Most games are about shooting or overcoming anonymous enemies, and of moving from one set piece to the next. Walker games and the travel sections of Shadow of the Colossus negate entrenched understandings of video game action. When traditional conventions of gameplay like combat or puzzles are removed in favour of simple movements, most audiences are averse to such design choices. Of course, these “walker” games – often referred to as “walking simulators” – are exceptions to the norm because most games and gamers don’t value slowness and inactivity. These games allow the player to freely roam from one point to another, and along the way steep us in a hushed, solemn atmosphere devoid of character interactions so that we may enter a contemplative mode of play. By centralising the act of movement from one point to the other, it anticipates walker games that deemphasise gameplay in favour of minimalism and duration like Journey or Dear Esther. The strength of Shadow of the Colossus lies in its privileging of unadorned, solitary travel, emphasising how this simple act is worthy of our time. Instead, it values simplicity and lulls in action not overcrowded objectives and distractions but openness.Ī number of hollow open-world games like the recent Far Cry entries or the unfortunately lacklustre Mirror’s Edge Catalyst are filled with things for the player to consume and colonise, offering little room to pause for reflection. While many video games tend to be saturated with junk content to augment its “replay value” or to give “value for money” Shadow of the Colossus avoids polluting its world with such detritus. The game does not overload the landscape with teeming side quests, secondary objectives, or a litter of collectible items but is instead indicative of a fundamental cleansing of open-world conventions. The travel segments in Shadow of the Colossus suggest a counter-aesthetic to video games, coercing players to feel the passage of time and to soak in empty spaces rather than travelling quickly and carelessly. What I’m interested in aren’t the battles but the time it takes to simply reach the colossi. The game is essentially composed of two halves: traveling to the sixteen titular colossi on horseback, and engaging them in combat. With nothing else to do besides move forward through empty spaces, the game privileges solitude, pinpointing the relationship between man, nature, and time. Long stretches of wordless, minimal gameplay as the protagonist simply travels from one point to another implicitly prompt the player to engage in self-reflection. However, Shadow of the Colossus deploys slowness and decreased action to reconsider how we experience duration in games. For a medium defined by interactivity, the act of decelerating and stripping down gameplay would seem antithetical to the assets of video games. Their game underscores the quietude of solitary travel and hardship, redefining the archetypical “save the princess” narrative as something considerably more forlorn and lonesome even as it expands the parameters of what video games can make us feel. Shadow of the Colossus, the second release from developer Fumito Ueda and Team Ico’s arcane triptych situated between Ico and The Last Guardian, grasps how slowness and inaction can give rise to contemplation and mournfulness. Shadow of the Colossus grasps how slowness and inaction can give rise to contemplation, perfectly underscoring the quietude of solitary travel and hardship.
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