The first-person perspective has come to prominence over the years as the shooter genre has fully come into its own on consoles -- in no small part, I think, because developers realized it was far easier to work with than the third-person (remember all those tricky camera issues cropping up in the last-gen?)
There also seems to be an impression that it's the most immersive. You can look around a game world as if with your own eyes, you can see your own hands and sometimes even more (see the otherwise-lamentable Alone in the Dark's neato inventory system).
But there's something to be said for being able to see your character, right?
Japanese RPGs, which rely on rich visuals and groups of intricate characters, are almost exclusively third-person -- if there's such a thing as a first-person JRPG, please enlighten me. Western RPGs, on the other hand, are in the large majority first-person. How strange to see such a divergent approach in what is effectively a comparable genre.
Personally, I enjoy games that use the perspective in creative ways. EA told me that the reason for all the reflective surfaces in Mirror's Edge is to allow the player to see Faith, an interesting nod to the importance of self-visualizatoin. And remember how meticulously some of us arranged portals in order to get a glimpse of Chell? In BioShock, I think the first-person perspective is ideal -- your character lacks a sense of self as a narrative necessity, and is simply hands, weapons. Not to mention the fact that Jack might look like his dad, thereby spoiling some things.
Anyhow, I bring it up because my colleague, Game Developer editor Brandon Sheffield, wrote an editorial at Gamasutra pointing out why it's somewhat misleading to assume that first-person games are automatically more immersive, and he discusses some of the actual barriers to immersion he feels they can create.
Do you have a preference? If so, why? If it depends on the genre, which types of games do you think are more suited to one perspective versus another? Vote in the sidebar poll too, willya?
47 comments:
The early Shin Megami Tensei games (including Persona) were 1st person JRPGs, but yeah, definitely not the norm for that genre.
I think about this the same way I think about 1st and 3rd person perspective in writing. I don't prefer one, but I can appreciate the choice in each work for what it is. I vote ... neutral. :-(
I don't really have a preference for either perspective, but I do appreciate it when devs do cool things with either one. Gears of War's roady run, Dead Space's integrated HUD, FEAR's melee combat, and Mirror's Edge's ability to see arms and legs to get a sense of placement in the world are all good example of taking advantage of the perspective in interesting ways.
Voted, yes, yes. I do like both equally. I think it really depends on the game. Look at Batman Arkham Asylum - wouldn't have worked in first person. And yet there are moments where the third person adventure game does shift to first person for some moments, and it works to immerse you further into the game.
(And as the absolutely massive Batman fanboy, it is my duty to remind everyone to go play that game. Now. Don't care what you're doing. Get up, go out, buy it, play it.)
Of course, until I played Mirrors Edge, I was very much a proponent of First Person for shooters, Third Person for platformers/adventures. Happy to say that game, as maligned as it was, changed my mind on that one.
So, now, I don't really know. I guess, as long as either one is used well, I'm happy to view through the eyes of the character or the God following their every footstep sort of thing.
Actually, just realized that yes, third person games are creepy, because you are following and controlling the poor folks like you're some kind of demented stalker puppet-master hybrid...
On the whole I prefer first-person perspective because I get tired of looking at the same character taking up so much of my view for hours on end. Even with hand-to-hand combat I often plumb for 1st person over 3rd person when available (eg Fallout 3).
I guess I would prefer 3rd person when the player character is more clearly defined as a person rather than as an avatar of me. Like the name suggests, 1st person will always be me while 3rd person is someone else. Though this isn't always the case - I still played Thief 3 from the first person because I wanted to be scared, not to watch Garret being cautious.
Brandon makes a good point – it's a fallacy to assume that first-person equals more immersion in virtue of its camera position. There are plenty of FPSs that haven't been immersive for me, yet they use the classic viewpoint. I would agree that having a first-person perspective confers a natural advantage to making you a part of the situation, but only if the world and its characters are realised in such a way. The ending to HL2:E2 sticks in my mind as such an example.
Further, if the viewpoint feels unintuitive and causes frustration, then immersion is taken away. Alone in the Dark had an inventory system that was cool, but it was restrictive and it was too slow. When I started taking on damage because I couldn't use it effectively, it stopped being cool.
Also, three good blog posts in two days?! You're spoiling us! Maybe you should be ill more often. :P
Sean also makes a good point that there's a lot you can do with the HUD of an FPS to make it seem more immersive. Initially I felt that F.E.A.R. 2's HUD was obtrusive but realised that the feeling of being boxed in is probably appropriate. The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Athena, also had an awesome moment where you interface with a drone and see the bios load up and stuff. That stuff works really well for immersion.
I really appreciated Brandon Sheffield's piece, and thanks for posting on it, Leigh. I think there's a certain kind of problem for me with first person games relating to perspective. It's perhaps analogous to the uncanny valley. That is, the use of perspective in a first person game seems like an accurate simulation of the experience of seeing through a character's eyes, but is in fact quite different. There's no peripheral vision, to start with, which is in itself a product of flattening the representation of the world on to a rectangle. Neither the pupil or the retina are flat, which gives some curvature to vision, both in terms of optics and (I'm guessing) in terms of how the brain creates images of the world. Plus the amount of detail you are able to see with your eyes is actually a very narrow portion of your field of vision--that is, everything outside of what you look at directly is somewhat blurry, although your brain compensates for this to some degree, filling in the fuzz with informed guesses. But in a first person game you have a fairly large slice of vision (I don't really know how much, but maybe 120 degrees?) all in HD clarity. While it may be beautiful, I think that that's potentially more alienating than immersive. Your character sees a world quite similar to the real world, but their vision of it is completely different from your own, even as it suggests that it's the real McCoy (and so you can look down and see your arm, or whatever). For me a third person view is much easier to grasp, although in certain cases--Bioshock particularly--I've really loved the exploitation of my discomfort with the first person.
The old "Kings Field" series on PS1 was first person, although I think only one game made it to America. Now that I think about it, does "Deception" count as an RPG? That game was twisted as hell and you played most of it in first person.
There are a number of 1st person JRPGs. SMT before Nocturne and the first Persona have been mentioned.
Keep in mind there are a bunch of Rogue type games in Japan too. The Dark Spire and Class of Heroes are both 1st person JRPGs in that vein released last year in Japan and this year here.
JT, regarding Persona. The dungeons were first person, but the combat was third person. Walking around shops and classrooms were also 3rd person. It's not like the old might and magic games where you only saw your party in your imagination. Are the other Shin Megami Tensei games more like old western rpgs?
I like first person games. For shooters it ensures there's no stupid cover mechanism. I don't like it for platformers. I loved mirror's edge, but it's sometimes difficult to get a bearing on where your feet are. And platformers tend to shy away from the kind of needless perfection needed from a Mega Man game because they know that first person platforming isn't great.
But I appreciate most the idea of seeing events through your own eyes. It's more immersive and less cinematic. Bioshock, Fallout, Call of Duty all have cutscenes which suck you in better than the beautifully rendered ones of Final Fantasy
The characterization of JRPGs being 3rd person and Western RPGs being first person seems weird. True, first-person JRPGs are more rare now, but first-person dungeon crawling really established the JRPG, and continues today in throwbacks like Etrian Odyssey, The Dark Spire, Baroque, etc. As to a large majority of Western RPGs being in first person... huh? The Elder Scrolls series and Fallout 3 are pretty much the only western first-person RPGs I can think of. Bioware? Obsidian? The classic Interplay stuff? All 3rd person.
I agree with Brandon that first-person is no instant shortcut to immersion. But I doubt that first-person games became more popular because they're "easier" to make. Any design decision has hidden costs, and putting a game in first person is no more a case of "well just stick a camera on the player's face!" than third person might be "well just stick a camera over his shoulder!"
In the end though I generally prefer third-person. I like to see my character, and I can project myself more easily onto his/her movements onscreen than the abstraction of first-person. It all depends though.
Check out Wizardry. It's completely in first person and a JRPG (and not a bad game to boot!)
I guess as far as personal preference, I don't really have one, but looking at my gamercard, one might notice that I do play more 1st than 3rd. As long as a game is solid, though, point of view doesn't affect me. It's all about the narrative for me anyway.
I think one thing everyone is missing on is that with 3rd person view, you're able to do a lot more. What I mean by that is that you're able to do things like cover much more easier, or throw grenade easier. It looks far cooler to do a cover in Gears of War than doing it in Killzone2 or Wolfenstein. And it really does give you an awesome feel of being in a battle-field and also the fact you're able to scope your enemies way better.
Also the other element is that, when you look into games like Mass Effect where you've squads of 3, its easier to get a feeling of group with a third person view and also much more easier to issue orders to your A.I squad mates.
I think both are awesome perspectives, but I feel maybe 3rd person view gives dev teams little more creative freedom with what to do...
I would argue that JRPGs and WRPGs have a small but significant difference which may relate to their perspective choices. JRPGs tend to be much more cinematic, with the player experiencing the story the designers crafted for them. Meanwhile, WRPGs tend to be more open, with the player being put in a world and weaving their own story inside it.
Of course, these are very wide generalizations, but that underlying difference may point to why they often use those perspectives. In third person, it's easier to dictate a story of what you and everyone around you does -- especially if you use occasionally detached third person perspective, seeing other characters' lives in cutscenes or the like.
In first person, the player has a closer look at the world they're inhabiting, and it's easier for the player to imagine what they're doing and how they're reacting in a given situation. This is especially true if the player never loses control over their avatar (other than situations where the character itself loses control, as in Bioshock).
As Mark said above, Batman has some very interesting times when it shifts from third- to first-person, and it was a curious experience to see how my own feelings changed with it. Third person works very well for the stealth, acrobatics and combat in most of the game - situations that require precise knowledge of your character's position and the surrounding environs. But when looking for details in the world, as for answers to the Riddler's puzzles, I often found myself zooming into first person to better examine the world in detail.
What's more, there's a part before the end where you're forced into first person for a tense scene with the Joker, and I found myself significantly more hesitant and nervous because everything seemed so much closer and personal when I wasn't so removed from it all.
I definitely it depends on the game. I find that in games where you have a well-defined character, third-person works best. That includes JRPGs, and a lot of action games.
For those other times (like WRPGs, where you generally define the character to a greater degree), first person often works better.
First person also works better in a lot of games where there is almost no opportunity for characterization. Even setting gameplay aside, none of the Shock games would have felt the same in third-person. I think the sense of isolation would have been broken if you could always see yourself.
I always feel more immersed in a 3rd-person game; I think a lot of it has to do with the little things in life we take for granted.
For example, in real life if I'm running towards a ledge so I can jump off it, my eyes can make split-second twitch movements to look around while I'm doing so, giving me a better understanding of my position as I approach the edge than I do in a first-person game, which attempts to give me my "real life" viewpoint but in general strips me of a great many of my abilities.
When I see my avatar on-screen, with the camera back a bit, I'm able to check these things myself. Granted, it's not the exact way I do it in real life because my viewpoint isn't from the character's perspective, but at the very least I'm able to easily get the information that I am used to easily getting in real life, which keeps me immersed.
Additionally, I just like seeing my character. Nothing says "I'm Batman" like constantly being reminded of it by seeing myself as Batman.
Another comparisson: in Fallout 3, where you design your own character and even get to make choices to make your experience unique, I don't really feel like my own character; rather, I feel like "the Fallout guy". But in Saint's Row 2, where I was able to make a character that resembled me and play from a 3rd-person perspective, I constantly felt like I was there in the action, because I literally saw myself there running away from the cops.
Perhaps this doesn't have anything to do with it, but there might be something internal that causes this preference; I have, for as long as I can remember, mostly dreamed in 3rd-person, so perhaps that also flavors my experience.
Using Mirror's Edge as an example, it was a game that probably should have been 3rd person. I thought that the first person perspective made it feel clunky and robotic and did not convey the momentum that they yammered on about. That was a game that might have have been less memorable and less immersive as a 3rd person, but it would have looked and controlled like a very good platformer. Not to mention that the game world, being linear and mostly inside corridors and hallways, removes the immersion.
The 1st person perspective has always made me dizzy...
...and I get lost in it all the time.
Also, it takes me forever to spot an enemy or aim at something in a FPS...
I'm just not made for the 1st person. I need peripheral vision, and the 3rd person perspective allows me to know what's around my character thus making up for the constrained field of vision.
Also, I just noticed a while ago that I don't use my eyes that much for walking around and I rely more on my ears and sense touch. That's also why I stomp a lot, I don't lift my legs too much so I can keep feeling the floor. Weird thing is I can't stand the Rumble feature, it pulls me out of the experience in a rather violent way since I'n immersed in a "Visual" way : P
I actually think like soem thers people should look more at the FP side then the S side. I mean most First Person Games are shooters. But theres so much more that can be done with them, you can do stealth like Thief, you can do platforming like Mirrors Edge. And theres probably many other things you can do with first person that just isn't because everyone think automatialy that they have to put a gun in your view if you do a first person game.
the diffirence in 3rd person camera controls in games? In western games the camera controls allow you to look around at where you're going (up makes you look up, left makes you look left, etc.). In japanese games third person camera controls rotate the camera around the character (up to look at the character from above, left to look at the character from the left, etc.)
The division may seem on the surface to be preference towards third or third person, but underneath the actual reason is a very diffirent idea about what the purpose of the 3d camera is for.
"JT, regarding Persona. The dungeons were first person, but the combat was third person. Walking around shops and classrooms were also 3rd person. It's not like the old might and magic games where you only saw your party in your imagination. Are the other Shin Megami Tensei games more like old western rpgs?"
The first Persona is a lot like many of the later Gold Box games with less movement in battle. The first 2 SMT games were 1st person all the way.
For example:
http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Shin%20Megami%20Tensei%201/Update%2036/Shin_Megami_Tensei_J_V1.0_T_Eng1.00_AGTP_0132de.png
I can't remember, was the first Dragon Quest first person? I know the set up for DQ borrows heavily from first person.
As to perspective, I agree that first person tends to make the character less important. Myst used it for a reason since you really don't matter as such.
When it comes to RPGs, I generally prefer the third-person view because I like being able to see my character and all the gear they're wearing or their hip character designs.
That said, I do think first-person view games can definitely be very immersive. Try for example, an H-game. Since H-games are almost always narrated in the first-person, the game practically forces the player to connect to the character, no matter how unlikeable or disagreeable, simply because the player can read every single word that character is thinking.
Or take, for example, games like The Experiment which takes place as if the player controls a set of surveillance cameras, via his own PC. The sense of immersion is quite strong there.s
I think the two perspectives have their places in certain kinds of games. Each one has an advantage that yields itself to certain genres.
Even if the first person perspective isn't always the more immersive one, it's still a very easy way to establish a "normal" and understandable view 3D view. Every third person game has had to figure out how it wants to cast what's going on.
Some people like third person perspectives that zoom way out in games like God of War or various JRPGs because it gives those people a certain sense of scale. Part of what makes the Yakuza games look good is how they draw out and show your character among a sea of people in what looks like a real crowded city.
For me the opposite is true. For me to feel immersed in something like a city, I need to either be in first person or at least have a camera that's at the sale level as my character. A good example is Final Fantasy XII which shifts the camera in the dense streets with your character when you're in a town, but zooms back out when you're in the field.
Another deciding factor is the kind of character focus the developers want to drive. If the designers are giving a character their own voice and personality, then the game is probably going to be in third person so you can see who that character is. Games that let you create your own character or at least try to make it seem as if you, not some fictional character, are in the games pace will most likely be in first person.
When it comes to functionality in games, I think first person and third person depends on what the player has to deal with.
In most first person shooters your enemy is right in front of you. In more open FPSs you're given an arrow pointing to where you're being shot from.
More strategy-focused shooters like Gears of War, GRAW, and Mass Effect have you dealing with enemies over a wider field from many directions. In those games you need to see around your character in order to keep up with all that's going on.
I think the one oddity here is Mirrior's Edge, and I wouldn't want to see that game made any other way. I think it's its own unique creation with its own objective and a very unusual inspiration behind it.
The idea for Mirror's Edge came when the guys at DICE saw people on Battlefield servers figuring out useful ways to jump around and utilize their environments. Those players were basically doing in that virtual world what practitioners of prakour do in the real world. So, DICE decided to make a game where you travel by seeing the entire world in a different light.
Out of that came a sort of more realistic way of platforming. It's kind of like what SKATE did compared to Tony Hawk. DICE could have made Mirror's Edge third person and gave it controls as simple as Prince of Persia, but then it would've been just another superficial platformer where all you do is run away.
Put that focus on running away into a paradigm where most people are used to confronting things though, and you have an experience turned on its head.
Also, as has been said, most really oldschool JRPGs are at least partly in first person. You have to remember that the oldest JRPGs like the original Phantasy Star take directly after western RPGs - many of which are in first person. It was only later that JRPGs started to go their own way, but you still see throwbacks like the Shin Megami Tensei games and Etrian Odyssey.
It really does depend, not merely on the game, but on the medium. I feel far more comfortable playing third person games on a console than on the PC or instance, and vice versa for first person.
Third person action titles especially belong on the console for me.
I used to prefer video games in Third Person. I despised First Person video games, just for the simple fact that I sucked at them. I guess that's because I did not have a wider view of my surroundings like I would in third person. But games like Condemned, Mirrors Edge and Killzone made me appreciate First Person video games. Especially in Condemned: Bloodshot. It's much scarier and more immersible when playing a creepy game like in a First Person camera view. To not know what may be approaching you from behind or what's around that corner, is a much more better experience. At least for that particular game.
I think mirror's edge would have worked better in 3rd person. With a game that's so much about movement and using your body, I think seeing the body you're using is more visceral. Motion blur and rolling the camera doesn't fool me into thinking I'm doing anything awesome. I think of Assasins creed when I think of great fluid movement portrayed in a game.
I loved Mirror's Edge and how the camera rolled...
...that didn't stop me from failing again and again for over half an hour until I memorized everything and finally was able to pass the level... of the demo.
My friends where quite amused with my skills.
"The first-person perspective has come to prominence over the years as the shooter genre has fully come into its own on consoles"
Wait... what?
How can you say that the FPS or "shooter" as you would have it, genre has come into it's own on consoles?
The birthplace, home and high point of FPS will always be the PC.
"Thereby spoiling some things".
Great, I'm working slowly through Bioshock now. Clearly spoilers :(
FPS as a genre seems to be popular in west and the growth of video games with first person view have grown since the western part of the world have shaped up their act when it comes to video games.
Don't worry, Nathan, they're really not spoilers. I had Bioshock spoiled for me, and I can tell you right now that that isn't really isn't much of a spoiler.
I'm still of the opinion that first-person games on a console are sacrilege, and am absolutely horrified that there is now a generation of gamers that wouldn't play FPS games any other way.
There is a large, large swath of western RPGs that do not use first person, nor anything even remotely like it. Rogue, Baldur's Gate, Anachronox (itself a JRPG homage), Dungeon Siege, The Witcher, Mass Effect... in fact a search for the "3rd person" tag in Mobygames in conjunction with "RPG" tag yields 500 more results than the "1st person" tag (though the results include JRPGs).
In any case, I do not think first-person is suited for most average RPGs. Swordplay and sorcery in an FPS is almost always dull and boring. Click to swipe your sword or cast your spell... you never get to see your character doing badass things because those are usually going on around you or in the periphery of your view.
In any case, being that the majority of RPGs don't seem to want to leave (that disgusting, cliched, trite... ;-) fantasy setting, I don't think first person suits them very well. When the RPG fits into a setting more appropriate for the FPS perspective's mantle -- modern settings or sci-fi or something where ranged combat is more substancial -- I think it can do the genre some good.
But, it honestly looks like both perspectives and strong historical roots to western game development.
Seems a bit strange to say Western RPGs tend to be first-person. Bethesda games are pretty much it, and they have a third-person option. The Infinity engine games, Bioware/Obsidian games, Western MMOs, the Witcher, the Gothic series, and the Diablo series plus its many clones are all third-person.
Hehe, beaten to it.
There's some interesting experimental research done by visual communication scholars (studying film/tv/ads) that indicates that being able to see a character's facial expressions on screen can be comparably powerful in encouraging identification as seeing from a character's point of view.
I get the sense that developers who assume that first person is "more immersive," however, are kind of just going on a hunch. That's a bummer for me, both as a media researcher and as a gamer (who prefers having some added peripheral vision and the ability to dress up his vault dwellers in funny clothes).
A lot of old WRPGs were first person. Bard's Tale, the Gold Box games, Might & Magic, Wizardry (someone called Wizardry a JRPG?? Craziness), Dragon Wars, lots of 'em. There were lots of exceptions, like Ultima and Wasteland, but I think people got in the habit of thinking WRPG = first-person.
Interestingly, there is also such a thing as a 2nd person game:
http://www.laboralcentrodearte.org/gameworld/pagina_064.html
I play and enjoy Killzone 2. but I've realised things about the game like I have no legs. I'll leave foot prints but never see my foot and then the hands and guns sometimes look like they were photoshopped on top of my screen. They're flat and have no dimension.
This is in stark contrast to Mirror's Edge. I picked up the ME's language of movement without thinking. It had more to do with the camera being set in the head of the character versus in the torso but seeing that the character had real feet and wasn't a floating disembodied pair of hands helped aswell.
Torso cams should be last gen.
As a rule of thumb you put the spoiler warning before the spoiler. Good one Leigh =(
I think that somewhere along the line this got confused:
First-person perspective is a more immersive camera perspective. As in, the 3d-world is around to avatar.
This does not mean that it makes for a more immersive experience. Meaning, that it doesn't necessarily feel like you are more inside
There are two defintions, it's confusing and I'm not doing a very good job of clearing in up.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/immersive
It's hard to use the technical definition without suggesting the subjective one.
Also, 2nd-person shooter mentioned by anon = awesome.
Also, I didn't actually read the article yet.
It's definitely depending on the context and the player role. If the game wants us to play a character, go 1st person. If the game is made for us to control a character, go 3rd.
I have a preference toward third person anything for the sheer fact that I have trouble with motion sickness. If anyone remembers the first person shooter forsaken, that game put me in the bathroom after 5 minutes, so did Mirror's Edge.
I guess that's not so much a preference but a necessity for my stomach.
"EA told me that the reason for all the reflective surfaces in Mirror's Edge is to allow the player to see Faith"
Um, I highly doubt EA told you that, because there are no player reflections in the game. I can think of one that's pre-rendered (in a cut scene), and that's it.
For me, I vastly prefer third person is pretty much all games. I find the limited field of view in first person games to be insurmountably jarring.
I ascribe this preference to my above-average eyesight in real life. I make what I suspect is an unusually high use of my peripheral vision as well. For me, when the field of view is limited, I feel like I'm missing the ability to see enemies and information in an utterly implausible way -- my supposedly competent adventurer/supersoldier/whatever has tunnel vision.
A first person game I'd be interested? One where it is a slightly further circumscribed first person view and the protagonist specifically *is* dealing with tunnel vision.
The tedium in control in a game like Mirror's Edge shows that first person isn't really built for a title like that. Breakdown attempted the same thing and did it slightly better and was still pretty bad. Mirror's Edge is a failed experiment which is a shame but I am sure they'll get it right some day.
For me personally I do not like video games in first person! Usually feel dizzy and I think they are so boring! I prefer those like Viagra Online
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