The sun is responsible for a lot of your early science lessons. It’s big, it can cook your skin, and if you look at it too long, it’ll blind you. Lot of teachable moments there for a kid.
One of my own lessons happened when I walked out of my local movie theater after an afternoon screening of The Road to El Dorado, or Rugrats in Paris, or whatever other movie I might have been seeing at six. Pushing the door open and stepping out onto the concrete, I noticed that my eyes suddenly hurt. The outside was overwhelmingly bright.
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Though my dad probably explained it correctly, I didn’t understand that my pupils were suddenly contracting in response to bright light. I did understand that when you go outside after being in a dark room, it can take some time for your eyes to adjust to the light. Walking out of my screening ofRenfieldthe other day, I was reminded of this again.
This is a natural part of the way light operates in the world, but it’s rare to see it represented in games. Green Hill Zone or Bob-omb Battlefield look bright, but they don’t feel bright the way a sunny day feels bright. Games have long done a good job capturing the feeling of night.Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlinesis my favorite example of one that nails it. It never feels earlier than ten o' clock, and that’s important. Your character is a vampire, if it doesn’t feel like night, it won’t feel right. But few games capture the look and feel of staggering brightness.
Dead Island 2is one that does. Whenever you walk out of a dimly lit building — and a lot of buildings are dimly lit, given that most don’t have power in the post-apocalypse — the game simulates the way it looks when your eyes are forced to adjust to the light. When you’re inside looking out the open door frames, all you can see is an intense white that makes the objects outside so faded by the contrast that you can’t make them out. I’m sure there’s a more technical way to describe what exactly is going on, but that’s above my paygrade. All I can say is that Dead Island 2 makes me feel like I just walked out of a matinee screening of a Dreamworks movie.
I’ve seen very few games do anything like this, butRed Dead Redemption 2accomplished a similar effect. I have a vivid memory of the first time I took Arthur galloping through the darkness of a train tunnel, stampeding toward the pinprick of light at the end. When I got there, that pinprick was suddenly all-encompassing, blinding my screen for a few seconds as Arthur’s eyes adjusted to the sudden light.
I liked the effect in RDR2, but it’s more fitting in Dead Island 2, given the game’s post-apocalyptic Los Angeles setting. It makes sense that the team at Dambuster Studios would prioritize translating the west coast’s gleaming brightness and intense heat. Like Ari Aster distinguished Midsommar from most horror by setting the vast majority of its events during the day, this sun-bleached aesthetic makes Dead Island 2 feel distinct from most zombie games. Despite the gore and undead hordes, it feels vibrant. Iwantto be outside, even though outside is where the monsters are.
Though Dead Island 2 is intensely detailed, with a mindblowing amount of original assets arranged throughout environments, I can’t help feeling that its use of light is the most significant factor contributing to its sense of place. When I play it, I feel like I’m somewhere bright and hot.
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