Road 96, a really good videogame you may know or have played said it best. When you watch a movie you do so... To have a laugh? Feel something? Learn and discover? Maybe it's to escape reality, experience fear or solve a mystery. Whichever of these apply to you, the way you go about it is very straightforward. You simply watch a movie! There are elements in a movie that are used to pull you in, to deceive you that while not real to you, it is real to someone, meaning the characters. Acting, costumes, sets, editing, music, ideas, aesthetic movements and so much more. These are all small pieces, put together to create something bigger, something tangible. And while all of these things are on your screen either directly or indirectly, you can't experience the events of the movie yourself. You can only experience the viewing of someone going though them for you. That makes you a sympathiser, a witness. The third party. In fact, you have zero control over how these things are even served to you. And while we talk about consuming a movie, I think a more accurate term would be being fed one. So if these cool little puzzle pieces are the baby formula we're being spoonfed, the story or the plot would be the spoon. The story is the axis on which every other element relies on to be delivered and I would like to call this nifty device "The Narrative" But this is a video about video games, right? So, let's talk games. Videogames could certainly follow Road 96's logic of consumption motivation. We could play games as an escape, to solve a murder mystery or to have a laugh. We might even play a game to socialize with other people. Or improve hand-to-eye coordination. But there is something more. Something that separates video games from movies or any other form of visual media. An exclusive way to consume the narrative, if you will. We play games to live someone else's life. Now don't get me wrong! That doesn't necessarily mean that there's something wrong with the mundanity of our everyday lives. But there is something very special about being able to control an assassin living in Ancient Greece and seeing an age of antiquity through their eyes. Then a moment later to jump in the shoes of a short, mustached jumpman roaming through a cartoony metropolis and later to finish your day drinking ale with humanoid lizards in a tavern, hoping to fish around for the local gossip. I think it's safe to say that the mere mention of lizard people boozing it up in a tavern to someone who's not versed in the world of gaming will net you with a couple of dirty looks, questionable glances and maybe even a nice, new, shiny white jacket. So it's all the more important to us gamers to not only be able to partake in the activities of these virtual worlds but to have them feel as real as possible. After all, would you want to invest in a life knowing that it's a lie? In 1998 there was a great movie called "The Truman Show" "The Truman Show" was about the life of just one very ordinary person who unbeknownst to him was the center of his universe. His entire life a carefully directed lie on display for people to watch as a TV show. Ironically, it is still available on Netflix. (or at least it was a hundred years ago when this script was written.) Naturally, when he starts to suspect the truth behind the Matrix, he tries to escape his predetermined path if only to experience one day in an open, true world without boundaries. It's a pretty smart movie and I recommend you watch it. But... doesn't that remind you of something familiar? Think about it. One world, centered around one individual. A place that does not go on without the necessary steps of its chosen one. A virtual playground made just for one. Do you see what I'm getting at? Because to me it almost sound exactly like a single player videogame. Let's do a little excercise. I want you to close your eyes for a moment. Seriously, just close your eyes. How are you reading this if your eyes are closed, you cheater? Don't open your eyes! Say we had cheats in real life and you had infinite money, infinite talent and infinite time to create it. How would it look like? Would it be a vast, medieval realm with all kinds of civilization trying, in vain, to peacefully co-exist? Maybe a futuristic, bustling city with lavish skyscrapers towering above the contrasting, dangerous dirty street slums. Or perhaps a place not unlike our own, with a variety of biomes spanning a whole GLOBE. I'm sorry, Flat Earthers! Lush forests, urban settlements and infinitely procedurally generated environments. Whatever your ideal mental playground is, I want you to tell me what you were doing inside of it. Write it down in the comments. When you were thinking about the fields, the city, the castle, the village, whatever what is it exactly that you were doing in your imagination? Were you slaying beasts? Exploring the landmass? Taking on quests? Because for me, every time I catch myself daydreaming about the perfect map, something that I really anticipate, say GTA VI or The Elder Scrolls VI I tend to think about the all the things that would make the world feel real to me. Be it playing a fictional card game, drinking until my character passes out or even going fishing with friends. Those small little moments that make a world feel real. That is what I miss most in games today. And that is what I like to call "The Immersive Pause" So what in the open world is an immersive pause? How can we define it? An immersive pause is any video game feature, element or system outside the main story that reinforces the illusion of the reality of the game world. In other words, anything besides the progression of the game itself that makes you forget you are playing a game. These little things that make you sink deeper in the illusion of the world by also distancing you momentarily from the events of the story. Card games, gentlemen's clubs, fishing, mini-games, in-game TV, even silly banter between characters. These are all things that give credibility to an evident lie that needs our suspension of disbelief in order to function. I don't know exactly when videogames as a medium penetrated mainstream culture. I don't know when videogames became a thing we can refer to as art, sports or stories either. Feel free to offer your opinion on that in the comments because I would really love to discuss that with you. But I do know for sure that we are now past that point. In fact, games can be art, competitive sports and story, anything in between and everything at once. And as a medium that does these things, videogames are comparable in many ways to other artforms such as movies, books and TV shows. But there is one thing that only games can do and this, I believe to be their superpower. That sets them apart from virtually any other artform you can consume. We talked about it before. It is the element... ...of control. Do you remember what we talked about in the beginning of this video? To live the life of someone else no matter how unrealistic it seems when compared to ours. But the word "live" is not 100% accurate, if you want to get technical about it. No, the proper world would be to "control" A videogame allows us to control the life of a videogame character (or more sometimes) mostly under the invisible hand of the developers guiding our actions towards a specific endgame. But even if I tell you to go simply from Point A to Point B, the route you take is up to you. It is in your control. Chances are your steps will be anticipated, predicted even. The shortest distance from Point A to Point B, right? That's what I would do. It's what most of us what do, I believe. But what if you wanted to do something different, even just for the sake of it? A big circle around point A, then further down past point B and there and back again. You could absolutely do that in a game. You wouldn't necessarily gain something from it and it probably wouldn't affect the chain of events that is waiting to unfold. But if for some weirdly specific reason you want to... You could. You can't do that with a book. There is a specific amount of words, spread across a specific number of pages, all arranged in a specific order of sequence. And it's the same with movies and TV shows. Just replace words with scenes and pages with episodes. You are being spoonfed a story instead of being served and your viewing experience, at least the viewing part if not the understanding one is identical to mine and anyone else's in the world. You are still required to read through the pages or sit through the film yourself but you have no immediate control or input over the course of the drive. But what would happen if you could peer through the curtains of Breaking Bad? If you could touch the characters inside a Harry Potter book. Well, you'd probably get a restraining order for a mile around Hermione but that's not the point I'm trying to make here! It's that the illusion would fall apart because these things just aren't there. They do not exist. And movies and books are very lucky to have that ability to protect their thinly veiled reality because it's the auteur's decision exactly what to say. No more and no less. You can't stretch their reality because it's so confined and specific that anything past that reality, simply is not there. It has no definition. But videogames don't share that fortune. The fact that progression can only come from the active input on analog sticks and digital buttons means that there is, at least theoretically, an endless sequence of things you can do. Even if their true nature is a bunch of ones and zeroes. Again, these things might not change the course of destiny but if you want to jump right now no one can predict that. If you want to press your character against the wall, crouch and jump in an attempt to clip yourself outside of the game, again, no one can predict that. They can only prepare and hope for the best because that endless string of prompts at your disposal means that they can't prepare for everything. If you're absolutely hellbent on breaking the reality of the game, you are going to find a way to do it. There are even tools that help you with it and some awesome YouTube shows like Boundary Break that showcase what goes on behind the curtains. But this video is not about encouraging that. Though I hardly discourage it either. It is about making these great games feel as real as the developers intend them to be. And when you have a medium which such a perilous problem such as player control, you need all the help in the world to make it look and feel real. That is why, in my opinion, videogames need immersive pauses. Cyberpunk 2077 was a great game. And yes, I'm very aware of all the bugs. I played the game at launch after all. But for my first 40ish hours of my 110 hour complete playthrough, I couldn't quite stomach the game. To have a world so well made in front you divided in visually distinct districts, cutting edge structures that would make Blade Runner blush and the vivacious verticality of a visionary architect. Man, what a treat! And yet, you may be able to see my problem with Cyberpunk. A world as beautiful as a museum painting but only to the front of me, as opposed to around me. A lifeless showpiece trying to imitate life. I vividly remember the first part of my playthrough, going out of my way to avoid the main questline and just focusing on whatever side activities the game had to offer much to the detriment of a story character who was awkwardly waiting for me outside my apartment while I was out and about breaking up fights and following glitchy NPCs. I did everything in my power to put the game in cold storage, if only to preserve its freshness forever. I guess I felt hat I liked it so much that I did not want it to end. But the problem was that it never even started. And in doing so I ended up disliking it. I had made it stale. Now that alone might not have been such a disastrous outcome had the side content been interesting enough to stand on its own. But unfortunately, I found that anything outside the scope of the amazingly written story there was a very small offering of interesting things to do, even in such an interesting place. Specifically, there are gigs which are narrative driven side missions which typically involve a degree of environmental storytelling and almost always lead to a combat situation and there are also NCPD Scanner Hustles which, again, are like outpost conquering via way of combat. So experiences that rely on game mechanics that are always used, even during the story. My main problem with Cyberpunk was that as hard as the game tries to convince you that you, V, your avatar is a real inhabitant of a real Night City with their own roof over their head, their hopes and dreams and very, VERY impending health problems, I felt that it fell a little too short. A feeling that would only go away, if at all, during set piece missions and pre-made gigs and even those weren't enough sometimes to quell my doubts about the corporeality of what I was experiencing. I mean, even as a stone cold killer going from question mark to exclamation mark doing anything you could possibly achieve in this game I kept wondering one thing. Man, doesn't V ever unwind? Don't they want to chill out at a bar and hang out with a buddy after a long day of gig binging? It is clear that they have friends so why are they mostly unavailable for activities when the game doesn't necessitate their existence for a pre-arranged meetup? I can see the liquor and even buy it but why is it just a small icon in a boring menu? Is V simply not interested in catching a cyberflick at the local cinema or gambling in the bowels of the underworld that you become a part of anyway! Because it seemed to me that the only things V was allowed to do for fun just so happened to be the things that CD Projekt Red had pre-made and pre-approved and put inside a controlled little box. In a way, my takeaway was that Cyberpunk, along with too many other games suffered from a sort of game disorder. I felt that it had the soul of a great but linear game stuck inside the body of a limited, open world game. Now allow me to take a short immersive pause in this video and say that yes, I am aware that the devs added a heap of the content that I felt was missing when I played it like crib customization and barber shops and even a cute little arcade game starring our favourite friendly steed, Roach. So this is by no means a targeted hit on what is otherwise an awesome game and please do not take it as such. In fact, you might be relieved to know that for the remaining 70 hours of my playthrough, I really loved the game! But I did have to make one personal adjustment. I had to tell myself that if I was to enjoy this game I would need to love it for whatever it is instead of hate it for anything it is not. After all we can daydream all we want about out perfect game and our perfect map but unfortunately thoughts are not enough to manifest realities. Only work is. Ultimately, I had a great time when following the narrative pathways that CDPR had set up for me. Even if it felt like a Choose Your Own Adventure rather than an alternate life I had control over. And I'm more than content with that. In fact I would argue that it's best when a story is written in ink, set in stone. A predetermined prophecy to be unveiled. Because that is the only way I've ever been told a good story. But when that level of linearity extends to the gameplay, and especially the gameplay outside of these specific set piece missions that is when my need for an immersive pause kicks in. But let's talk a minute about what immersive pauses Cyberpunk does have. Because during Part 2 of my journey in Night City, I was really surprised to find out that many of the things I was looking for when in the game after all and they were really well made too for the most part! I was just looking for them at the wrong place; the initial side content. Everything that follows is still considered side content, meaning that it's not a must to play if you want to reach the endgame. So, I had one of my most immersive experiences in gaming while playing Cyberpunk in just one session when my V had to take refuge from a dust storm with one dateable damsel inside a house. In that moment I truly felt like I was there, trying to get inside a character's pants and epically failing. Sadly I even thought "Well it doesn't get more realistic than that" Another time, my main character went scuba diving with their freshly ignited flame AND THIS TIME WE EVEN SCORED, BOYS! WOO! Not only because of the intricately indited set piece that set the mood perfectly but because it was a very rare moment where something so memorable occured without the need for any combat whatsoever. While the sun was rising in Night City, my V, who like I said had recently tried to find love and had failed was now happily seeing someone else, spending the night together after a bit of WET exploration. Uh.. in the sea, I mean. Scuba diving, I just told you! The perfect day... Right? Only in the next hours, she got terrible news about a main story character who had just died! The magic in all of this was that it wasn't planned. I happened to progress the romance mission at a time when the game was going to progress its main story, no matter what I chose to do. But the perceived outcome was that while we were off having a bit of "How's your father?", someone we knew was dying! Possibly because we weren't there to save them. In my mind, I knew that these two events were unrelated but this quick alternation of the highest of highs and the lowest of lows grabbed me by the hair and put me inside the game world so ferociously that I half expected to have to pay taxes in Night City. CDPR, take my Eddies because at this point I WAS HOOKED. But like I said this video is not about Cyberpunk or any other one game, for that matter. Rather, it is about a thing in gaming I call the "Immersive Pause" That's... the video's title. So let's talk immersive pauses. But before I continue, I do want to clarify something that is important to me. And that is the reason an immersive pause can't be story related. You can 100%, definitely immerse someone in the reality of a game just by having a great story. Many games do! And that is probably why I rush to get to the ending when a really important event occurs. Like, for example, I always do this in Yakuza games. When starting a new game, I'll usually stay away from the story as much as I can then ration it out a bit until something really unexpected or important happens and at that point I am all in until I finish the story. And maybe you do that too! Let me know if you do! So if that's the case you might be wondering why I'm so insistent on the point that story progression itself cannot be an immersive pause. And I think the answer is simple and honest. It's because it doesn't cover the "Pause" half of the term. The second half, the "Pause" is meant to distance the player from the story. It's a safeguard that helps establish verity in the world, even when the narrative aspect of it remains static. Evidence that the sun sets and rises, not only because you decided to wake up and follow your fate and become Dragon Saviour Lord Hero but because it would set and it would rise, regardless of what you chose to do. I mean, imagine if in real life you skipped a day from work because you had a couple spicy chalupas too many. The world wouldn't stop for you, would it? Debby from accounting would still gossip, security guy John's mortgage wouldn't magically disappear and that snot that kisses the boss' ass would still pucker up. Nothing would change. Well, except for a very angry boss who would now think of you as a lazy lounge liar. The Chosen Protagonist Syndrome is a real thing but that's a topic for another day and another video. What I want you to take away from this is that what I just said sounds realistic because it's real life. So an immersive pause needs to be more than an agent of immersion. Namely, it also needs to be a pause. Having said that, it's time to get into the fish and chips of it. The types of immersive pauses. A few examples were already mentioned and I will have some more notable cases later on too. In fact, I can think of two different types of subcategorizations and maybe there's even more! So let's start with the first one. Let me bring some attention to something I mentioned previously. In the same sentence, I said "silly character banter" and "spicy chalupas" No wait, that's wrong. I said "silly character banter" and "mini-games" Can you think of one thing that makes these two things different from one another? Things I'm sure you have experienced before in gaming, might I add. If you can't, let me help you out a little. Put your controller down when Ichiban rambles on about underwear. He won't seem to mind it much. He'll just continue talking, the party will respond and whether you're listening with glee or have left to go pee, they will go on until this little pause is done. Same with the stand up comedy show in GTA IV. You can skip it but you can also relax and enjoy the show like you were there yourself. That is what we call a passive immersive pause. But leave the controller down when playing darts and you'll be staring at the sceen until the end of time or until the game gets bored and kicks you out on its own because you can't take a hint. So in order to enjoy this beautiful little pause, you have to partake in it. Your active input is a necessity. And thus we call that an active immersive pause. Now I'm going to ask you to do a silly little excercise with me, an active immersive pause in this video. Say you are playing disco dancing in Yakuza 0. It's really fun! Now what type of pause is that? You can see it on the screen... I am moving around, trying to dance as best I can. Yup, it's an active immersive pause. Now let's go watch the latest episode of GTA V's Underbelly of Paradise or if you're down we can hit up Tivoli Cinema and watch Capolavoro. It's your call but both of these instances are what is called... Yes... a passive immersive pause. We had so much fun disco dancing in Yakuza 0 that we wanna do it again! So put on your good clothes because this time we're dancing to the oldies! Playstation One's Bust-A-Groove. A game all about busting moves on the dancefloor. This groovy classic plays a lot like the rhythm games you may know and love. So naturally this is...? Well, if you said active immersive pause, you got it wrong. If you said passive immersive pause, even more so! Because what we would be doing in this PSX gem would definitely classify as active but not as a pause! After all, this IS the entire game. If this game has a story, THIS is how your progress it. If you could dance all night in Persona 5: Royal then it would be an active immersive pause. But if you do it in the standalone dancing game, it's not an immersive pause. It is the game! Apart from their nature as passive or active depending on the requirement of your participation, immersive pauses can also be categorized in regards to their replicability. Here's an example. It was really fun disco dancing in Yakuza 0, wasn't it? We bonded as we danced the night away so, natrually, at the end of our night, just before we go you tell me "Let's go disco dancing soooon, Big Ronnie" So natrually, the next day I find my best outfit, whip out the cologne and fix my hair because once again "It's Friday Night and I'm feeling just as fly" And if you tell me to do it all again on Saturday, we could! We could dance every day for the rest of our lives. So when an immersive pause can be activated whenever the player feels like it or rather if there are no serious limitations to activating it, that's a Replicable Immersive Pause. Or a RIP. However there are moments in games when once is enough. Let's go back to Cyberpunk for one small moment. Remember the cool scuba diving set piece? The coffee with the rockstar, etc? Those great moments were definitely part of the narrative but they weren't necessary for the story to reach its conclusion. You could do without them. And as such, I think it's fair to call them Immersive Pauses because they don't really progress the main story. They are not needed. But they are limited in the fact that you can't relive them whenever you want. Most of the times it's a one and done deal. So these neat immersive pauses are what we call Limited or Irreplicable Immersive Pauses. Short for LIP. Now that you know, I want you to go back to whatever you were playing and identify the immersive pauses and their types. Remember. Anything that breaks away from the main story progression and allows you to sink deeper inside the game world is very much an immersive pause. Are you playing the original Final Fantasy VII? Could you be preparing to take on Sephiroth for the millionth time? That awesome romantic moment with Cloud and Tifa under the stars is one of my favourite Passive Limited Immersive Pauses. It's something that if somehow was missing from the game, it wouldn't take much out of the story but the fact that it's there is a small break from the final encounter that really lets the stakes sink in. ...Even if the final boss is an underwhelming pushover. It really helps you get the point that this is for the world. This is for everything and everyone we know and love and there is a reason to keep on living. But during this video I've highlighted many times how useful immersive pauses can be for mostly open world games. And I want you to know that this is something almost any game can employ. The Darkness is a 2007 game by Starbreeze Studios and it's responsible for what is possibly the single best use of the immersive pause in a game ever. In this First Person Shooter, the narrative is divided between chapters and those chapters take place in open ended hubs that you can reach using a subway system so it's safe to say that it's a game... ON RAILS. Where you're supposed to follow the game rather than the game's supposed to follow you. Near the beginning of the game though you spend an evening with the protagonist's girlfriend. And it's not a fancy date; there's no expensive restaurant where you have to foot the bill, it's all inside a small New York apartment. A very intimate scene. What makes this date so special is that you're just supposed to watch a movie together. Pretty realistic, right? So normally what any sane videogame would do is it would loop a couple stationary images, maybe they'd even go that extra mile and animate a small video that would, inevitably, repeat. If you're a freak like me you want to stretch the game's reality to its fullest. See where it goes. So... You're going to sit there until you see the point where reality breaks. Where you're reminded that what you are experiencing is, in fact, a simulation meant to mimic reality as best as it can, with all its limitations. But if you do that when you're playing The Darkness you will be very disappointed or rather you will be thrilled to discover that there is no such moment where the illusion breaks. You can't see the rip in the fabric, the fake walls, the reminder that this is a game because you're given the chance to watch the actual entire movie within the game. No stops, no excuses. You get the entire "To Kill A Mockingbird" on your virtual CRT TV. (Ahh... The 00s) And even if you do sit through it, it doesn't stop there! You get two more full length movies, a couple cartoons and a TV Show! With ALL its episodes!! I mean, by now you might be half considering cancelling Netflix and just grabbing a copy of The Darkness but this exactly the kind of thing that gives a videogame world its credibility. Of course, I'm not saying that every game should come with the first five seasons of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. I'm not even saying you should spend upwards of seven hours of your life watching TV in The Darkness. Though there is an achievement for those who are a little too patient. But should you WANT to do it, for whatever reason, you CAN. You can stretch and bend the world to your own sadistic whims and it will never break. And that is the exact point of the immersive pause. It's things that are there which are not imperative to the progression of the story but lend credibility to the world the story takes place in. Think of it as a support system. If you manage to give the world credibility somehow that, in turn, helps the story itself feel more important because it's set in that credible world. And obviously there is no point if we're not going to experience these moments ourselves. One of the worst applications of this idea was done very recently on the not so beloved reboot of Saints Row. (Sigh...) I have so much to say about Saints Row that I fear a lifetime is not going to cover it but I will try in another video... God... Saints Row bombards you with quips from the characters... Ok now I'm just struggling to stay on topic and not just dunk on this game. So, Saints Row bombards you with quips from the characters about how they did something really cool and memorable last week. Hey, remember that crazy thing that happened but we never actually experienced in-game and is absolutely not part of the gameplay loop? Had that moment been real and not an inside joke that doesn't include us, it would have helped a ton in making the characters slightly likeable. Instead, you are getting a disingenuous remark while you drive off to do the thing that you are always, without fail, doing in this game and that is combat. Combat. Combat. COMBAT. But even if the combat in this game WAS good how much does it mean when there isn't something to break it up? What significance does a flurry of fistfights have if it's all that ever happens in the game, without real rhyme or reason to it? Now you might say there is no chance that you'd have a fight without the game supplying a reason and maybe you have a point. Since most protagonists are typically in the right, you're called to defend something; protect someone. Or accomplish a goal. Combat is a means to an end then. However, too many games today use combat as a crutch. Because it is an inexhaustible source of gameplay. But it can quite easily lose its meaning when it becomes overbearing. In other words, it is a pause from the narrative when it's not used to progress it but it's the most boring, unoriginal and needless immersive pause can have. And at some point I don't even know if you can call it immersive. Plus too much unneeded combat can make important battles stale. The folly of combat in modern games is a topic that we'll discuss at length, at another time. So what exactly are immersive pauses good for? Say you're a game developer. Why should you go out of your way to include this? What can it achieve? The obvious one is reinforcing the reality of the game world. This is the biggest point I've been trying to make, after all. Small moments like these allow the player to forget about progressing the story while letting recent events sink in the back of their mind. This also builds up anticipation for the rest of the story, acting like a self imposed cliffhanger. So when the player opts to return to it this break has been beneficial to the gamer's appetite who now wants to see the rest of the story. But of course that can also happen when you turn off the game completely. After all the biggest immersive pause a game could offer would be an actual, real life pause from it. Depending on what type of gamer you are you may be familiar with having to turn your game off for the night because of an early wake up call the following day, daily chores at the supermarket, work or maybe writing this very video essay. And in those moments away from the game, you might be fantasizing about it wondering who was the mystery killer after all, why your best friend betrayed you or how you're going to abuse your royal power when you become king. But this healthy pause which is extremely beneficial to the narrative can be simulated within the game too if only the tools are provided. After all, it would be best if people could experience that without even having to turn off the game. But aside from world reaffirmation, an immersive pause is a great chance to reveal a new facet of your characters as a tool for character exposition. After all the reason we go on dates in real life (well if you do) is exactly for that! Exposition! And what do we do on dates? Silly activities like bowling, drinking and eating. A great backdrop that allows us to get to know someone better. So here's a bad example that I am sure will ruffle many feathers and if I do offend you, please let's just talk about it in the comments. So, Nier Automata is a really good game. It's world class in some areas; especially the music. But I struggled to feel for the characters and by the time I had reached the end, the real end (you'll know what I mean if you've played it) I simply couldn't care about what happens to them. And I know exactly why that is. In the game's constant doom and gloom I never felt like I shared a life with the characters so the stakes never felt real to me. Because in life you have good moments and you have bad moments. It can't all be good and it can't all be bad. And if you make me laugh along a character and cry with them, I gurantee you that I am going to care about them. And I can't think of a better example than Kiryu Kazuma from the Yakuza series again and he's a great example because if you can make people care about someone like Kazuma, I sincerely cannot accept that you can't make people care about any character! Because Kiryu is a stoic character. You could even say that he's the evolution of the silent protagonist trope. Sure, he talks. But whenever something important happens in the world he's not the cause of that change but rather the one reacting to it. It's a great formula that works really well for this specific series but through the 7 mainline games you play as the Dragon of Dojima you learn so much about him and through him. I have laughed so much with the hilarious sub-stories, awkward dates, the days spent playing pool, bowling, darts and everything else the game has to throw at you. And it's a massive, MASSIVE list of things that this game throws at you, by the time I got to the end of that yearlong journey... Well... Let's just say that I cried like a little girl. And all of this tells us familiarity breeds emotion. The small moments that reveal a side of the character that is a little less serious than what most main plots require are the moments that make us believe that this is a real human being and we are following their story. And by using these small moments, whether they are mini-games that add to a character's personality or simple cooldown pauses, you are accentuating the gravity of the main plot when it resumes due to the contrast between the trivial and the important. Small note here. Please keep in mind that when it's time to progress the main story there is no place for silly pauses or trivialities. Even a comedy has to be serious when tackling its main plot issues. Don't forget! Drama means person with a problem. And the way you treat said problem either makes the story feel important or it makes it feel not important. Technically, this isn't an immersive pause so I won't waste much time on this but recently I played AI: The Somnium Files. It was okay. But the game inserts immature trivialities when it absolutely shouldn't and that hurt the gravity of the game so much for me. I am all for stupidity, silliness and immaturity but there is a time and a place and the big important plot progression points are not it. And if that's not enough I have one last reason I believe immersive pauses can benefit a videogame and that is the breaking up of the action. Like I said before, I find that combat tends to get a little repeatative in games. You find something that works and you do it until you hear the victory jingle. When you enter another battle you do it all over again. Combat can become tedious, especially in RPGs when the smaller battles don't mean anything except for a chance to improve your stats. So, a gameplay thing. By separating these battles using immersive pauses you are allowing the player to blow off some steam. So when they return to the combat it will feel a little more fresh. So now that we've discussed the benefits of an immersive pause, surely, this means that every single game from The Elder Scrolls to Tetris should make use of it, right? Well... No. I bet if you hopped on Hearthstone and there was something keeping you from jumping from opponent to opponent you probably wouldn't be too happy about it. Some games are perfect the way they are. Streamlined and lean with no excess gimmicks or fat. But for most games, especially open world games, this is something that would add rather than subtract. And the reason I keep mentioning open world games is right there in their own genre description; they are supposed to be open. This open nature usually aims to mimic life itself offering as many diversions and activities as possible. In real life you are given the option to do anything at all. If you want to go mountain climbing tomorrow, there's nothing stopping you. If you'd like you could close this video right now and go to a restaurant (but it's like two more minutes to the end so please don't), visit a friend or book a ticket to Greece. If you do, make sure to stop by and say hi! And yet you don't... And I don't either! Because while, technically, there isn't anything to really stop us from doing all that there are some limits, either self imposed or not to how we spend our days. Whether it's a lack of money, a hectic work schedule or simply limited time for limitless options we have to carefully ration all our resources and do the things that matter most. Our priorities! But that doesn't stop you from having that tropical beach wallpaper on your screen because, deep down, you know that if you really wanted to, you could go there even if you know you won't! And yes, I'm very sorry to say that it's all an illusion but its existence is still a wonderful thing to happen and I would even argue that it's enough! When playing games I always check to see how many buildings I can enter and if I can I want to try and enter them all. But in real life I know that during my entire lifetime I probably won't set foot in more than 10.000 buildings when there are billions and billions of them around the world. Imagine playing a GTA game with 195 playable districts and you only spend your time in one. But the illusion that you can drop everything at a moment's notice and go there whenever you want is what makes everything in the world feel possible and open. And in the end this is exactly what immersive pauses are about. Whether in real life or video games. Two things that aren't all that different after all. Making things feel open when, in fact, you know that you are in a very closed, man-made world. An illusion that deep down we all know limits us but still allows us to say "...But if I wanted to... I bet I could!" And that... that is the point of the immersive pause. To close this off I can't think of a better tl;dr to summarize. Just one small sentence that perfectly encapsulates what the immersive pause is. It's a phrase I'm going to borrow from another art medium but it applies here as much as everywhere else. Music is the silence between the notes. (Claude Debussy) Thank you. (Orpheus Dourvas)