Movement

A lot of games revolve around combat, but it’s not combat abilities that are the most consistently enjoyable abilities in them. Movement abilities are. It’s a theory that’s become a preoccupation of mine of late, and in every game, I low-key look for evidence to support it. And I think I’ve found some.

Split-Fiction is my latest case study and this platter of co-operative gameplay abounds with movement ideas. By turns it bestows upon you wing suits that hurtle you through the air, jet packs that boost you into the air, jet skis that skim above and duck below the water, and space suits you can nosedive with out of the back of sci-fi drop ships.

Each level imagines a new way for you to move; each level showcases a new way to move. Now, you’re a giant monkey that can climb along vines, or a strange otter that can slip through water at speed; now, you’re a fairy that can piggyback wind currents like jet streams. This game is as obsessed with movement as I seem to be. But that’s all very well for what is essentially a platform game, where movement has always been key. What about games where movement isn’t the primary purpose?

Split Fiction is stacked with cool movement idea variations, including wing suits, jet skis, jet packs, and many more.Watch on YouTube

Let’s take Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 as a recent example. This is a turn-based role-playing game about pitched battles with fantastical enemies. Nevertheless, you aren’t in the world for more than five minutes before the game prompts you to cross a Parisian-inspired rooftop with a grappling hook. Why? It never really says, but here you go, do it. The only reason I can think of is that it’s fun. It’s a logic that seems to spread right through the game.

Or what about an action role-playing game like Diablo 3 or 4, where it doesn’t so much matter how fast you move as how hard you hit, and yet, high-level players do all they can to tear around like pinballs. I’d even go as far as to say movement speed is the most valuable statistic in either game. And while we’re on the topic: what is the function of an ability like Leap in the game, which jumps a Barbarian a short distance, when all computer-controlled enemies come to you? It is to give you a dose of movement exhilaration. See also: Charge in World of Warcraft (I know there are some PvP considerations here).

Split Fiction heroes Mio and Zoe plummet like skydivers without parachutes into a sci-fi scene. So many scenes in the game start directly with movement-based action, actually. | Image credit: Hazelight.

Doom: The Dark Ages is another good example. This iteration of the resurrected first-person shooter series is a slower and more grounded take. The game’s motto is literally “stand and fight” and yet, immediately, the game’s stand-out ability is a shield-charge that shoots you like a living missile across levels to annihilate whatever is in your path. Movement. See also the enticing movement capabilities of Overwatch heroes such as Tracer and Genji and Pharah – characters that can get around in ways others cannot.

Try this. Look at the basics of Split-Fiction’s movement and see how many of these things you recognise from other games: a double-jump, a dash, a wall run, a grappling hook. Have you seen any of those before? I put it to you that whenever there’s a game in which you directly control a character, meaning it has some semblance of real-time action in it, movement is key. (Wait, I’m going to immediately break my hypothesis by suggesting Fly in Baldur’s Gate 3.)

Which is the best ability in Doom: The Dark Ages? The shield charge, hands down.Watch on YouTube

But why – what is it about movement abilities that are so alluring? I believe it’s something to do with breaking the rules. That’s a large part of what we come to games for, after all – to push past the boundaries that limit us in real-life. It might surprise you to learn that I can’t double-jump for real, and that my actual dash isn’t so much a dash as a trip and fall. But it’s not only about bending or breaking the rules of our reality: it’s about bending and breaking the rules of created realities too.

We see this pattern a lot in games: they establish the rules of movement and then start offering you abilities you can break or bend them with. Oh I’ve just described the entire Metroidvania genre. Games get us used to base-level traversal capabilities so we’ll better appreciate the ways we can improve on them later on. Cue the speed buffs. Cue the leaps. Cue the glides. They matter because we know how much time or effort we’re saving by using them. And possibly because we just looked awesome in front of newer players playing the game, if in a shared world.

I like this realisation. It feels nice to me knowing there’s what I believe to be a deeper truth in games than simply enjoying killing things. It’s the exhilaration of super-powers I know I really like – being a blur of movement the eye can barely keep up with. That, to me, is skill. So I will continue testing my theory and I will continue choosing every movement-based ability in games that I can. They are, after all, the best abilities in games.

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