Putting doors in video games is a nightmare, say developers

Putting doors in video games is a nightmare, say developers

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It seems very difficult to put something as simple as doors into a video game, even for large studios like Naughty Dog. A conversation on Twitter about doors began when Stephan Hövelbrinks, the developer of Death Trash, started. tweeted the following on the implementation of doors in games:

To sum up: doors push players into small areas, block their paths, but unlike walls have many other potential problems, such as being locked or unlocked, being destroyed (and therefore no longer being there), and more. And to be clear, Hövelbrinks specifically talks about doors that can open and close and players can walk through without loading into a new area, rather than doors that are static or serve as portals.

Boss Fight design director and former BioWare Austin designer Damion Schubert also weighed, which describes in more detail what these issues may involve: NPCs, for example, cannot find their way through a space due to the way doors communicate with their paths, or if they try to use the door at the same time as an NPC. or a player. There are also visual problems related to doors slamming or getting stuck by other objects, or related to the animation of a player opening the door.

The Last of Us 2 co-director Kurt Margenau too climbed in to note that Naughty Dog struggled with doors of its own.

“We knew that doors in a sneaky scenario would add some authoritarianism to the space and provide more opportunities to escape situations. [line of sight] and slow down enemies. This was in line with the desire for the player to recover the stealth more frequently.

“But we’re also a game that’s incredibly polished in terms of animation. If a player opens a door, it can not only magically fly open; the character has to reach for the doorknob and push it open. How do you do this while running?

“We played around with various prototypes to allow the player to close the door behind their hand. They were not all great. We tried to hold buttons, all sorts of weird schemes. How can you animate that then? Do not want to play an animation while escaping.

“Long story short: in combat tension, the doors will slowly close automatically. This is the best player, because opening the player door slows you down very little, we don’t even take control away, but they block AI more effectively.”

Margenau further added that Naughty Dog had to create a whole new physics object (the door) that could push players, but it could also push the player – a huge challenge for every studio.

Many other developers had things to say about doors. Remedy game designer Sergey Mohov, for example:

“I do not know exactly how many man-months went into the door system in Control, but more than most capabilities and weapons,” he said.

Other developers have also looked at the problems with doors, including Neil Uchitel, sound leader of the Naughty Dog says the door sound design is also a big challenge, and Josh Sawyer, Director of Obsidian, who said that doors ‘are one of the first things we implement in any of our games.’

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.

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