This emotional relationship with the elements provides convenient thematic shorthand for authors, filmmakers, and game developers. Here’s how games use weather to heighten drama or affect gameplay.
It was a dark and stormy night in Hyrule…
Both in fictional drama and the real world, human emotions feel inextricably linked to the weather. There’s nothing happier than a sunny day or as foreboding as an impending thunderstorm. And it’s a complex relationship: While some people dread the gloom of an overcast day, others view it as a source of tranquil peace.
This emotional relationship with the elements provides convenient thematic shorthand for authors and filmmakers who use it to for various purposes: to control the flow of the action (as a deus ex machina), to quickly characterize an environment, to emphasize the feelings of a character, or perhaps to heighten the drama of a scene.
Not surprisingly, this storytelling practice has also made its way into video and computer games. That’s what I’d like to examine today. We’ll survey weather as dramatic emphasis, an environmental modifier, and as a gameplay element in titles from classic video and computer games.
I really enjoy a good thunderstorm—as long as I’m safely inside a warm, dry place —and this real-life rainy day for me is as good a time as any to examine this subject. It’s a good excuse to play video games.
Special thanks to MobyGames for capturing many of these screenshots.
