Visual effects as a navigation tool in open-world game environments : Investigating player enjoyment connected to VFX navigation tools

Sammanfattning

The approach of using visual effects (VFX) as navigation has been adopted in several recent video game titles. This research aims to examine what the industry has generated and how it potentially affects the player experience. This study took inspiration from Moura and Bartram’s research on wayfinding tools (2014) and Krukowski et al.’s guidance with global illumination effect (2025) following the three main categories of VFX that have been previously outlined by Yang et al. (2009). By examining how specifically environmental VFX can be used in open-world environments, this study presents two types of VFX navigation - Dynamic and Static. The adopted method for this study was qualitative in nature, including playtesting a prototype and a semi-structured interview after. Thematic analysis was selected for treating the raw data. This paper is aiming to be useful for developers as the results contain potential points of consideration when choosing this tool as for navigating.