It’s Mombasa circa 2010, and Leonardo DiCaprio’s running away from a bunch of heavily-armed bad guys. Having dashed through a busy cafe and down an alleyway, he rushes through a gap between two buildings. In a curious moment that borders on the surreal, the gap gets narrower the further DiCaprio edges in, until by the time he’s reached the other side he’s practically having to force himself through the opening like an egg from a chicken’s backside. So goes a memorable scene from the Christopher Nolan thriller, Inception. Memorable because it highlights the film’s uneasy relationship between dreams and reality, but also because it looks so much like a staple we’ve seen repeatedly in video games since: at some point, a level forces the player to squeeze through a gap, slowing down the pace and effectively creating a choke point that demarks the end of one area and the start of another. There’s one such scene in the 2013 reboot of Tomb Raider. Lara Croft, waking up to find herself trussed and hanging upside down in a cave, makes clever use of a flaming torch to free herself, then shuffles and shimmies her way through a tight aperture in the wall. More recently, Digital Foundry’s John Linneman pointed out on Twitter that a clip from Final Fantasy XVI featured what he called a “squeeze hole”. You can see the moment he’s referring to here:
This got me thinking: why are these squeeze holes so prevalent in games? Are they there purely for technical reasons, like the old lifts (or elevators, if you prefer) or door animations of old? Or are game designers using them for other, less obvious artistic purposes? Are they even called squeeze holes in the games industry? According to video game designer, author, and whynow Gaming contributor Stuart Maine, squeeze holes are more officially known as “transitions”. Maine explains that while these transitions would originally have been used to hide delays as a game’s loading information behind the scenes, in today’s era of solid-state drives, loading times have been greatly reduced, “so at some point I guess they became an aesthetic choice.” “I think generally it boils down to pacing and breaking up flow rather than technical requirements these days,” concurs Far Cry 6 level designer Devon Wiersma. “With hardware being as strong as it is and development techniques more widely adopted for open world games, itās difficult to go āover-budgetā tech-wise on one specific area that would require special loading considerations, so I think itās safe to say most games arenāt using this primarily as a technical crutch as often.” The transition or squeeze hole has become an increasingly prevalent staple in recent years, particularly in triple-A titles. The rebooted God of War made frequent use of them, as did its sequel, Ragnarok, which sparked its own debate last year. The Last of Us Part 2 had them. Cal frequently shoved his way through all kinds of narrow spaces in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. The transition (or squeeze hole) is so ubiquitous, IGN even spent several minutes debating their relative merits in a January podcast. But if they’re seldom used for technical reasons these days, what are transitions actually for? What purpose do they serve? Says Maine, “Storytelling has the concept of the threshold, where you swap from one state to another as much as from one location to another, so perhaps the enforced delay while your character squeezes through a gap is part of that. It certainly makes it extremely clear that you can forget about the previous area and get ready for whateverās in the next.” “As with anything else in game design, I think how itās used usually depends on the game and context in which itās used,” says Wiersma, before referring to the Final Fantasy XVI clip mentioned above. “In the FF16 example, itās being used in tandem with another mechanic ā the dog points out thereās an opening that an ordinary player might miss ā so in this instance itās an example of how small openings can be used as a puzzle element for a player to hide a less obvious route. “If a Level Designer simply used a tunnel large enough for a player to walk through normally it would be much harder to mask and camouflage with level art. Something like a door could be used, but that invites other complexities for the level too ā a gap is just āa space between two obstaclesā whereas a door requires specific visual treatments and considerations to be properly used in gameplay.” Wiersma argues that transitions (or squeeze holes) often serve to break up the flow of a level. In Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, the earliest scenes see Cal running, jumping, and doing a lot of sliding down shiny surfaces on his back. The slower segments, where he’s slowly working his way through a gap, provide a contrasting change of pace. In the case of Tomb Raider, transitions provide suspense and a feeling of anticipation. “It can be used for level pacing in games too,” Wiersma says. “In many cases itās a moment of ‘crossing a threshold’ and entering a new āareaā which might present new rewards, challenges, dangers, etc, and generally helps a player feel like theyāre progressing from one space to another. Conversely, it can act as an anticipatory moment, since the player might be using it to enter a new area theyāve never seen before with unknown dangers or threats. In Tomb Raider, itās apparent they want the player to feel claustrophobic and vulnerable throughout that sequence, so combining tight squeezes in with tight camera shots are being used to achieve that effect.”This is such an odd thing to share. Like, FF16 is shaping up to be absolutely amazing and I'm pretty hyped for it butā¦why would they show an official clip with a squeeze hole?! It doesn't make sense. https://t.co/HbFAoOGDpO
— John Linneman (@dark1x) March 22, 2023
Breathe in ā itās Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Credit: Respawn Entertainment/EA.