Since the first video games, debate has raged about the medium and its place in the cultural zeitgeist. Are video games art? Are they purely entertainment? What really is art, after all?
It’s worth saying: art can be (almost) anything. It’s a medium that moves you. It’s created by anyone with a view to entertain, to challenge, to deliver knowledge, or to connect.
There are certain established factors that go into what ‘makes’ art. It’s typically a creative medium, with works created by humans, for an intended purpose. But with such vagueness around its nature, it leaves the door open for many things to be considered artful.
In the world of video games, it’s hard to deny that many games – if not all games – are, indeed, art. Many are human-created works that evoke feelings through immersion, that tell stories that connect to the heart. They can teach more about the world and its nature. They can teach about culture, emotion and individual experiences.
If you’re a critic of the ‘games as art‘ movement, there are plenty with great depth that might just change your mind. In these eight video games, you can see exactly how art can be delivered through such a wonderful and diverse medium.
Are video games art? – quick links
Fishbowl | Are video games art?
Fishbowl by imissmyfriends.studio is an ambitious narrative adventure game that centres itself on the shared feelings of isolation many experienced during the Covid pandemic and beyond. It’s artful on many levels, from its minimalist and surreal dream levels, which depict childhood memories, to its repetition of ‘daily life’ gameplay.
ScreenHub: Fishbowl review: a raw exploration of life through the looking glass
This is a game that tells an emotive story, that leans heavily into the trauma of memories. For those who experienced the pandemic alone, it evokes such a strong sense of understanding, in a way that helps others contextualise their own suffering.
Each day in Fishbowl, you wake up to go through a repetition of tasks, with only small breaks to colour the monotony. Through the screen, the game puts a hand out and says: ‘It’s okay. We were all going through it.’
The best art makes us feel less alone, and Fishbowl does exactly that.
Night in the Woods | Are video games art?
Night in the Woods by Infinite Fall is the sort of game that any lost young adult should play. It follows Mae, a zoomorphic college dropout (portrayed as a cute cat) who returns to her hometown of Possum Springs. Feeling alone in the world, she questions her place, her relationships and her future, with college now out of reach.
Possum Springs holds no promise, and Mae feels she’s at a dead end, with no job prospects, and alienated in town by her initial decision to leave. Through the course of the game, Mae reconnects with her old friends, learns more about what life means, and comes to terms with the idea that while life isn’t always what you want, perhaps you can still grow in ways you didn’t expect.
Night in the Woods presents a tale that snips at your heart strings. For those in a similar position to Mae, it’s transformative and affirmative. It forces questions about what life really means, and where purpose and meaning can be derived.
Wayward Strand | Are video games art?
Wayward Strand is an Australian-made narrative adventure game that follows a young girl who spends time at an airborne hospital interacting with its elderly residents, and learning about their lives in conversation. It’s slow moving and very sweet, with protagonist Casey serving as our doorway into each character, and the richness of their lives.
It underscores what’s most important about life, and makes a particular case about lending time to older folks. They all have important stories to share. This game explores the harm of infantilising or ignoring older people, while also sharing stories that highlight how all humans may connect through stories.
Wayward Strand is beautiful to look at, with its story book art style. But it’s also such a moving and generous adventure that reveals the beauty and vastness of the human spirit. We should never underestimate anyone, or believe their stories aren’t worth telling. This is the message that Wayward Strand brings.
Death Stranding | Are video games art?
Death Stranding is a different sort of artful game, but one that represents such a clear artistic vision and makes such a powerful case for games as art. With direction led by Hideo Kojima, often hailed as an auteur of modern video games, Death Stranding is a wonderful, surreal experience.
You play as Sam Porter Bridges, a courier who must chart the post-apocalypse delivering various supplies to outposts populated by the last vestiges of humanity. It’s an exploration of environmental issues and the presumed end course of the real world, but it’s also a surrealist journey that imagines an artful fantasy of the future.
In its semi-realistic story, you’re facing off with strange eldritch creatures and other fantasy-like threats, brought to life in terrifying visions – tentacled beasts with dripping limbs and ink-stained forms, and mysterious beings in golden skull masks.
As a visual spectacle, with plenty going on beneath the surface, Death Stranding is an inspiring piece of visual and narrative art.
Venba | Are video games art?
Venba is a moving narrative game that examines the importance of food to culture, while exploring the story of the titular Venba, a mother who immigrates to Canada from South India. Here, food serves as metaphor for connection, as Venba seeks to connect with her son, who is relatively separated from his heritage by the move across continents.
While focused specifically on Indian culture and food, the topics explored in Venba are both personal and universal. In dialogue snippets, Venba reveals much about her family and her roots, and how immigration has influenced her sense of identity. With a focus on food and sharing, these topics are related in a way that all audiences can understand.
So, Venba becomes a relatable, emotionally-charged journey on which players will learn more about the complexity of family, connection to land, and cultural heritage. Art can teach so many wonderful lessons, and Venba is a beautiful example of how.
Mixtape | Are video games art?
Mixtape, another Australian-made game, is on the brink of release. In early previews, it’s already shown off its moving, artistic vibes, which call back to growing up and growing out of your childhood. In this game, you follow a group of teenage friends on their last night together, trying to make the most of their friendship before life and circumstances pull them apart.
Like most coming-of-age stories, this one is about endings, and how to crystallise friendship. The end of your crew is inevitable, but in Mixtape, you begin with an understanding that it’s all about maximising the time left together, using music as a medium to solidify memories and good times.
What marks Mixtape out as being artful, beyond its clever use of music to evoke memory and a certain time, is that it explores the fleeting nature of some friendships, and how growth can sometimes only be achieved by moving on.
It’s a heartening experience that brims with relatable emotions, particularly for anyone who’s ever had to move away or move on from friendships.
Disco Elysium | Are video games art?
Disco Elysium is an incredibly complex game that, like all great art, grapples with deep questions about the nature of existence. On the surface, it’s a mystery adventure starring an inept officer who must overcome his own self-destructive tendencies to figure out who he is, and why he’s been tasked with investigating a murder in the city of Revachol.
What follows is an adventure through a town rendered low by a corrupt political system, where any new discovery is guided by the manifested inner thoughts of the protagonist, and his long-suffering companion, Kim.
Disco Elysium is art in a literal sense. It’s a beautiful and painterly video game where you can explore vivid landscapes that evoke the dirtiness and corruption at the heart of Revachol. Dialogue is equally artful, with each aspect of the protagonist’s mind given its own voice, in an overlapping chorus of character needs and wants.
It also functions as a criticism of political systems, and how they may repress the populace. Good art forces us to ask questions of our reality. Disco Elysium presents a sharp, creatively-minded approach to criticising the inner functions of the modern world.
Kentucky Route Zero | Are video games art?
Kentucky Route Zero will stay with you for a long time, if not forever. Of all the games on this list, it’s the one that most reaches for great art, in the shape of an esoteric road trip adventure. You play as a driver named Conway who must ferry a package across the mysterious Route Zero in Kentucky – a minimalist and relatively blank highway that’s dotted by pockets of strange and marvellous folks.
What begins as a simple delivery quickly becomes a journey of survival through a world of great darkness and oddness. In each location, Conway comes across some new person in need of help or belonging, adopting them into a slowly-growing crew of misfits and adventurers searching for meaning against the backdrop of a great worldly abyss.
Kentucky Route Zero is about the power of connections, and leaning on your friends. It’s about losing yourself to fascinating and discombobulating sights. It’s about experiencing the surreal and finding meaning in the bizarre.
It’s an incredibly artful experience, and one that leaves you feeling lighter and more curious at its end.
