How to guide players without markers

1 The bottom line

Steer players with landmarks, light, sound, layout and in-world clues, and give them more than one way to reach each goal. Guidance that feels like their own choice keeps curiosity alive, while heavy markers turn exploring into following.

2 Key takeaways

• Pull players with things they can see and hear, not with icons. Following your own curiosity makes you feel like an explorer.
  • Breath of the Wild's towers only fill in the blank map, with no icons for nearby activities, so players spot something on a mountain and go see. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit3:27
  • The music for its stables, the Fang and Bone shop and Kass's accordion can be heard from a distance and leads players to them. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit7:03
• Give every important place more than one way in. Players still arrive, and it feels like a discovery.
  • Hollow Knight's Resting Grounds can be reached from a Crystal Peak chasm, the Deepnest tram, a lift from the City of Tears, or a Crystal Dash to the Blue Lake. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit15:59
  • Two routes to the next required spot double the chance the player finds it. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit9:47
• Make places distinct and easy to remember. Players who can build a mental map rarely feel lost.
  • Metroid Prime has five themed areas, so you could blur a screenshot and still know where you are. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit8:16
  • Symphony of the Night connects almost all main sections to one central horizontal path. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit3:16
• Do not let guidance do the player's thinking. Constant prompts stop players from noticing and remembering the world.
  • Zero Mission's flashing beacon fixes getting lost, but it is hard to feel like an explorer when the path is lit up. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit11:20
  • Prime 3 players used to Aurora's directions stop remembering where locked doors and obstacles are. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit9:03
• Guide softly and give players an obvious way to ignore it. Some players are overwhelmed by freedom, and others hate being led.
  • In The Forgotten City anyone can drop Sentius's lead at any step. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit8:01
  • Hitman 3's early Berlin build marked every target, and first-time players felt swamped. Bjarne Kristiansen, IO Interactive5:46

you are lead through the world, not by icons and waypoints, but by your own curiosity

Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit

2.1 Decide how much to guide

Pick the feeling you want first, then set the amount of guidance to match it.

• Let the feeling you want set how much of the map and the path you reveal. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit3:25
  • Samus Returns flashes a Metroid indicator near bosses, has a very detailed map, and has an Aeion power that reveals the map around you.
  • Naughty Dog usually throws every guidance tool at a level, but dialed them back in the museum opening so players piece the space together themselves. Evan Hill, Naughty Dog6:46
  • Those tools make secrets easy to find, but they reduce the lost, uneasy feeling of Metroid II.
  • Aonuma once thought letting players get lost was a sin, then Breath of the Wild changed his mind. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit10:13
• Design for the first-time player, not only for experts. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit13:37
  • Skilled players can fight Ridley before Kraid in Zero Mission, but that is not what 99% of players experience on a first go.
  • Do not mark every objective at the start. Hitman 3's first Berlin build showed ten marked NPCs on floors above and below, and it felt overwhelming. Bjarne Kristiansen, IO Interactive5:46
  • Making players find and identify targets themselves gave them a manageable first task. Bjarne Kristiansen, IO Interactive5:46
• Offer an optional lead beside the open world. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit6:25
  • Total freedom after the intro can be overwhelming and immobilising.
  • The Forgotten City has Sentius suggest visiting Lucretia at the shrine of Apollo, which starts a chain of leads.
  • Players can do Equitia's task instead, or even tell Galerius to jog on in the first seconds. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit8:01

2.2 Pull the eye and ear toward goals

Landmarks, light, framing, sound and clean visuals can point the way without a single marker.

• Scatter a varied web of landmarks instead of one obvious guide line. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit7:17
  • Breath of the Wild's first plan linked about 15 Sheikah Towers with roads, and playtesters felt stuck on a linear path.
  • Shrines, stables and enemy camps replaced it, so players pick their own route and still drift to key places.
  • Use tall structures as navigational landmarks, like the three towers in the Western Ghats of Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit5:29
  • Hyrule is mostly pyramids and cones, so the eye goes to the peak and the slopes hide what lies behind. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit5:42
  • Testers of the tower and road system complained of being trapped on an invisible but obvious guide rope. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit2:52
• Use light, framing and the camera to draw the eye. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit2:05
  • In a dark area, place a light where you want players to go, because they flock to it like moths to a flame.
  • Frame the route with pillars, walls or negative space, which works like a portal for the eye. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit2:20
  • Give checkpoints and puzzle zones a sphere of influence, and put the camera at the average of the player and the object. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit6:37
  • In Uncharted 3's rooftop chase, light streaming through an open window marks the way.
  • The Last of Us Part II sculpted the T-rex doorway with foliage so the player sees it just as Ellie does. Evan Hill, Naughty Dog7:39
• Use sound as a quiet beacon, or a quiet boundary. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit7:03
  • Let music from points of interest carry across the world, as the stables do in Breath of the Wild.
  • Fade the music out when an area has nothing left to offer. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit8:22
  • LA Noire's soundtrack fades out when you wander outside the crime scene, so you know you will not find more clues. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit8:22
• Keep visuals clean so the route reads at a glance. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit4:57
  • Neon White uses white buildings, green plants that point the way, and obvious staircases and archways.
  • Keep backgrounds low contrast, with a gradient overlay, so they never compete with puzzle elements. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit7:13
  • Ugly's very detailed backgrounds make it hard to tell what matters and what is set dressing. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit7:13

2.3 Make the space easy to read and remember

A world with distinct areas, clear hubs and memorable doors lets players guide themselves.

• Give each area its own identity, but keep its layout legible. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit3:29
  • Metroid Prime splits Tallon IV into grassy, dusty, lava, snowy and toxic regions. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit8:16
  • Hollow Knight gives its 15 zones distinct colours, mechanics and enemies, and matches each zone's colour on the map.
  • Almost every room in Super Metroid looks unique, unlike the samey Zebes of Metroid 1. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit18:48
  • Distinct themes are not enough. Prime 3's Elysia looks similar everywhere, so key locations are hard to remember. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit4:47
• Organise areas around a hub, a central landmark or strong thresholds. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit3:16
  • Connect main sections to one central pathway, as Symphony of the Night does, so players always have a reference point.
  • Use a central landmark and fan out from it, like the big top tent in Banjo-Tooie's Witchyworld. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit10:27
  • Borrow familiar layouts. BioShock's Poseidon Plaza uses massive signs and a shopping mall layout. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit3:12
  • A rule of thumb is never more than three ways in or out of a room, not counting special routes. Dana Nightingale and David Di Giacomo, Game Maker's Toolkit17:57
  • Arkane calls it the door effect: going through a door lets the player forget what is behind and process what is ahead. Dana Nightingale and David Di Giacomo, Game Maker's Toolkit17:57
• Make key places and doors unforgettable. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit8:26
  • A strong, odd image sticks in memory and cues players to return, like the spooky face room off the Lower Brinstar elevator.
  • Make required doors memorable. Dark Souls' Darkroot Garden crest door is hard to forget. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit10:57
  • Ridley's Lair is weaker, because its imposing head sits behind an unremarkable yellow door.
  • The tiny wooden door on the dragon bridge is easy to miss, and an obtuse path sends players to a walkthrough. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit10:57
• Shrink the area the player has to keep in mind. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit4:11
  • Metroid Dread uses ledges you can't climb, gaps you can't slide back through and doors that lock behind you.
  • The explorable area grows with every ability. Super Metroid has 13 rooms to check after missiles, but well over 100 after the power bomb. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit2:37

2.4 Offer routes, not lines

Let players choose their path, and make sure every path ends somewhere that matters.

• Build several routes to key places and back to the main path. Chris McEntee, Moon Studios8:10
  • Ori offers two ways back to the golden path after the burrow is introduced, so all roads lead to the same destination.
  • Hollow Knight's Resting Grounds makes arrival feel like accidentally stumbling on something important. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit15:59
  • In Dread, going left finds a teleporter to the Varia suit, and going right on foot reaches the same room. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit9:47
• Open the level wide after a guided start. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit8:25
  • Hollow Knight opens with a linear run of Vengeful Spirit, Mothwing Cloak and Mantis Claw, then unlocks the map.
  • With many bosses and areas available at once, any direction leads to something important.
  • BioShock's Poseidon Plaza lets you take the three targets in any order, and the compass arrow disappears. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit2:56
  • In Dishonored 2's Clockwork Mansion, what the player notices, such as an elevator, a hole in a grating or an openable window, sets their goal. Dana Nightingale and David Di Giacomo, Game Maker's Toolkit10:44
• Tell the player where to go, but not how to get there. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit7:07
  • On Bryyo, Aurora marks the downed ship, but walking straight to it hits a dead end.
  • Breath of the Wild marks its four dungeons with yellow dots and gives no dotted path. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit6:56
• Make the non-linear options visible, or players will follow the default order. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit6:46
  • ODST puts a waypoint on the compass for the next mission in order, and changing the order means switching waypoints in the map.
  • Breath of the Wild shows all four Divine Beast waypoints on the mini-map, spread across the corners, to encourage any order.

2.5 Put the clues inside the world

Directions, maps and secrets work best when the player has to read the world to use them.

• Give directions through the fiction so navigating becomes gameplay. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit6:55
  • In Deus Ex: Mankind Divided a character says the hacker is at 33 Hlavni, and the player finds building number 33.
  • Hitman 2's Miami leads players to landmarks with signs, floor lines and in-fiction maps, while shortcuts stay secret. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit12:36
  • Chain cryptic hints from place to place. In Zelda 1's fourth dungeon a man says to walk into the waterfall, which holds the hint for dungeon five. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit7:56
  • The Witcher 3 gives rich landmark directions, then shows a dotted line the moment the talk ends, so the dialogue stops mattering. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit1:26
  • If redesign is too expensive, Dishonored's Lady Boyle's Last Party added guest lines about the upper floors, because guards had made players avoid them. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit2:54
  • Let players survey the space before any character offers a solution. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit3:45
• Treat a map as a hint, not a solution. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit3:13
  • A general map that must be found first and needs a screen switch helps you puzzle things out.
  • Do not show everything at once. Skyward Sword's map shows rooms, chests, the boss, locked doors and breakable walls. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit13:03
  • Metroid Prime draws beam doors as colored icons, so finding a nearby matching door is just following an objective marker. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit4:55
  • Hollow Knight's first map is incomplete and doesn't show your location, and it lost some charm once the compass and auto-fill arrived.
• Make players scout the world and fill in their own picture of it. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit7:48
  • Metro Exodus shows only the mission marker, so players climb high and study curious locations through binoculars.
  • Dark Souls has no map screen, so players learn routes and shop locations from memory alone. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit7:07
  • Elden Ring has no question marks, climbable towers or checklists, so players scan the horizon for interesting structures. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit8:43
• Hide secrets with subtle cues, not obscure tricks. Chris McEntee, Moon Studios10:14
  • Ori's secret walls have a small lip that guides the eye, because secrets should make players feel smart.
  • Super Metroid hides the Charge Beam behind two visibly different blocks, which ends the habit of bombing every wall. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit6:03

2.6 Where designers disagree

How much help is right depends on the feeling you want and the player you expect.

• Markers can be too much, but some marking can protect the puzzle.
  • Breath of the Wild marks only its four dungeons and lets players switch the markers off. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit6:56
  • Elden Ring adds golden lines at some sites of grace, for players stressed by open design, and ignoring them is meant to feel like a choice. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit4:02
  • Zero Mission's beacons take away the feeling of being an explorer. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit11:20
  • Prime 3 marks the destination but not the way, which keeps part of the puzzle. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit7:07
• No map gives quiet satisfaction, but stuck players quit the mystery.
  • Dark Souls' memory-only navigation gives a quiet satisfaction. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit7:07
  • But wandering is fun only until the player checks a walkthrough, and then the mystery falls away. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit12:22
  • Mark Brown suggests cryptic clues or purchasable hints as a middle ground. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit12:22
• Is getting lost a flaw or a feature?
  • Aonuma first saw it as a sin, then decided a lost player creates a journey of their own. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit10:13
  • Players who feel lost in open games can be immobilised, so a lead they may ignore serves both groups. Mark Brown, Game Maker's Toolkit6:25