are two main ways we experience photography. There are games where photography is the primary gameplay element, used to structure a narrative or add puzzle-based progression. And there are games that have photo modes, which give players the tools to create and edit the perfect photo within the world they’re immersed in. Over the years, as graphical fidelity has evolved, so has the demand for in-game photography; it seems like nearly every open-world game has a photo mode these days. But gamers have been embracing the mechanic long before graphics had the capacity to make their photos actually look good, going back at least to the N64 era. Look no further than that. Pokemon Hurried.
Pokémon Snap as it appears on the Wii Virtual Console. Image via Nintendo.
Browsing the photo archive
Originally an N64 title, Pokemon Hurried was an on-rails experience that allowed players to take “candid” photos of Pokémon in a controlled, open-air environment, much like a wildlife safari. The resulting photos weren't particularly beautiful or artistic (and notoriously didn't adhere to basic photographic principles), but the game was clever in that it addressed an early problem in photography games by controlling the player's movement and line of sight, while avoiding the mind-boggling technical costs of facilitating spontaneous interactions with Pokémon in an open world. It would be many years before the game saw a sequel, New Pokemon Snapbut in the meantime it would inspire many games, establishing a format that would be seen in many subsequent titles, both directly and indirectly.
Games like Penko Park, AleconAND Beasts of Maravilla Island (which we'll talk about later this week) would put their own spin on photographing a collection of creatures, sometimes adding a puzzle-solving element to encourage new poses or scenes to add experiential variety. And many games with photo modes, from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to the building game On the grounduses a compendium to help the player keep track of the plants, animals, and other objects he or she has photographed in the game, sometimes to convey information about their environment or how they can be used to craft items or cook.
Image via Ubisoft.
Other notable and influential games in the genre focus on the recurring themes of documentation, not only of biological species, but in terms of photojournalism, from the heroine Jade in Beyond Good and Evilto the anti-hero Frank West in Dead man rising againto the journalist Eric in the photo safari game AfricaIn more contemporary times, we have games like Umurangi Generationa game that uses the documentation of the apocalypse as a metaphor for corporate whitewashing in the face of climate change. There is also PuppetsWhich combines photojournalism and species documentation with a humorous effect turning the player into a spontaneous dog photographer. And there is the more voyeuristic and modern version of documentation in The House of Crushthat positions players as videographers in a reality show. You can read a deeper dive into this and how the developers addressed the subjectivity of a video rating system later this week.
Screenshot of the original Fatal Frame for PlayStation 2. Images via Tecmo.
In terms of games that center photography in their gameplay, historically there is Fatal framewho famously used the camera to detect and photograph ghosts, a theme of revealing hidden truth that continues in horror to this day. For example, in SurviveThe camera is used to emphasize the vulnerability of journalist Miles Upshur as he documents the horrors inside a psychiatric asylum. In many minigames and lighter contemporary titles like TOMThe camera is a puzzle-solving tool, used to find and photograph objects at the request of secondary characters or to reveal hidden information. And based on the direct connection between photography and gameplay, there are games like Darkrooma platform game in which players solve puzzles by assembling environmental elements from still photographs, or Viewfinderwhich similarly “reshapes reality” by manipulating the photographed objects.
Image via Thunderful Publishing.
Point and shoot in the virtual world
As for photo modes, they are so ubiquitous these days that they are an expected game feature; more recently, games like Peaceful Guide AND Dredge they added photo modes in post-release updates and open-world titles like Forbidden Horizon West OR Cyberpunk 2077 use them to add value to the expanse of their environments or to help players tell stories through their characters. And it's not just in 3D games, take, for example, A Song of the Highlandswhose depiction of the Scottish Highlands and its accompanying photo mode are entirely in 2D (stay tuned for a discussion on this topic tomorrow).
It's also fascinating to note the role that early PC games played in the rise of photo mode popularity. Before photo modes became the standard in open-world, panoramic titles, fans of games like Fallout: New Vegas AND The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim used console commands and mods (including lighting and weather effects, poses, and animations) in combination with screen capture devices and software to take pictures outside the limitations of still images and in-game camera systems, leading to the more formal tools seen later in Fallout 76Meanwhile, the young players of The Sims in the early 2000s, they used photography (facilitated by an in-game camera tool) to document and tell stories about the lives of their Sims characters, relying on the interactions of the game’s complex trait systems to provide intrigue and spontaneity. This, in turn, paved the way for modern, user-generated gaming entertainment, from game streamers to machinima. Player photography has had a major impact on how and why we use photo modes, or even have them (you can read more about this in part of our staff blog later this week).
Highlighting and contrasting
If this topic interests you, there's still time to submit a post to our blog section on photography games and photo modes in video games. Check out our blog submission guidelines and FAQ, head over to our blog submission page, and send us your thoughts. We'll be highlighting reader submissions throughout the week, and there's a lot of great stuff to look forward to, like an essay by Beasts of Maravilla Island Developer Michelle Olson on avoiding photo criticism, an interview with the developers of Don't open that door on why they chose to release an idyllic photography minigame for free as a prequel to their horror title, and a touching article from our editor-in-chief Bryant Francis on what basic photography tips can teach us about creating better photo modes.
We will also be revisiting interviews, blogs and articles from Game Developer's recent past, bringing to light post-mortems of games such as Puppets AND TOM as well as Interviews with independent developers on how they use photography in video gamesStay tuned to find out how these games are made and what features developers believe are essential to the photography gaming experience.
