An Underrated Genre of Gaming

While video games have been around since the early 1970s, it was not till many years after the first game that walking simulators became a genre. It started with a simple tennis-like game called Pong but soon became something much, much bigger. Companies started to pop up like Nintendo, Atari, and PSP. Once people started to discover these small but growing companies, video games became a hit. Gaming seemed innocently small at first but was becoming a whole different world.

Then came the turn of the century and the turn of technology and the first great change in gaming. In the early 1990s, developers started to strive for more realistic games that looked more like the world around them. They did this by producing better frames per second (FPS) and greater resolution. The gaming industry started to lean more towards how the game looked and less about the general plot. Game developers started to realize with better graphics came more realistic games that mirrored real-life scenarios. That’s when there was a great expanse in genres, games like Call of Duty (COD) and Grand Theft Auto (GTA) started to gain popularity. Couch co-op games started to dwindle in popularity and gamers were starting to play online while talking to people through the game.

Shooter games were dominating the markets, and it seemed it was going to stay that way for a long time. This was when the question of mental health started to arise, and scientists started researching the effects of realistic games, like GTA, on the brain. Research started showing up that video games negatively affected the mind and were possibly leading to violence in teens. This did not stop them though. Games became more realistic and continued to affect the mind in different ways. This was a large problem for the gaming community, so a  new genre that almost counteracted the shooter games appeared: walking simulators.

Walking simulators usually took place in a peaceful land or creepy forest, the main character would explore the landscape while usually being led by hints, narrations, a companion, or the environment itself. These games could vary from a roller coaster of emotions to jump-scares left and right. They would build emotional connections with the player and tell a beautiful story on the way. A great example of a walking simulator is a game called Firefight, made by Campo Santo.    This game was a hit on the highly popular PC launcher Steam around 2016 and dominated the market. The game takes you to the forested land of Wyoming in 1989 with a lonely fire watchman named Henry. The game takes the player through an in-depth story about Henry’s life and his emotional struggles while being able to explore an amazingly crafted landscape. Feeling and emotion were not necessarily what the game was going for, instead, it offered the opportunity to thoroughly enjoy the craftsmanship and design of the game. The experience can almost be therapeutic in how aesthetically pleasing the design is. 

Firewatch was only the tip of the iceberg and even though it came out very late into the life of video games it was a true masterpiece. It showed that games don’t just have to be guns, swords, and violence yet instead can be something chill and relaxing. So, the next time you buy someone a game or talk about gaming you will know shooters and violence are not the only genres that exist.

By Jackson Kraitzick