Loneliness in Games

has a game ever made you feel alone

[Music]

there's this moment in Hollow night where you come across one of the few NPCs who has only helped and guided you throughout your journey his name is quarrel and you find him sitting on the

shore of the Blue Lake staring out into the water he tells you that here he finally feels at peace that he's seen all this Kingdom has to

offer and in all its beauty and wonders there's not a thing quite as intriguing as you the player a prompt then appears on your

screen and you sit with him taking in the beauty of honest one last time there's no music and not a sound aside from the quiet movement and soft

drips of the water although you sit here here in the company of a friend a feeling sets in

it's peaceful yet sad the kingdom of honest is vast in every respect there's massive cities magnificent Gardens and

dozens of NPCs that range from helping you to trying to kill you and even though this kingdom is so dense and full

of wonder you never cease to feel lonely [Music] when it comes to games loneliness isn't an emotion you often think of to be

alone is to have no company to have nobody to talk to or share a moment with games by Nature have always been social cooperative and of course

competitive even the earliest games we know of were played among several players in the Persian Gulf there was a game discovered that seems to have been played by the Assyrians more than 5,000

years ago it was called the royal game of ER and was a kind of board game where players would move pieces around the first ever Checkers it's clear that

people have always enjoyed playing games some for competition some for basic entertainment regardless of the reason games are a core component of people's

Pastime but you may be asking what about single player games those aren't social and there's no one to compete with but yourself and you'd

be right when you play a single player game you are indeed alone but just being alone is different from being lonely

loneliness implies a sense of melancholy a somber tone a sadness now obviously there's plenty of single player games that aren't lonely

at all hell there are some multiplayer games that are more lonely than a single player game like God of War or Doom point is just because a game is single

player doesn't make it lonely I mean I'm not going to break down while playing solitire unless solitire really is that tough for you to play hey man I don't know what you're going

through but some games do manage to create that emptiness inside of you a discomfort that Creeps in without warning yes this lonely feeling can be

gloomy but I find that usually when a game makes me feel lonely it's more of a peaceful loneliness than anything else the world feels like it's suddenly

stopped like I've finally found the perfect Escape there's a reason honest feels the way it does why it has such a depressing

atmosphere regardless of its many creatures when you enter the kingdom for the first time it's cold the dark

lighting and somber music make you feel isolated like this place doesn't want you here the first area you come across

is literally called dirt mouth The Fading town it's full of houses but so few people as you venture deeper you

find bugs that look like you but do nothing but try to kill you they seem almost mindless just a husk of someone who came before it becomes clear that

this kingdom was once a beautiful Sanctuary filled with life but things have changed honest is dead

[Music] in the year 79 ad Mount Vesuvius erupted

in southern Italy decimating flourishing cities like herculanum and the now famous Pompei a 10mile cloud of Ash and

toxic gas flooded the skies and quickly spread to nearby cities Ash and volcanic rocks poured down onto Pompei sending

its people into to a horrified frenzy as they had no idea what was happening the gas and burning Ash engulfed Pompei suffocating every last person alive and

burying the whole city in mere minutes few witness accounts exist of the eruption and much of the details we know of are from letters written by plyy the

younger a boy who only 17 at the time survived the disaster along the Bay of Naples the sites he wrote of are

haunting people running in Terror trying to escape their fate some stayed within their homes or underground cellers hoping to wait out the eruption they

would cover their heads with pillows and some even prayed for death and in the end it took them the immense amount of

rock and Ash embedded Pompei into a calcified State and the area was largely forgotten and left abandoned for years when archaeologists discovered the

remains of the city they found the ash had coated buildings objects and even people it hardened around the remains of

their bodies freezing them in time their final moments are as clear to us as is the skies above them all these years [Music]

later post-apocalyptic settings for games is a very common Trope and for good reason it's a setting so drastic ically different compared to our

everyday lives it can bring out that deep dark fear inside all of us the fear of losing

everything these ruined long dead places were once thriving with people just like you and I enjoying life and all its wonders but some kind of world-ending

tragedy took that all away we have a Natural Curiosity to investigate and uncover just just what kind of disaster led to these dead worlds and who exactly

those people were these games utilize that desire allowing you to explore an abandoned decayed World letting you see those empty bedrooms and vacant

streets it's often creepy to see abandoned buildings and ruins like this as they're usually associated with death and tragedy but more than anything I

find that games with dead worlds are Serene peaceful yet lonely all the same breath of the wild is one of those

games that you can just get lost in at the start of the game link wakes up with zero memory of who or where he is it's revealed that you've been asleep for a

hundred years and that there was a massive battle you barely survived Hyrule has been all but destroyed by Ganon scattering its people

and leaving many of its towns in ruin as this is an open world game you can journey across all of Hyrule and see these ruins up close the remnants of a

Time long ago many of these places are barely recognizable with nothing more than a faint shadow of what they used to be who used to live here but some are

more clear to us my favorite abandoned place in breath of the wild is Fort hatano it's a quiet

yet evocative scene dead Guardians scatter an open empty field a large castle-like wall guarding the pathway is just barely

standing these Guardians are calcified Frozen in time during their final [Music] moments it can be assumed that there was

a battle here one that was nearly lost the people of Hyrule appear to have been fleeing from the Guardians hoping to make it to hatano Village for Refuge those that could still fight

chose to make a final stand against The Horde here at the Fortress the various craters and splintered trees were no doubt from the Guardians deadly cannons we can even see

some of these Guardians were stopped as they were scaling the wall these people were saved mere moments from tragedy throughout your Adventure you're

left by yourself more than any other Zelda game prior games had plenty of NPCs and towns to visit each brimming with life and while breath of the wild

has towns as well there are so few and far between Disconnected by these vast arrays of empty Landscapes and demolished buildings 90% of my play time

was spent alone exploring these ruins and this is intentional there's a reason the game has you spend so much time time out in its

environments it's in the name of the game breath of the wild is about its Wilds it's about nature becoming the dominant force in Hyrule each and every

abandoned place is overgrown slowly being taken back by Nature's resolve civilization suggests a disregard for the natural world industry overtaking

the wild these themes are seen constantly throughout fiction the Ancient fangorn Forest and the 's righteous anger towards Saron and his

Army Of Orcs rainor world's harsh environment and various creatures continuing to thrive even through the deadly downpour and of course miyazaki's

princess monoke and its messages of Humanity's greed and desire for expansion indifferent to the life that already resides in the wild princess

monoke is said to be an inspiration for the high rule that we see in breath of the Wild wild and it's very clear the lack of civilization the lack

of people allows these themes of the enduring natural world to thrive but in the wake of these empty Landscapes is a deep

loneliness not only does this overgrown version of Hyrule leave you feeling alone but so too does your lack of memory much of the game is spent uncovering just what happened all those

years ago and learning of those who were lost the friends that you once cherished as you discover different areas your memory begins to restore

itself and the realization of everything you've lost becomes unclouded you were the Lone Survivor that battle at Fort heno was a

tragedy that you weren't able to stop scenes just like this happened all across the kingdom and many left nothing but Rubble in their wake survivors guilt

is something very few people will ever experience and it has to be one of the loneliest feelings imaginable while each of the

relationships and connections you once had have been severed time has continued moving and life has kept growing during your journey you meet new people and

form new bonds the sorrow of seeing these forgotten displaced towns is softened as as new life begins to take hold these Guardians are coated in Moss

the wall covered in Vines new towns are being built and many people these days don't even remember a time before the Calamity breath of the wild is a broken

land still suffering from its wounds even after aund long years but life always finds a way it's a cycle many died during the battle 100 years ago but

there were survivors towns were lost people's livelihoods were taken from them but new life has begun to emerge this is why even though we find

ourselves alone exploring these remnants of a bygone era I find this version of Hyrule to be more beautiful than any that came before it's a world that

suffered a terrible death but with time and the strength of the enduring wild it has restored itself to become even stronger than before and we don't have

to avenge it by ourselves if Hyrule itself is alive then are we really ever alone but these dead worlds don't always

have a happy ending what is it like when a world is on the brink of death that's just barely holding

on Shadow of the Colossus is like a mirror to breath of the wild this world appears to be dead there's not a soul to be found but you and the horse you ride

upon but rather than a world long abandoned slowly being revived this land has been dying for what seems like eons

with the only life left being the titular colosi scattered across this Wasteland they much like in breath of the wild are ruins of a long forgotten

time but still alive still breathing you come here to this far off land in hopes of Reviving a loved one someone who was

taken from you too soon Shadow of the Colossus is a story of grief and the inability to let someone go it's a

representation of how hard it can be to live on without someone you love and the lengths a person might go to keep them

from leaving for the you play as that grief brought him here you're offered a chance to save her soul by defeating each and every

Colossus within this ruined land to save one Soul you're forced to take many these massive creatures of stone and flesh are nothing more than an

obstacle at first but the realization that you are single-handedly putting to rest the only remaining life here makes you rethink your

actions maybe these Titans are more than just monsters from your desire to not be alone you're killing the only company

this land offers you are the reason this world will die when seeing these gargantuan colassi I can't help but think of that feeling

you get when you look out into space or when you look up at an impossibly tall building seeing the scale of something so far beyond you beyond your reach

makes you feel so small so insignificant I wonder what it might actually be like to witness an impossibly huge monster looking down on

me an expanse so vast or a creature so big that you couldn't possibly relate to it connect with it you'd feel so

detached like you can't possibly coexist I mean you could never become friends with a monster

right the colossi are not hostile they only defend themselves when you attack them it makes the act of slaying these

Titans so much more difficult in your own selfishness your drive to rid yourself of loneliness you become blinded to the lives you

take maybe these towering beasts are just as alone as you are their world's now nothing but Rubble in breath of the wild you can

find beauty in Nature's regenerative quality it's tranquil even without any people you can find wild animals and

cororo anywhere you go but the world of shadow of the Colossus is Barren The Remains here have been rotting for far

longer than a mere 100 years it really makes you wonder if it will ever see life again the colossi are enormous and yet

even they seem small when compared to the long stretches of land you travel across these Bridges and structures are so immense that there must have been

thousands upon thousands who lived here but now it's a ghost town each Colossus you defeat becomes a

part of that ghost town just another pile of rock and dust when a world dies its people its life

vanishes all that's left is the lingering sign of a life once lived it's one thing to be entirely isolated with nothing but the Wilds

before you but when you stand stand within the corpse of a once thriving World it feels like you can connect with those who came before you but the

reality is you will never truly feel their presence if that's not lonely what is

[Music] games have the amazing potential to make the player feel and there's a reason for

this they're different from any other medium you aren't simply a spectator looking through a fourth wall but rather you're behind that fourth wall a part of

that world interact ability is something unique to a game the level of control you have over what happens you don't just experience a game from the first

person perspective you are the first person it's this immersion that lets us feel far stronger about a game than something like a book or film there's

many facets of immersion for games it could be creating a deep intricate world that feels like it's been here long before you came along or a narrative

with complex real characters when a game immerses you when you become lost in its atmosphere a feeling Creeps in

for some games it may be intentional for others maybe not but sometimes that feeling can turn from a deep immersion to an otherworldly

isolation in Jedi Fallen order you take on the role of Cal cestus from the outset cow's life doesn't appear particularly lonely working as a

scrapper on the junk Planet Baraka has led to him making a good friend prph who he works very closely with it's not until an accident happens that nearly

causes PR's death that the depths of Cal's fears and loneliness is revealed Cal is a Jedi and he's been in

hiding since the events of Order 66 just 5 years prior Cal lost everything during The Purge his friends his family his way

of life and he blames himself for it the true tragedy of it all is how this isol ation seems to follow Cal everywhere he

goes the Empire is always on the hunt for survivors and when they find you you aren't the only one who will

suffer it feels like it's Cal's Destiny to be isolated never again allowed to be who he is forever an

outcast what makes us connect even more with Cal are the flashbacks throughout the game each time we unlock a new ability it's framed as Cal remembering a part of his

training and so we are flung into the past playing as a Young Cal training with his master his relationship with his master and even the Clones is front

and center just another reminder of what he's lost Cal continues running from the Empire doing anything he can to fight

back but his past his guilt is always when Ling down on him the final of these flashbacks happens on damir but this

time we witness how it all happened how Cal lost everything it begins as any other training sequence using your force

abilities to make it to your Master's position only for things to take a dark turn we will begin with physical

preparation first though we have orders braa is secure we move out for mikito shortly yes you

must ex are you okay something is no what's happening why did the commander just B one something terrible is

happening the clones have betrayed us there are no no answers to your questions not yet we need to get off this ship quickly get to the Escape pods

use the maintenance Halls we trained for this do you remember Yes master what about you I will create a distraction and meet you if I am not

there when you arrive to park without me I will find you on braa do you understand Yes master they're coming I will seal the

blast doors but if any cross your path do not hesitate go and May the force be with you the audience understands exactly

what is happening here but Cal is faced with nothing but confusion and fear they attempt to escape the ship but just before they can get to the Escape pod

jaro toal C's Master is killed trying to protect him cow I over loaded the ship's reactors

the explosion will M your escape this war is not over my pan hold the live wait for the Jedi

Council signal remember trust only in the for yes Mis

scenes of Order 66 just like this one happened all over the Galaxy Cal didn't just lose a master that day he lost everything he knew throughout the story

we see him struggle with that survivor's guilt the pain and utter loneliness that only loss can create from when he first encounters that starf fighter to his

confrontations against the inquisitors after this final flashback C is quite literally confronted with a ghost of his past a kind of force vision

of his master he still believes that his master's blood is on his hands that he could have been stronger that day and

that guilt reaches a Breaking Point yes my blood is on your hands Apprentice you are a failure a weakling

a traitor you are no Jedi no he fractures his lightsaber the only thing his master

left him in Attack of the Clones Obi-Wan tells Anakin Master this weapon is your life maybe it was here that Cal killed

his master not as a little boy too weak and afraid to do anything but as a man so utterly br broken and forlorn that he

doesn't even believe in himself he can't not after everything he's lost when Cal goes to ilum to retrieve a new kyber Crystal and repair his saber a

flicker of Hope returns as he finally stumbles towards the Crystal this is it the answer to his pain a reminder that

the Jedi aren't really gone that his master didn't die in vain and then just as he reaches out and

grabs it it breaks shatters in two right in the palm of his hand that flicker of hope within Cal burns out as he realizes

he's failed his master is now truly dead and he's failed as a Padawan what's the point in struggling

against such insurmountable odds what's the point in fighting when you're all by yourself and it's that very moment that

it Dawns on Cal this whole time through every up and down every chest and stem canister that he hasn't been alone that

failure is not the end it is a necessary part of the path hope will always survive in those

who continue to fight like you Bey one Cal had been so burdened with what he'd lost that he was blind to what he had

gained his new master his new family his newly built lightsaber reflects this a combination of both his master's new and old this is why I love this game so

deeply it asks the question how can someone move on after losing everything the truth is you don't but

that doesn't mean your past has to be a burden in cow's case it becomes a lesson Even in our darkest moments when we feel most alone there's always

someone there for us maybe they've just been sitting on your shoulder this entire time Minecraft isn't usually the first game you'd think of when you hear the

word immersive from its voxel-based Graphics to the near non-existent story Minecraft feels like one of the most gamey games out there and yet anyone

who's played it knows just how haunting playing by yourself can be Minecraft in single player takes the idea of isolation in a more literal sense

without the sounds and laughs playing with friends the game becomes hauntingly quiet every footstep made every block

placed even the tactile sounds of the menus are as clear and memorable as the blocky skies above the only other thing breaking this empty silence are the

wistful piano tunes playing in the background but even they fade out sooner or later leaving you once again alone with your

thoughts it's These Quiet Moments When playing where you begin to feel dreadfully isolated like you're stranded in a Strange Land no one will ever know

of and technically you are when you create a new world you are creating an entirely new site that nobody has ever seen before a world you

have entirely to yourself it's this personal experience that makes a solo world so lonely but there's a darker side to Minecraft

something few players have ever experienced but everyone knows about in a game where you play by yourself

why do you sometimes not feel alone July 9th 2010 lately I've been hearing this

[Music] strange sound while near a cave then footsteps then more what is

it July 13th 2010 so I had just generated my first snow map and was happy I went around looking for a cavey area to set up my

base and I found a bit of exposed Stone I erased two blocks and sure enough there was a pitch dark hole in their place before I took a step however this

creepy cord played it was a sort of drawn out minor chord with string instruments like the sort that foreshadow events in horror movies

I was Frozen with momentary fear and then looked in my inventory there was now a rose in my first slot I sealed up the

cave these posts were made on the Minecraft forum website shortly after the update of version 1.0.3 strange noises were being heard

deep within caves confusing and frightening players but these weren't just normal ambient noises they were unnatural deep guttural Roars of what

sounds like machinery and distant screeching Echoes all of these noises can be heard

while playing in single player all by yourself August 31st 2010 an anonymous user made a post on

forchan documenting his experience while playing I had recently spawned a new world in single player Minecraft everything was normal at first as I began chopping down

trees and crafting a workbench I noticed something move amongst the dense fog I have a very slow computer so I have to play with tiny render distance I thought

it was a cow so I pursued it hoping to grab some hides for armor it wasn't a cow though looking back at me was

another character with the default skin but his eyes were empty I saw no name pop up and I double checked to make sure I wasn't in multiplayer mode he didn't

stay long he looked at me and quickly ran into the fog I pursued out of curiosity but he was gone the only image attached to this

post was of the user looking at a small hill with the faint outline of a figure standing in the fog the old Minecraft versions have become

synonymous with the word creepy the low view distance and fog covering your screen the pitch darkness of the nighttime the vast Barren world and of

course the now Infamous Legend of Herobrine everything about the game was oddly unsettling back then there was no Minecraft live no trailers announcing

new updates many new features were added with without players even knowing it all fed into that fear of the unknown What If there really is someone

here watching me that strange loneliness of a solo world became a good feeling when opposed to this Eerie sense that someone else is here with you you just

don't know where while much of these aspects have lightened over the years that feeling still lingers I've been playing on my

own single player World recently and there have been moments where I swore I saw another player name only to find nothing this strange lonely atmosphere

is present regardless of the version but I don't think it was ever Minecraft's intention to feel so lonely to feel so

isolating Marcus person better known as Notch the creator of Minecraft sold his small indie game passion project to Microsoft back in September of

2014 in doing so it made him a billionaire a $2.5 billion deal since then he's taken to Twitter voicing his feelings his

regrets in the wake of his accomplishments he's never felt more isolated there's a sad irony knowing that in Notch's solitary success

Millions like myself have been able to make friendships and bonds that we still have to the this

[Music] day it makes sense why a single player

game would feel so lonely there's no real people you're interacting with NPCs can present some form of connection in the same way we can relate to a

character in a story but there's no actual socializing going on so on the contrary shouldn't that then mean that a multiplayer game will always guarantee

you that reassurance of company there are plenty of multiplayer games in which you can in one moment be laughing and talking with friends and in

the next find yourself completely alone the only one left complete the mission you're the only one left but this is an intentional part of the game and you

always end up back with other players so what happens when there are no players to come back to what happens when a game

dies the night of April 15th 2010 marked the day the Halo 2 online servers for Xbox Live were shut down ending the nearly 6- year-long life of one of the

biggest and most influential shooters ever made but a few players realized that they hadn't been disconnected from the servers yet even after midnight had

passed they figured as long as they stayed connected they could continue playing these 14 players prolonged the life of Halo 2 for nearly a whole extra

month slowly but surely they began dropping one by one some from power outages some deliberately all until a

final player was left on May 10th 2010 at 4:15 a.m. almost a

month after Microsoft cut support agent Windex was forcefully booted offline leaving Apache enforcer as the Lone

Survivor for just under 22 hours Apache was the only one left keeping Halo 2 alive finally on May 11th at 1:58 a.m.

he was booted offline as well bringing an end to Halo 2 and its multiplayer these Final 14 players have since been named the noble 14 A fitting

title for a truly dedicated group of Gamers when simply asked the question why Apache said this I wanted to play with everybody you

know especially it's not like oh we'll play next week well there is no next [Music] week those final 22 hours must have been

a strange experience to truly be the only player still online in a game is perhaps the loneliest you could be playing a game on

the night Microsoft ended support there were almost 70,000 concurrent players online and just a month later Apache was the only one

left in a game that relies on the interaction between so many players when there's nobody left is it really even a game

anymore it's the sad truth that all multiplayer games have a lifespan sooner or later the servers will be shut down and the game will become lost to time of

course there have been many games that have been revived even after their servers have been shut down or have become unplayable from fan driven projects like plutonium for black Ops 2

or the several Club Penguin remakes to of course the official Revival of Halo 2 with the Master Chief Collection while these newer versions are absolutely

still enjoyable and may even be better than the originals in some ways they just aren't authentic they will never be what the originals were never achieve the same

player base and community that made them so iconic to begin with however some games have met their end without the intervention of of the studio their

servers are still running but nobody is online you can even see them for yourself there are the obvious choices like the old Call of Duty or Battlefront

games where the official servers do still have players but it's a very small amount and it can be near impossible to find an actual match but what about a

game that is truly vacant one where we could experience the same thing Apache did all those years ago there are thousands of games out there

with a player count of zero many of these games are dead simply because of how bad they are or they could just never take off in the way the developers had hoped but I find it to be even more

eerie if it's a game that is typically full of other players Garry's Mod or godmod has been one of the biggest games on PC for

decades and for good reason what originated as just a mod for halflife 2 is now one of the biggest sandbox games full of different game modes and servers

to play on this is important as while the game is still incredibly active even today it has tons of older servers that are completely

empty exploring these empty servers just doesn't feel quite right like there's something missing there's a sort of peacefulness when you play a game like

this like you're living in a world you have all to yourself it's almost almost like what a real dead world would be like similar to that of breath of the wild or Shadow of the Colossus it can

make you feel even more isolated than even a game like Minecraft in Minecraft at least you can still play the game normally when you're alone but here in

Gmod the lack of players means you can't play it's just a deserted world no longer with any purpose just like Halo 2

in its final few hour all you can do is simply exist here in this vacant [Music]

Place seeing these Dead games is disheartening knowing these platforms where so many memories and friendships began are now abandoned makes me wonder

will there be a day where games have become just a thing of the past I hope that this isn't the case and when the time comes that the game's I

grew up with are being shut down I hope that I can keep them alive in the same way Apache and the noble 14 did even if

it means I end up all by myself in a world left completely abandoned after sitting with quirrel for as long or as short as you'd like taking in the

calming Waters you eventually leave the Blue Lake to continue your journey but when fate brings you back to this Lake of Tears quirrel is nowhere to be seen

the only sign of him is his sword stuck in the sand after this quirrel can't be found anywhere else in the entire game his

previous dialogue hinted at his age and how he felt like his time here was at its end it's assumed quirl is now dead with

the only thing left to remember him being his blade it's not often I connect with a game in such a way that it makes me feel

so strongly about it it's a testament to how fantastic some of these games are that they can create such a powerful atmosphere whether being terrified or

feeling immense empathy for a character a game that can make you feel isolated fuel alone is a brilliant way to make an immersive and engaging

game for a while the popularity of singleplayer games was called into question people thought they were a dying breed of games and that the new age of multiplayer games far outweighed

any potential success of them people criticized them saying things like why play a game by myself when I could just play with friends that just sounds

[Music] lonely thankfully single player games have shown to still be some of the biggest games every year maybe that loneliness isn't always

a bad thing it allows for a single solitary focus on the story or World being presented without the loud distraction of other players being alone

can be a peaceful relaxing experience whether the game is meant to be that way or not even multiplayer games have shown to have these calmer

quieter moments that contrast makes those times spent with friends all the more memorable people will constantly look for ways to escape the stress and Chaos

of the real world and sometimes isolating ourselves in a virtual one is the best way to do that I think this can go for any kind of game loneliness

doesn't have to be a depressing somber feeling maybe we can find peace within it and that it can help us appreciate the company of friends and family just a

little bit [Music] more thank you so very much for watching if you enjoyed remember to leave a like and be sure to subscribe to see more of me I recently made a new Discord server

so if you want to be a part of the community and get access to polls and frequent video updates feel free to join link is in the description as always my

name is Ember and I'll see you next time

[Music]