What are the consequences of designing a game’s environment to be beautiful? This question is especially relevant to studies of remakes and re-masters. The choices made while remodeling, retexturing, or redesigning a game’s environment may diverge from the game’s original themes, narrative, and intent. For instance, critics accused Bluepoint of prioritizing graphics over intent in their 2018 remake of Team ICO’s 2005 release, Shadow of the Colossus. Bluepoint’s new level of detail, the extensive addition of fauna and flora, a warmer and livelier environment, and the reduction of fog arguably stray from Team ICO’s design.
This video essay revisits such claims by demonstrating instead how Bluepoint’s direction adapts and reinforces Team ICO’s original game, complementing its themes of player-character dissonance, environmental destruction, and player-versus-character agency. I analyze the game’s environmental storytelling, paratexts, and surrounding participatory culture (Jenkins 2002). I suggest that Bluepoint’s aesthetic direction is beautiful, where beauty implies feelings of fondness and intimacy towards the small and delicate—an experience prioritized by the remake’s highly-detailed environments. Consequently, the beautiful world of Shadow of the Colossus (2018) highlights exploration and ecological immersion as digressive playstyles and emergent forms of storytelling.
is an MA student of Media Studies at Concordia University (Montréal). She is a fan and researcher of video games, film, online content creation, and fandom culture. Marie has been watching YouTube video essays long before they were bestowed a genre label, and is enthusiastic for their potential as research-creation and art. Her thesis focuses on Twitch gaming live-streaming, examining the collaborative dynamic of narrative creation between live-streamer, chat, and game.