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The most satisfying architecture in PC gamesOne Off The List
One Off The List
If it’s not baroque, don’t fix it. Little architecture joke for you there, just to kick off a dry topic with a giggle. You see, appreciating architecture is for people in beige cardigans. Folks who subscribe to magazines printed on paper so thick you can still calculate the tree’s age. You know the type I mean. Spectacled couples with non-Ikea coffee tables. Thirty-year-olds. People like you! Here are 11 examples of very satisfying architecture in PC games.
Clockwork mansion -Dishonored 2
Coriolis Space Station -Elite Dangerous
The Pyramids -Assassin’s Creed Origins
What a bunch of magnificent Toblerones.
The Oldest House -Control
Hammer Valley Hydroelectric Dam -Infra
Fort Frolic -BioShock
“I know,” said some disgusting overachiever at Irrational Games one day in 2005, “let’s combine the dense panic of a shopping centre with the psychological pressure of an undersea habitat to make a bona fide implosion of claustrophobia and unease.”
“Uh-huh,” said a sceptical programmer. “And what is the player supposed to do there?”
“They’lltake pictures of corpses.”
Archdragon Peak -Dark Souls 3
Look on my old pots, ye mighty, and despair. Just as Shelley warned against hubris with that nice poem, so too doesDark Souls 3. Here we have a crumbling monastery, built so high in the mountains it may as well be a big church in the sky. It’s lined with cross-legged dragonfolk corpses, adorning the passageways and balconies like stony, reptile Buddhas. Yes, we can plainly see the crusty colonnades and ashen arches of every other ruin in the Souls games, but it’s the final avenue and big shrine at the end that is truly chef-kissable. Look at those minarets, check out that collapsing dome. Phwoar. Only the designers of this monumental series could make something so noble, so grand, so unique, so…
Shit, it’s just the Hagia Sophia isn’t it?
The Hanging City -Outer Wilds
[Crosses legs, lights pipe]
In Italo Calvino’sInvisible Cities, a tired Marco Polo resides in the court of Kublai Khan, telling his master endless accounts of fabulous, distant cities. Then you realise - hey!
[Throws pipe across the room in a fury]
He’s making this shit up! A city in the trees? A suburb built on strings? Another settlement atop some vague environmental problem? These areall Venice, god damn you Marco Polo.
Ahem. The Hanging City from sci-fi exploration gameOuter Wildsis the city Calvino forgot. A ruined civilisation built on the underside of a planet’s surface, dangling mischievously over a black hole, like some touristless Grand Canal of space. You have 22 minutes until it’s dust. Good luck.
The Finch House -What Remains Of Edith Finch
It’s the elaborate family home you always wanted.
The Old Baker House -Resident Evil VII
It’s the elaborate family home you deserve.
One Off The List from… the most dodgy religions in games
Last week, we listedthe 9 dodgiest religions in PC games. But one of these was deserving of your forgiveness. It’s…the bird cult from Slay The Spire.
None of the enormously questionable religions we listed last week seemed to get any support at all. Odd that. But we did at least get one threatening remark, from avian enthusiast “Ocean”, who said: “Ca-caw! Brendie takes the crow cult off the list, or… we stab him with the dagger! Murder! Murder! Ca-caw!” Who am I to test this pious stabber’s resolve? It is very admirable.
Anyway, that’s all for now. See you next week, with any luck.
