Food has always played a vital role in video games. From Pac-Man’s bonus fruits to Mario’s magical mushrooms, it has provided everything from sustenance to supernatural abilities – and in games such as Cooking Mama and Overcooked, food preparation became a genre in its own right. Game developers, like the creators of cooking programmes and recipe books, have discovered that well-presented food is irresistible – even when we can’t eat it.
In the modern games industry, where detail and authenticity are paramount, the depiction of food has become an art form. Kaname Fujioka, executive director on Capcom’s fantasy adventure, Monster Hunter: World, says: “We design the ingredients and recipes based around the grade of the food, as well as any seasonal events it may be tied to. Since we’re unable to showcase the most important elements of food (taste and smell), we have to alter, exaggerate or potentially deform the visuals in a way that conveys that as best as possible. In order for players to believe that the visuals look ‘delicious’, a lot of fine-tuning is done on details like the colour, lighting and softness.”
The team expected silhouette, shape and colour to be the most important factors, says Fujioka, but instead, it was the more subtle details that brought the food to life. “We found that what’s important is depicting the sensation of touch and warmth,” he says. “If it’s a meat dish, we designed the right level of bounce and texture to convey how ‘tender’ it is. In addition to that, by adding a bit of glisten to the lighting to portray the fat dripping off, we’re able to showcase the flavour through visuals. We top that off with VFX of flickering oil or steam emanating off the food, which gives the impression of warmth. By adding all these components together, we hope players are able to almost taste and smell the food that is on screen.
“We envision food to not only be a source of sustenance, but one of the pivotal joys in life,” says Fujioka. “I believe there are so many different elements surrounding the idea of eating, from sustenance to enjoyment. We thought it was important to give players a brief moment of respite between [hunting].”
Food can also be a crucial part of world-building. Sophie Mallinson worked as a narrative designer on steampunk adventure Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, and before joining Arkane Studios had studied interactive media with a focus on the role of food in games. She sees food playing an important role: “I can’t imagine building a new world without considering the role of food; it’s almost always the first thing I think about,” she says. “A well-stocked pantry can tell you so much about the agriculture, economy and rituals of a fictional backdrop, in a single glance.
“Food is also a subtle way of telling the audience that this fantasy world is similar to theirs, but not quite the same. Dishonored does a good job of this, using delicacies such as whale meat and rats on a skewer.”
According to Mallinson, understanding real-world food is key to creating the video-game version – not just how it looks and tastes, but the cultures that grow around it. “My research taught me about the fundamental role of food in society, both materially and symbolically,” she says. “Perhaps the most exciting discovery for me was how members of The Sims modding community have reproduced their favourite instant noodle brands, or street food like falafel and koshari, as a way of digitally perpetuating culture and traditions.”
In Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, as in the real world, food is an indicator of class. “When designing food for games at Arkane, we would consider the climate and terrain of each region first,” says Mallinson. “Tyvia is the northernmost island, for example, so winter vegetables like rhubarb might grow there. Serkonos has much warmer temperatures, comparable to Greece or Spain, so they export peaches and figs. When it comes to environmental storytelling, we also put a lot of thought into who lives in each house; that’s why you’ll find eclectic feasts in wealthier homes, but working-class apartments might only have sausages and a bit of stale bread.”
As there are differing cultures and cuisines in real life, there is a huge range when it comes to the presentation of video-game foods. Where Monster Hunter: World is built around the energetic and colourful hunter’s canteen, sci-fi role-playing game The Outer Worlds has cramped, dingy factories and soulless production lines.
As a satirical critique of capitalism, The Outer Worlds uses food as a metaphor for a failing economy. Tim Cain, the game’s co-director, explains: “The colony is failing and has been for decades. Food grown there is less nutritious than Earth-grown food, and each new crop is slightly less nutritious than the one before. The colony’s companies have been hiding this fact by hiring flavour technicians (called “flavorists”) to make the food tasty and to encourage people to eat more of it, encouraging over-consumption. We reinforced this notion by having the player travel through many different towns where people talk about food and food problems, and the player visits several food production facilities.”
In The Outer Worlds, food is laced into the storytelling, leading up to the reveal of the nutritionally bankrupt crops. “Every food-related story was pointing the player to the big reveal about the poor food quality,” says Cain. “Even in the starting area, Emerald Vale, the player learns that saltuna hauls are smaller because there are fewer and smaller fish, that the factory is adding lichen and mushrooms to the canned fish to make up for the lack of meat, and that some locals are growing food using human corpses as fertiliser, because it results in bigger and better crops.”
The game’s characters do their best with what they’re given, though. One Outer Worlds storyline revolves around a character preparing a meal for her girlfriend. “In this instance, food is a vehicle Parvati uses to convey care for Junlei,” says Kate Dollarhyde, narrative designer. “Life in Halcyon is hard and miserable, and simple pleasures – like a home-cooked meal made by someone who loves you – are few and far between. I wouldn’t say that food is necessarily important to Parvati personally, but demonstrating love through attention, memory and gift-giving certainly is. Ultimately, she wants bring joy to the people she loves, and in this instance, food is the best way she knows how.”
Food and food preparation have become a central component in many other modern roleplaying adventures. Nintendo’s Pokémon: Sword and Shield and Zelda: Breath of the Wild both have in-depth cooking, letting you experiment with ingredients and flavours to inject your personality into the dish, while Persona 5 (largely set in a cafe) and Final Fantasy XV (revolving around a road trip where one of the central characters is a chef) both intertwine their narrative, aesthetics and character development with the essence of food. “[The meals in Final Fantasy XV] look like comfort food. They are meant to evoke some kind of memory of eating these dishes or having them prepared for you,” says one developer. In this way, games exploit the nostalgic feeling that basic but wholesome dishes conjure.
Maybe one day in the distant future, we’ll be able to 3D print the food from video games in real life, from megabyte to mega bite. In the meantime, video game designers take the creation of food as seriously as chefs, using it to add depth not to flavours, but to stories.
