The Interface: Immersion vs. Information
Think about the last time you were completely absorbed in a tense, atmospheric game, only to have a giant, glowing tutorial menu pop up and completely ruin the mood. The user interface is the literal lens through which the player sees the game. As highlighted by the Game Maker’s Toolkit, traditional overlays can break immersion, making it vital to minimize menus and utilize diegetic interfaces that exist within the game world.1 A prime example of this is the health bar placed directly on the character’s back in Dead Space.
To truly master this, we have to look at where these concepts originated. In their foundational 2009 thesis at Chalmers University, Fagerholt and Lorentzon established that UI should not be an afterthought, but a core component of worldbuilding that physically roots the player in the environment.2 Lucas provides a definitive breakdown of this concept in Game Developer, categorizing UI into specific types like diegetic, spatial, and meta.3 This gives designers precise terminology for analyzing interface design.
However, Lucas also acknowledges that diegetic UI can sometimes hurt usability, such as forcing a player to read a tiny map in the dark, which forces a trade-off between realism and function.3 This is the exact trap many junior designers fall into. In the pursuit of pure, cinematic immersion, they accidentally make their games frustrating to actually play. Realism should never come at the cost of basic accessibility. The ultimate goal is not necessarily to eliminate all UI, but to design a system that seamlessly feeds the player necessary information without constantly reminding them they are holding a plastic controller.
Footnotes
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Game Maker’s Toolkit. The Secret of Immersive Game HUDs. YouTube. Link ↩
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Fagerholt, E., & Lorentzon, M. (2009). Beyond the HUD: User Interfaces for Increased Player Immersion in FPS Games. Chalmers University of Technology.Link ↩
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Lucas, F. (2018). Diegesis and Designing for Immersion. Game Developer. Link ↩ ↩2