Our collection Inside XR Design examines particular examples of nice XR design. Immediately we’re wanting on the recreation Synapse and exploring the idea of embodiment and what makes it vital to VR video games.
Editor’s Be aware: It’s onerous to consider an entire 12 months has handed since this piece was first revealed, however it’s insights are as related as ever in 2025! We’re bumping it again as much as our entrance web page to proceed the dialogue round embodiment as an important design idea for compelling VR content material.
Yow will discover the entire video under, or proceed studying for an tailored textual content model.
Defining Embodiment
Welcome again to a different episode of Inside XR design. Immediately I’m going to speak about Synapse (2023), a PSVR 2 unique recreation from developer nDreams. However particularly we’re gonna to have a look at the sport by way of the lens of an idea known as embodiment.
So what the hell is embodiment and why am I boring you speaking about it relatively than simply speaking about all of the cool capturing, and explosions, and sensible design within the recreation? Properly, it’s going to assist us perceive why sure design selections in Synapse are so efficient. So follow me right here for only a minute.
Embodiment is a time period I exploit to explain the sensation of being bodily current inside a VR expertise. Such as you’re truly standing there on this planet that’s round you.
And now your affordable response is, “however don’t we already use the phrase immersion for that?”
Properly colloquially folks definitely do, however I need to make an vital distinction between ‘immersion’ and ‘embodiment’.
‘Immersion’, for the needs of our dialogue, is when one thing has your full consideration. All of us agree {that a} film may be immersive, proper? When the story or motion is so engrossing it’s virtually like nothing outdoors of the theater even exists at that second. However has even essentially the most immersive film you’ve ever seen made you suppose you had been bodily contained in the film? Definitely not.
And that’s the place ’embodiment’ is available in. For the sake of specificity, I’m defining immersion as being about consideration. Then again, embodiment is about your sense of bodily presence and the way it pertains to the world round you.
So I feel it’s vital to acknowledge that every one VR video games get immersion at no cost. By actually taking up your imaginative and prescient and listening to, for essentially the most half they routinely have your full consideration. You’re immersed the second you placed on a headset.
However some VR video games handle to push us one step additional. They don’t simply have our consideration, they make us really feel like our complete physique has been transported into the digital world. Such as you’d truly really feel issues within the recreation should you reached out and touched them.
Okay, so immersion is consideration and embodiment is the sensation of truly being there.
And to be clear, embodiment isn’t a binary factor. It’s a spectrum. Some VR video games are barely embodying, whereas others are very embodying. However what makes the distinction?
That’s precisely what we’re going to speak about with Synapse.
Cowl You Can Really feel
At first look, Synapse may seem like a reasonably frequent VR shooter, however there are a number of actually intentional design selections that drive a robust sense of embodiment. The very first thing I need to discuss is the quilt system.
Each VR shooter has cowl. You may stroll behind a wall and it’ll block photographs for you. However past that, the wall doesn’t actually bodily relate to your precise physique since you by no means actively interact with it. It’s only a stationary object.
However Synapse makes partitions and different cowl interactive by letting you seize it along with your hand and pull your physique out and in of canopy. This feels actually pure and works nice for the gameplay.
And since you’re bodily transferring your self in relation to the wall—as a substitute of simply strafing forwards and backwards with a thumbstick—the wall begins to really feel extra actual. Particularly, it feels extra actual as a result of while you seize the wall and use it as an anchor from which to maneuver, it’s subconsciously turning into a part of your proprioceptive mannequin.
Understanding Proprioception
Let’s take a second right here to elucidate proprioception as a result of it’s a time period that comes up so much once we’re speaking about tricking our our bodies into considering we’re some place else.
The clearest instance I’ve ever seen of proprioception in motion is that this clip. And hear, I by no means thought I’d be exhibiting you a cat clip on this collection, however right here we’re. Watch intently because the cat approaches the desk… with out actually eager about it, it effortlessly strikes its ear out of the way in which simply on the proper time.
That is proprioception at work. It’s your physique’s mannequin of the place it’s in relation to the issues round you. To ensure that the cat to know precisely when and the place to maneuver its ear to keep away from the desk with out even taking a look at it, it has to have some innate sense of the house its ear occupies and the way that pertains to the house the desk occupies.
Within the case of the quilt system in Synapse, you intuitively perceive that ‘after I seize this wall and transfer my hand to the fitting, my physique will transfer to the left’.
So relatively than simply being a ‘factor that you simply see’ partitions change into one thing greater than that. They change into related to you in a extra significant manner, as a result of you’ll be able to immediately interact with them to affect the place of your physique. In doing so, your thoughts begins to pay extra consideration to the place the partitions are in relation to your physique. They begin to really feel extra actual. And by extension, your personal physique begins to really feel extra current within the simulation… you’re feeling extra ‘embodied’.
Mags Out
And partitions in Synapse can truly be used for greater than cowl. You can even use them to push magazines into your weapon.
Backing away from embodiment for only a second—that is such a cool design element. In Inside XR Design #4 I spent a very long time speaking in regards to the lifelike weapon mannequin in Half-Life: Alyx (2020). However Synapse is a run-and-gun recreation so the builders took a completely completely different strategy and landed on a reloading system that’s quick paced however nonetheless participating.
As a substitute of creating gamers mess with stock and chambering, the magazines on this recreation simply come out and float there. To reload, simply slide them again into the weapon. It may appear foolish, however it works within the recreation’s sci-fi context and reduces reloading complexity whereas sustaining a lot of the enjoyable and recreation movement that comes with it.
And now we will see how this pairs so fantastically with the quilt recreation’s cowl system.
The sport’s cowl system takes considered one of your arms to make use of. So how will you reload? Pushing your journal in opposition to the wall to reload your gun is the right answer to permit gamers to make use of each techniques on the similar time.
However guess what? This isn’t simply a extremely intelligent design, it’s one more manner which you can interact with the wall—as if it’s truly there in entrance of you. You must know in case your arm is shut sufficient to the wall should you’re going to make use of it to reload. So once more, your mind begins to include partitions and their proximity into your proprioceptive mannequin. You begin to really sense the house between your physique and the wall.
So each of these items—with the ability to use partitions to drag your self out and in of canopy, and with the ability to use partitions to push {a magazine} into your gun—make partitions really feel extra actual since you work together with them up shut and in a significant manner.
And right here’s the factor. When the world round you begins to really feel extra actual, you begin to really feel extra satisfied that you simply’re truly standing within it. That’s embodiment. And let’s bear in mind: digital worlds are all the time ‘immersive’ as a result of they essentially have our full consideration. However embodiment goes past what we see—it’s about what we really feel.
And in terms of reaching out and touching the world… Synapse takes issues to an entire new degree with its unbelievable telekinesis system.
