Listening To Conversations In Exploration Games

Getting to know characters through chatter.

- Malindy Hetfeld

There’s something eerie about how walking simulators drop you into an otherwise entirely empty landscape, particularly when they aren’t built to look empty. Often it seems as if everyone has simply stepped away and just never returned, making it all the more impactful when you do come across a sign of life—usually in the form of a snippet of conversation. I love it.

I have a lot of love for stories that you uncover by being a bystander to conversations that don’t concern you at all. Getting a glimpse of how characters talk to each other—or even themselves—makes them feel that much more human.

Games focused on exploration and discovery are the best for this, because it’s rare that the conversations you hear or memories you witness ever involve your character. You’re looking in on past events and, unless you listen closely or find corresponding pieces later on that put what you’ve heard or read in context, these instances stand alone as snapshots of someone’s life.

Take