what is it with games and fantasy/scifi media and frozen tundra environments?
maybe i'm a outlier but i feel like the last few games and movies i've engaged with have had loooooong plodding sections through ice worlds:
- skyrim
- omno (this $5 platformer i bought with my girlfriend that is actually pretty good)
- empire strikes back (okay maybe i should have forseen this? stoner brain?)
especially skyrim--i just feel like it is overdone? perhaps i am one of those people who enjoys gaudy, clashing colours; but i feel like i have stephen fry on my side when i say up the romance of passion and colourful expression, and down with gritty minimalism?
@vidak
I always sigh when I encounter frozen wastelands in games. Deserts are also annoying.
@vidak
Conan, 80% of stories are in frozen wastelands, the other 20% are desert wastelands.
Elric spends his time in desert wastelands, or ruined cities or dungeons.
There's *also* those being easy terrains to make and render in early 3D engines, it's still very hard to make a plausible jungle with dense foliage, too many polygons. Tundra is zero polygons, just ground deformation & texture mapping, almost free.
@vidak There's a lore book in Elder Scrolls Online, which retcons why Cyrodil is long dry hills with a few light forests, and not the jungle it was described as in Arena:
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Subtropical_Cyrodiil:_A_Speculation
Cheaper to do some writing than actually render the impossible.