Video games are an escape from daily routine for many players, a chance to take on a different persona and engage with a fantasy world far divorced from what’s possible in reality. But what if the world of video games didn’t have to be its own separate entity? What if the real world wasexactlylike a video game? What would you hope for?
That question definitely depends on the video game world you’d be living in.Gears of War? No, thank you.Stardew Valley? Sounds chill.Grand Theft Auto? That might actually just be the real world for all we know. Regardless of the series, there are certain actions common to most video games that would make real life that much more manageable.
10Double Jump
For Those Hard-To-Reach Places
You shouldn’t question the physics ofdouble jumping in video games, but if you’ve never tried it out in real life… we urge you to keep it that way. Sure, you might be able to wall jump with enough practice, but jumping mid-air post jump? Impossible, and you look ridiculous trying.
How exactly would double jumping change real life? Basketball and volleyball would be fundamentally different sports, for one. Top shelf at the grocery store too high? No problem! No more borrowing ladders from your neighbors, just double-tap X andvoilà,you’re on the roof (wall grab not included).
9Pausing The Game
Just A Moment Please
Everyone needs a break every now and then. Life’snot always so accommodating. Howliberatingwould it feel to be able to pause during a stressful moment, catch your breath, relax your muscles, perhaps take a nap and catch up on some shows, then resume at your own leisure?
Though that begs an existential question: if you’re the one pausing the game (i.e. your life), and you’re presumably in the paused gamestate, do you have the agency to unpause yourself? On second thought, maybe it’s fine that peoplecan’tdo this.
8Save Scumming
Let’s Try That Again
Flunked your mid-terms? Flubbed a line at the latest poetry reading? Took the wrong route to the dumpster and ran into that neighbor who talks just a few minutes too long? No matter, reload from the latest save and try again! Just make sure to save frequently.
Save scumming in real life might let some people get away with some especially heinous acts, but the honest good-doers probably just want to use it to make a few quality-of-life changes. Went into horrendous debt for a Bachelor’s Degree in English? No worries, just find that save file from 2014.
7Skipping Cutscenes
What Could Go Wrong?
Whohasn’tsat through a boardroom meeting at work, wishing they could hold down some button to skip straight through? Sure, you might miss some critical information and the chance to eat the home-baked cookies Debra brought to the meeting, but your sanity will remain intact.
Things get dicey when youskip a cutsceneand find yourself with no context for where you are or what you’re supposed to be doing. You might want to be a little conservative with this one, but simple annoyances like waiting through previews at the movies? Hold X and move along.
6Changing The Difficulty Settings
Story Mode, Please!
You usually select your preferred difficultybeforestarting, but real life defaults to the hardest setting for seemingly no reason. And there’s no adjusting it mid-life either, with non-stopdifficulty spikesafter the first five years or so.
What’s needed is a drop-down menu that sets life to easy difficulty. Maybe the shops sell things at lower prices for a while. Or your mini-map guides you to your next destination in life. Perhaps the bosses at your job are just slightly less aggressive than normal. Justa taste of easy difficultyseems like a reasonable ask.
5New Game Plus
It’ll Be Different This Time
Religious and theological implications aside, New Game plus would be a game-changer. Just imagine being a fleshly-born baby decked out with whatever gear and experience you left the last life with. Perhaps that’s an unfair advantage over the fledgling babies, but they’ll have time to catch up.
If you’ve played a game on NG+, you’re probably aware that enemies tend to get harder in subsequent playthroughs. Being a baby withcompleted skill-treesin human language and bladder control sounds appealing, but is it worthwhile if every obstacle’s nearly twice as difficult as it was the first time through?
4Fast Travel
Enjoy Your Trip
Fast travel: the quickest way to end the real-world energy crisisandmake sure you’re never late to your daughter’s dance recital ever again. Provided you’ve visited the requisite areas at least once and stopped at the appropriate statue, bonfire, or what have you.
“Will you be making it for the holidays this year?” you hear your mother ask. “Be right there,” you respond, taking out your map, clicking Mom’s House, and teleporting across the state in an instant. That probably comes witha loading screen or two; fair compromise for instantaneous travel on a moment’s notice.
3Farming For Money
Not That Kind Of Farming
Some might argue this is already part of the real world, but instead of exploiting a bug or selling random loot for gold, you work a minimum wage job just to be rewarded with taxes and joint pain. Not as appealing.
What if instead you could forage all the mushrooms in your front lawn, sell them to some shopkeep with a need for infinite mushrooms, and buy a shiny suit of armor instead?Or food, you probably need food. Better yet, live in a gaming universe where the characters never eat, and sell the food too.
2Character Creation
Be Who You Want To Be
The depth with which you’re allowed to design characters in some titles is truly astounding. This already exists in the real world to some extent, but not in such a snappy, risk-free form, and certainly not at the start of your ‘playthrough.’
Everyone deserves to be comfortable in their body, so how many people would live a happier life if they could manually adjust their own physical features? That probably means more Ryan Gosling copycats and the occasional blue-skinned purple-haired fellow roaming around, but that’s a small price to guarantee people are satisfied with the skin they’re in.
1Infinite Inventory Space
One For The Hoarders
There’s no denying how useful it would be to carry as many items as you wanted without consequence. Sure you might roll a little slowera laDark Souls, but you’d make that sacrifice if it meant getting all the groceries inside in just one trip.
Imagine how much easier airport travel, hiking, or relocating to a new home would be if you could carry anything and everything on your person. We need whatever bag Link uses inTears of the Kingdom, or the oldPokemonbackpacks that carry entire bicycles in them.
