Photo Mode is my new gaming obsession

Infinity Nikki and Assassin’s Creed Shadows have become my twin obsessions for their meticulously detailed environments, textures, and weather. With open-world dress-up game Infinity Nikki, I continue to be agog at how clothing textures are rendered with such detail and fidelity that by mere sight, I know exactly what a piece of fabric will feel like. For Assassin’s Creed Shadows, an action-packed romp through feudal Japan, I’m constantly in a state of awe at the natural beauty of the Japanese countryside, a feature that has been widely celebrated since its release. Both games are so visually arresting they made me fall in love with a video game staple that I’ve never really cared about before: photo mode.

Photo mode, which typically pauses the game to give players the ability to take professional grade images of their video games, is a modern gaming feature that’s been around long enough to become a standard inclusion, especially in AAA games. But I’ve never seen their appeal. It’s a video game, not some fleeting life moment. I’m not gonna fondly flip through my PS5 media gallery in five years going, “Aww look at the time Yasuke chopped the arms and head off that guy,” like I’m looking at my grandkids’ baby photos. I definitely appreciate the skill with which others have made the most out of photo modes — like what my friend does with Overwatch — but it was always something I ignored.

I’ve played no shortage of games so interesting their moments demand to be captured and shared but that compulsion is on another level with Infinity Nikki and Assassin’s Creed. So, starting with the dress up game, I opened photo mode, started fiddling around with apertures and vignettes and was genuinely surprised with the results. The photos looked good! The photos weren’t Vogue quality, but they started to resemble the pictures that get upvoted to the moon on the Infinity Nikki subreddit. Even though I don’t really care to post my own photos there, it’s thrilling enough to know I’m developing a talent for something I didn’t know was in me to begin with.

I took that success with Infinity Nikki and translated it to Assassin’s Creed. I’m actually glad the game doesn’t have the feature from the last Assassin’s Creed where your horse automatically follows the road. Without it, I am forced to take in the game’s impressive weather and foliage as I drive ole’ Kikai around rather than looking at my phone after setting him on auto-pilot. That’s how I found my first picture. I was roaming around as Yasuke and I rode by a long road flanked by Japanese maples in full, deep-red autumn foliage. (At least I think they’re Japanese maples. The codex could stand a few more flora and fauna entries, Ubisoft.) The colors were so vibrant and the sound of the wind through the leaves was so invigorating, I felt I had to preserve the moment despite none of it being real. The urge was strong enough that it completely changed my feelings about photo mode altogether.

I saw that entirely fake scenery made of pixels and code and immediately opened up photo mode as though I was capturing real natural phenomena. I placed the camera behind him and zoomed out to see as much foliage as I could fit into the shot, while still keeping Yasuke as the focus of the picture. I then tinkered with the lighting to brighten the leaves and the saturation so their colors would pop. I wanted it to look like a shot Akira Kurosawa could have composed for one of his samurai epics — a kind of thought I’ve never had while taking pictures in real life or in games. This moment completely changed my perspective on video game photography. What once seemed like a cool party trick now felt like a real avenue of creative expression.

Putting the photo modes in Nikki and Shadows through their paces, I’ve discovered game photography is now something I can really, earnestly do, and want to do more of. I hope to get better at it so I can one day take those skills from capturing video games to capturing real life.