People often like to talk about the richness of a games world. The amount of tress in a forest, the way building has crumbled into the streets many years before the player’s arrival, these are all aspects of the aesthetic. Oftentimes the games with fluff and stuff, especially interesting off-map geometry, are selling more and more. This probably has to do with either a fixation on detail, or a fixation on realism in the game industry. Either way, having more objects around maps has been a big selling point over the last few years.
Much of the added depth in environment over the last few years has been on things the player can’t actually interact with. Far off set-pieces and buildings that only appear when looking at them from specific directions are commonplace in today’s games, but they are carefully placed to stop us from seeing their tears and stitches. Beyond that, developers often create invisible walls that bar our access to various zones.
Often, we can navigate beyond these walls. With this post, I am hoping that I can motivate you to explore the unknown in some of your favorite games. In order to do that, I would like to provide some examples of interesting off-map experiences.
In the original Gear of War and some of the sequels (I’m fairly sure) there was a bug that allowed the characters in the third person shooter to jump backwards over walls. This would give them access to interesting rooms and neat views of the other parts of the map. While it offered a bit of a combat advantage, using it in online co-op play was also an option. Being able to do this led to many discoveries between myself and some friends, as well as the greater online community.
Similarly, last night I was able to essentially walk off the map in Tera Online. A friend and I were able to explore the map from the tops of some mountains, which provided an interesting perspective on content already explored. The image above comes from that little excursion, and was completely off of playable space. I think interesting geometry like this deserves a look.
Hopefully I have spurred your interest in secret, out of map content in video games. Additionally, you can explore content of this type in a more easily-accessed format at: http://tcrf.net/The_Cutting_Room_Floor
Jeez, this glitch stuff is the best. I wish franchises would take the more popular glitches and legitimize them a bit, even if it’s just acknowledging them in game (I’m looking at you, Nintendo. MissingNo is s*)F times better than most of this new legendary pokemon).
Speaking of pokemon, there used to be a check in Red/Blue that allowed you to do exactly what you’re talking about. I thought you just given the item, but apparantly gamesharks are required to get an item called, “Nickname”. What made Nickname so great was how it allowed you to bypass the game walls and let you into areas you shouldn’t be. Most of the time, the areas would glitch out if you ventured to far outside the game parameters. However, it did have some neat advantages (like getting back to the SS Anne). The weirdest thing to happen had to do with a pokemon rumor called, “Pikablu”.
“Pikablu” was a hoax created in a time where the internet was weak and unreliable. Based on an early design of Marril (Gen 2), Pikablu was supposedly a really hard and rare pokemon. It wasn’t too unbelievable, given MissingNo and the number of “How to Get Mew” guides were floating around. The thing was, Pikablu wasn’t real in Red/Blue. Like, even slightly. But when my brother and I were glitching out the game by surfing in a randomly roped off section, suddenly the screen’s graphics showed electric sparks and we entered a battle.
And then the game froze.