Contributor
Rob is a gamer and writer qualified in landscape design as keen on the virtual landscapes of games as much as the physical ones of the real world.
Featured articles
FeatureVideo games and the life of summer
Starring Witcher 3, Firewatch and Dishonored 2.
FeatureVideo games and the power of winter
Very cool.
FeatureThe close quarters of Dead Space, Metro, The Last of Us and Oblivion
Uncomfortably brilliant.
A deep dive on BioShock's underwater city to celebrate its 10-year anniversary.
It's now 10 years since we first plunged deep into the Atlantic Ocean and were beguiled by BioShock and the submarine city of Rapture, one of the finest environments in games.
Whether you're traversing an expansive open world, climbing crumbling ruins or sneaking between shadowy city corners, the landscapes and environments we see in games have never been better. Gone are the days of miracle-growing trees popping up at certain draw distances. Instead, we have places and environments deliberately and carefully designed, and landscapes so realistic we can relate to them, be astonished by them, even yearn for them. Naturally, ever-improving graphical capabilities have a lot to do with this, because as environments get more realistic, we increasingly experience them as 'real', but there can be, and often is, so much more to it than just the technical ability to crank up the aesthetics.
