The Challenge of Cameras

Cameras in games are a tricky thing to get right, because they can be used for two completely different purposes. On the one hand, the camera should be used to serve the gameplay. So a wide-angle view gives you lots of peripheral vision, while a tightly-zoomed camera lets you make precise adjustments to your aim. A two-dimensional view makes it effortless to judge the distance between two characters in a way that’s tricky in 3D.

A linear game might benefit from an on-rails camera, while a more exploratory game is gonna require a camera that you can control. But on the other hand, the camera can serve more aesthetic purposes.

A really wide-angle shot makes the character feel small and insignificant, while a close-up perspective can make you feel claustrophobic and trapped. A first person perspective is immersive, and makes you feel like you really are the character, while a looming viewpoint makes you feel like a god. Just like in cinema, different perspectives and angles can convey tone, mood, and power dynamics. So a developer might subtly push the camera to make a pleasing image.

In Shadow of the Colossus, the camera nudges over to the side when you’re riding your horse, to have the action follow the rule of thirds - which is a photography trick that says pics look better if the subject is not in the centre of the frame. Or the developer can just hijack the camera entirely to completely direct the action - as seen in the classic Resident Evil games, where the entire game is viewed through static, pre-rendered backdrops that makes it look like you’re peering through various CCTV cameras.

It’s a weird one - and almost entirely driven by the technical limitations of PlayStation One hardware - but it does give the devs complete artistic control of the action. Like, look at at how the lickers are introduced in the original Resident Evil 2. The first camera is placed here, and uses the leading lines of these two walls to draw our eye to the window - where a mysterious creature skitters past. In the next scene, the camera is now from the perspective of whatever was outside the window, making Leon look like delicious prey.

Then a high angle, to make Leon look small and vulnerable. And a scene where Leon must run towards the camera, and then around a blind corridor, meaning the player can’t see whatever threat is in front of them. Then the camera frames a broken window, and a decapitated zombie, again obscuring the player’s view of what’s ahead. And then a shot that perfectly frames this bloody puddle, dripping ceiling tile, and broken window.

I wouldn’t blame you if you ever so slowly tip-toed up to the edge of the screen… That’s just good horror, right there.

The most recent trend, though, has been about pulling the camera in tight behind the character’s back, to create a sense of intimacy. So this year’s remake of Resident Evil 2 ditched that fixed perspective entirely and put the camera directly behind Leon’s head - with the game’s producer saying “we wanted it to be intimately terrifying in nature, to [have] up-close and personal zombie encounters that you can only get, I think, with that kind of camera view”.

So we might lose that awesome Licker introduction - but on the flip side, it does feel more viscerally terrifying when you get jumped by a zombie. The idea is, the closer the camera gets to the character, the more you can relate to them. And I think, to some extent, that is true. In 2013’s Tomb Raider reboot, the jittery, close-up camera does a lot of work in making you connect with Lara’s survivalist struggle. The camera closely frames Lara’s body language, and forces you to stick with her during the most daunting moments of her journey - like a tight squeeze through a flooded chamber, and a vertigo-inducing climb up a radio tower.

The camera even has a dedicated physics system so it can bounce and bump in tandem with Lara’s many scrapes, and the animators make Lara turn her head to the camera at every opportunity, so you can see her terrified expression. All of this helps you connect to the character in a way that a wider angle would not achieve. But, while it might be true that a closer camera is more intimate - what’s undeniable is that the closer you are to the character, the less peripheral vision you have.

Not to mention the fact that your character covers up a big chunk of the screen’s real estate. This is okay for shooters, because being able to aim at faraway targets is more important than what’s directly to the left and right of you. So a behind-the-back camera gives you the benefits of a first-person perspective, but you can also see the character. This is good for better relating to the hero, and also supports things like cover mechanics and traversal.

But what about action games? Yeah. That’s a different story.

So, the original God of War games used a zoomed-out camera to give us a wide view of the entire battlefield. This perfectly fits a combat system with loads of enemies, wide-arcing attacks and area-of-effect magic spells. But Kratos feels distant - more like you’re playing with toys and action figures than embodying a character. God of War on PS4, on the other hand, has a much closer camera which remains pinned to Kratos’s back.

This does create a more intimate relationship with the character, and lets us see the world from his viewpoint. It makes sense for the game’s narrative, which aims to tell a more human story. But, it’s less ideal for combat. You fight lots of enemies at once, and they can sneak up on you from outside your limited perspective. And it’s tricky to judge the distance between Kratos and his enemies when swinging the axe. The camera works well when throwing the axe, because it mimics a third-person shooter - but it struggles during general combat.

And this doesn’t just affect visibility, but the experience of playing the game. Where the older God of War games made me feel powerful and predatorial - the new one often had me playing more cautiously and had me running away from the action - in fear of getting hit in the tuckus. Now, a close-up camera can work for action games. Titles like Hellblade and Dark Souls track the player pretty closely. But those games are about very deliberate movement, more reactionary play, and most often put you up against just one enemy at a time.

For games with lots of enemies, like Devil May Cry, a much wider perspective is preferable so you can see everything that’s happening on screen. I should say, God of War’s developers did a lot of very clever stuff to make the combat work with this new camera. There are these arrow indicators that tell you where off-screen enemies are currently standing, and Atreus is constantly shouting about what’s behind you. Enemies who are off screen are made less aggressive, so you can focus on the ones you can actually see.

Kratos magnetically snaps towards enemies who are just out of reach, to cheat the problems of depth perception. Juggled enemies have a maximum height to stop them going off screen. And the devs added a lock-on button, just like those other action romps, so you don’t have to constantly fiddle with the right analogue stick. There’s a great talk on the GDC Vault, about the literal years of work that went into converting God of War’s combat to better fit the new camera perspective.

But that seems like a lot of effort when there might have been a far more simple answer:

a dynamic camera. Because, cameras can - of course - move during gameplay. Most third-person shooters have the camera zoom in when you aim your weapon, to give you a better view and let you make fine adjustments to your targeting. And other cameras hang back: Spider-Man becomes a tiny weeny critter in the middle of the screen when web-swinging, to give you the best possible view of where you’re going. And the camera holds back a bit in Vanquish when you rocket slide, to increase the sense of speed.

God of War does do this: the camera pops in when you throw the axe, and hangs back when you run - but it’s by tiny amounts. But developers can actually make way more dramatic changes to the camera, depending on what’s currently happening. Look at Batman: Arkham Asylum. When you’re walking down the corridors of Arkham, the camera’s so close up on Batman’s back that you can practically smell his Bat-funk. But when you’re in a fight, the camera pulls back dramatically to give you a much better view of what’s happening.

Here, the camera automatically targets and locks on to the enemy that you’re currently fighting. It can lead to some dramatic, and rather nauseating swinging of the viewpoint, but it’s a good way to frame the action and keep the most important stuff on screen. Bayonetta does something like this too, but actually tries to pull the camera into a side-on view, to make a temporary 2D fighting game viewpoint that frames you and the demon you’re duelling with.

And those aren’t the only cameras in Batman. When you crouch down, the game knows you’re doing some sneaky stealthy action, and so hangs back a bit to give you more peripheral vision of nearby threats. When you get into cover, the game gives you a fixed angle that shows around the corner - and frames Batman really well. And when you’re up on a gargoyle, the field of view is massively widened so you can see the entire room at once.

There’s also a first-person view when you’re crawling around in a vent. And it even goes two dimensional when you’re in certain Scarecrow hallucinations, so you can focus on platforming. And when Batman has been poisoned by Scarecrow’s toxins, the camera tilts into a dutch angle, to show that Batman is off kilter. Rocksteady knows that there’s no one-size-fits-all-approach when it comes to a camera in these complex and multi-faceted 3D games.

And so it doesn’t try to make one: and instead has the camera shift and morph to fit the gameplay needs. And it works: you still feel close and connected to Batman because the camera creeps up behind him for most of the game: but it has the good sense to pull back whenever you need more peripheral vision. And I think God of War could have done something like this too: stick to Kratos’s back when exploring, and pull back to a more generous viewpoint when the enemies appear.

You don’t even need to cut the camera, and so could maintain that mad, ambitious one-continuous-shot thing that the game's developers somehow pulled off.

Now, I wouldn’t want to discourage developers from trying new cameras. If we never shook things up, we wouldn’t have the pulse-pounding action of Resident Evil 4, or the gross-out body horror of Resident Evil 7. And amazing things can be done when devs push the boundaries of what can and can’t be done with certain perspectives. Conventional wisdom would suggest that a first-person platformer is a terrible idea, but Mirror’s Edge works - thanks, in part, to a wider field of view, and responsive full body animations.

And fighting games should always be shown from a side-on perspective, right? Not according to ARMS, which uses long range attacks and the relative distance of incoming fists to help you gauge the distance between you and your opponent. Tony Hawks said the camera in a skating game should follow the skater - but EA found a whole new style by ignoring that, and having the camera follow the board. And games like Firewatch use really expressive animations to convey character - from a first-person perspective - a camera type that usually focuses on mute and personality-free ciphers Ultimately, the camera is a really powerful tool.

But Ithink the most important thing to remember is that while cameras can certainly support aesthetic and cinematic goals, it’s only going to lead to frustration if the actual experience is harmed. Because, ultimately, the camera should fit the gameplay, not the other way around.

Hey, thanks for watching! I’m not going to ask for the best camera you’ve seen in a game, because good cameras make themselves invisible. Instead, I’m going to ask you to name the worst camera you’ve ever experienced. Drop your thoughts in the comments below.