Less Interface, More Immersion?

Sometime 7 years ago, Lionhead Studios released Black and White. Black and White was an ambitious god game created by ambitious game creator Peter Molyneux. It was one of the first prominent games to tout a lack of user interface. The amount of “interface-less” games increased over the years, and two recent examples of this trend are Far Cry 2 and Dead Space. Far Cry 2 is a first person shooter released by Ubisoft set in a nameless war-torn African country, while Dead Space is a third person horror/sci-fi shooter developed by EA Redwood Shores. Both these games lack some or most parts of what could be called a traditional user interface.

A Dead Space screenshot without gore.

Naturally these games have a user interface;  the word “interface-less” is somewhat of a misnomer. What they really do lack (to some extent) is a Heads-Up Display (HUD). The HUD are all the little numbers surrounding the main action in the centre of the screen that tell you how much ammo, health and other variables the player character possesses. The HUD has been a staple in First Person Shooters since Wolfenstein 3D. Without a traditional interface (i.e. a HUD), all that information either has to be cut, or expressed in a different way. Some games, like Portal, can get by on a minimalistic interface, detailing only which of the two portals are open, and a crosshair to inform the player where a portal will be created if the gun is fired. For Portal, this information is more than enough, but more complex games need to give the player more information than can be conveyed simply by the camera’s current view of the world. In real life, we rarely have need for HUD:s since we traditionally have five senses, while in games we only have three (sight, hearing and some touch), and they are significantly duller than in real life.

So how can a HUD-less interface cope with the fact that it has to emulate real-world senses with fictional ones? Far Cry 2 does in fact feature two of the standard HUD features: Ammo and Health. The HUD also tells the player how many syringes (used to regain health) and grenades/molotov cocktails there are left. Compared to most FPS’s, that is a small HUD without any crosshair (although it can be enabled), and most of the HUD is actually hidden when it is deemed not necessary. Therefore, a lot of non-combat gameplay, such as travelling or exploring, has no HUD. The player has a “physical” map that can be pulled out, and all cars are fitted with a GPS for navigation. If the player character overexerts himself  sprinting or gasps for air after extensive swimming, the view will go blurry. Also, whenever the player is seriously damaged, the screen will flash red, and will become delirious from malaria from time to time. The interface can also tell the player from which direction she is attacked, by pointing out the direction with a bluish-reddish “wound” on the screen.

Dead Space goes one step further: All the HUD is displayed to the player character, and not the player herself. Sadly, I have not played Dead Space yet, so I can only regurgitate what I have learned from news articles and videos, so I will try to be brief. The player controls a space engineer Isaac navigating a space monster-infested spacecraft stranded in space. The game’s camera is placed just above (but a bit pulled back) the shoulder of Isaac, with a health bar slyly integrated into the back of the heroic space engineer’s suit.  The inventory system is a hologram projected by the suit in front of the player character, and the game does not pause while accessing it. The complete lack of a traditional interface is justified that the player will believe in the game world more if there are less unrealistic numbers at the edges of the screen.

Far Cry 2 includes a crash course in first aid

No matter how creative a designer is, it is much more challenging to create an intuitive “interface-less” interface than a traditional one.This could just be that the FPS HUD is almost twice as old as Black and White, and as such there is not enough experience of how to do it right. Still, even the most expertly crafted “realistic” interface has to struggle with the fact that some players will be frustrated when they cannot access the information they need. For example, the only way to see your health in Far Cry 2 once it is hidden is to reload your weapon. When the weapon is fully loaded, this is not a problem, but in other circumstances it could become a hassle, albeit a small one. This is why I feel that the push for a ” smaller” interface is not entirely worthwhile. The HUD is seldom obtrusive, and is the fastest way for the player to access information that can not be reflected in the game world. That is not to say that the HUD should be the only part of the user interface. By reflecting variables in the game world beyond health bars and numbers, the player can grasp at a glance what is going on. One great example is the way Civilization IV handles the display of buildings and Wonders in a city. While previous titles were content with representing these structures on a list in the city screen that could be opened, Civilization IV actually shows the structures on the world map as well. The list with buildings is still there though, but the world map can offer an indication of a city’s development at a glance. The game world also feels a lot more alive when the numbers get represented “physically”. The hero of Far Cry 2 has to pull out bullets or snap joints back into place to recover from severe damage. This makes the player character appear more present in the world and less like a camera floating around a set distance above ground. The game Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay by Starbreeze also features a very physically present character who can fist fight, snap necks and even has visible legs!

I think that while a true “interface-less” game can have a tendency to frustrate if there simply is too much information to convey, thinking without a traditonal interface can force a designer to reflect all variables into the game world. If you imagine that a game should be playable without any HUD or other interface, and then add more information simply for clarity, the game would benefit from the best of two worlds.