The Alpha-Omega Theta of Horizon Forbidden West
Counter-Intuitive Interplay of Focus and Restorativeness in Open World RPGs.
The sun was sliding to the horizon. In-game, one cycle of day and night occurs within 40 minutes of real-time play. I had three minutes, real time, until the sun would fully set, when "creeping murmur and the poring dark," to quote Shakespeare, would fill the underbrush and nestle into the tall ferns and thick trunked forest. Ed Note: Visual essay of nature and nature setting in HFW The mountainous ridges and deep crevices cut into the rising slope, creating in the falling light, intermittent areas of Mirkwood-scaled darkness. My Aloy pushed her way through the undergrowth, climbing upward, rising slowly. I could see the map clearing from its fog, revealing the Pacific Coast of the US—my immediate destination—not because the game pointed me in that direction, but for my own desire—and fear. I pushed on, racing the coalescing dark, desiring to see the sun set over the Pacific Ocean, but, also, I was afraid. As they say, we do not fear being alone in the dark, we fear we may not be alone. In a land rife with deadly machines Ed Note: HFW machine catalogue on Gamespot (robotic simulacra of giant animals and birds, modern and prehistoric) the fear was real, as real as any fear we may feel when immersed in a novel, film, or televised series. And those feelings are real, I am becoming Aloy, Aloy is becoming me.
As the game progresses, and the narrative unfolds and blossoms, We, Aloy and I, are enmeshing into a single entity. Broom, Chavez, and Wagner in "Becoming the King in the North: Identification with Fictional Characters is Associated with Greater Self–other Neural Overlap" relay how we alter neural activity with our exposure to fictional characters: "the greater the immersion into experiences of 'becoming' characters, the more accessing knowledge about characters resembles accessing knowledge about the self."1 That resembling refers to a clinical observation, not a subjectivity: "The ventral medial prefrontal cortex (vMPFC) is a brain region that shows increased activity when introspecting about the self but also when thinking of close friends."2 That “increased activity” occurs with, as their findings show, fictional characters, such as my Aloy. Simply watching a linear, plot-driven narrative, or reading a novel, can induce this activity, perhaps even more so where the player/character merge during gameplay. I have opted for the language of my Aloy or We which is nuanced differently than "me" the player, and "her" the character. How other players connect with their character—how their vMPFC connects with Aloy—is similar, yet different, than my connection. Each player is similar in that the ventral medial prefrontal cortex is more highly activated, but different with what experiences we each bring to the game.
Ahead, We could hear sounds through the darkening leaves, a rushing of waves crashing onto a beach and the call of coastal birds. With mere moments left of sunlight, my Aloy emerged from the shadows high on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean and—incongruent with all of my expectations—a futuristic citadel on an island in the distance, a base, far beyond the technology this world had when it crumbled during the Fero Plague 1,000 years prior in 2064 Ed Note: The TV series Horizon 2074 will be set in the time of the Fero Plague, when machines ravaged the earth and ended most of humanity. There We stoodEd Note: The above poster is a screenshot of gameplay of the moment discussed here, seeing sun beams glittering on the ocean, butterflies hovering and flittering about us, grasses swaying in the onshore winds. Through two installments of Horizon, my Aloy had travelled over 1,500 miles from her home (All-mother mountain, a.k.a NORAD's Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado) to the Pacific Coast (near, what was, Santa Barbara). We stood there, on the edge of a dangerous, post-apocalyptic world, in a still moment of wistful respite, theta brain waves activating.
Relaxing, or meditating, or exploring unknown areas, or moving one's body can activate theta waves, and those seem incongruous-- exploring unknown woods grant us the same theta waves as we achieve when relaxing in a recliner.
Theta waves are an intriguing aspect of our brains as they tend not to have simply corollaries or causation with lived-experience. Relaxing, or meditating, or exploring unknown areas, or moving one's body can activate theta waves, and those seem incongruous— exploring unknown woods grant us the same theta waves as we achieve when relaxing in a recliner. Another seemingly incongruous aspect of theta waves is that they are part of storing or sorting of memory while at the same time, they are the waves that move use toward delta waves, or rather—toward sleep. The answer to this incongruity seems to be more of a mindfulness of one's self and body in space time, be that meditating and mindful or self-aware while exploring a natural setting. There is also an open-endedness to all of those experiences, each more different than a realtively knowable answer to a riddle or research question. There usually is no checklist to mark with these types of experiences. These spontaneous, or extemporaneous, experiences are a central feature to open-world RPGs. Yet, sometimes, gameplay directs these experiential moments. One, small side-quest in Mass Effect: Andromeda is to have a friendly race with a squad member, free-climbing a cliff face to the top Ed Note: video scene of the race up the cliff. The entirety of the side-quest is simply that: to clamber atop a mountain and be awed by the view. Such an experience, even if not directed, is standard fare in open world RPGs: stopping and savoring the view of mountains, or wooded glade, or rushing water falls.
Whether built-in to the gameplay or as spontaneous experiencee in-between missions, many open-world RPGS offer numerous spaces and places for such a savoring. These savorings, though, are happening in us, not the game. "During EEG recordings, participants were presented nature audio/video as stimuli to evoke nature experience . . . . [resulted in] increased alpha along with theta indicates a relaxed yet alert state of mind after nature experience." These findings in Sahni and Kumar’s “Effect of Nature Experience on Fronto-Parietal Correlates of Neurocognitive Processes Involved in Directed Attention: An ERP Study” also revealed that “improved inhibitory control processes could be one of the aspects of enhanced directed attention after nature experience.”3 With video games, nature is not merely presented as audio/visual, but as interactive immersive nature, presenting an environment that responds to the presence or movement of the player character invoking, counterintuitively, rhythmically, alpha and theta waves: intense focus and restorativeness.
Just six minutes of nature exposure lead to participants claiming they felt more positive moods, restorativeness, and physiological arousal.
The immersive natural settings of Horizon: Zero Dawn, Horizon: Forbidden West, and many other games (Ghost of Tsushima, Assassin's Creed: Origins, Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, and Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, and similar open world RPG games) open and reveal blue and green spaces, granting access to virtual ecotherapy.
Interest in the connection of green and blue nature settings, well-being, and virtual experiences increased during the Covid-19/lockdown years, as, surprising no one, those years curtailed applied research, diverting many to perform systematic reviews, such as “Psychological Effects of Green Experiences in a Virtual Environment: A Systematic Review”: “a total of 21 studies, conducted in a green environment such as virtual forests, trees, and parks, were reviewed, and the majority of these studies reported positive psychological effects.”4 In one systematic review (pre-pandemic 2017) “Outdoor Blue Spaces, Human Health and Well-Being: A Systematic Review of Quantitative Studies,” they used 35 other studies that covered “a wide range of [nature] exposures and outcomes.” What White and Nieuwenhuijsen found in that review is that “the body of evidence suggested a positive association between exposure to outdoor blue spaces and mental health and well-being and the promotion of physical activity.”5 In “Physical and Mental Health Effects of Repeated Short Walks in a Blue Space Environment: A Randomized Crossover Study,” Vert et al. found “better well-being and mood responses shortly after walking 20 min in a blue space versus walking in an urban space” and that these “outdoor environments – either natural or manmade – prominently feature water and are accessible to humans.”6 In “Can Simulated Nature Support Mental Health? Comparing Short, Single-Doses of 360-Degree Nature Videos in Virtual Reality With the Outdoors,” Browning et al. found that whether in a natural space or inside sitting in a chair with VR set to a nature setting, just six minutes of nature exposure lead to participants claiming they felt more positive moods, restorativeness, and physiological arousal.7 The conclusion shows that the medium of the natural setting (in real-life or in VR) did not alter those positive changes. Throughout the literature on well-being connected to virtual nature a number of conclusions occurred: stress reduction, emotional recovery, alleviated negative emotions (more than it elicited positive emotions), virtual nature lasting more than 10 minutes showed more consistent effects than those of less than 10 minutes, and an open field of view led to significant emotional recovery and an in-forest view led to significant cognitive recovery.
Counter-intuitive to lived experience, or lived expectations, is that according to the research on ecotherapy, blue and green spaces (bird song, too), or viewing nature virtually, we can, simultaneously (rhythmically), exert tremendous focus and experience deep relaxation and restorativeness.
Surrounded by blue waters, green lands, tinted in the pastels of teal and purple from the lowering sun, the distant calling of birds chirping from forest behind and beach below, the rustling sound of grasses in the wind, We stood watching the sun slide away. I then woke an hour later, but in real time. I woke the next day to Aloy's low evening sun, reinvigorated, restored, enabled. I have done this before. In Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, tired while traversing the Northeast in Northumbria, along the snowy coastline, I stopped my Eivor at a beachhead on her horse, and I dozed while listening to the thrumming of the ocean waves, the call of birds, and the occasioned barking of the seals. But this tiredness was not fatigue from real world work and life or from boredom of the game. Those moments of “being tired” were relaxed, peaceful moments, akin to swinging in a hammock. Theta waves are present during light sleep—or naps; however, relaxation is only one experience where theta waves thrive. In some experiences, when we must increase our concentration, theta waves will increase, such as in an air traffic control simulator. In one study, by directly manipulating the task difficulty through increasing the number of planes to which players had to attend, the theta band power increased.8
Increasing a need to focus and easing stress are not mutually exclusive. Alpha-theta modulations in connection with viewing nature (even on video ) has already been established. Sanhi and Kumar reveal how “studies suggest that enhanced theta indicates the improvement in the capacity to control one’s locus of attention. Increased theta after NE [nature experience] may also mean an improvement in focus and attention.”9 The very medium requesting our focus and attention, such as an open world RPG, is the very medium that induces not only focus and attention but also can have spaces for relaxation, restorativeness, and sound well-being. While people’s motivations to play video games have numerous sources (need for control, escape from reality, ego gratification through leveling up or succeeding on a mission), assuredly, or rather proven, are the physiological and psychological benefits of playing video games that involve nature experiences. What is of more interest to me is the tension involved in these games. Not the protagonist versus antagonist plot lines tension; instead, the tension between focus and relaxation, a practice, a praxis, for developing our IRL skills of focus and transitioning to other objects/subjects of focus. Counter-intuitive to lived experience, or lived expectations, is that according to the research on ecotherapy, blue and green spaces (bird song, too), or viewing nature virtually, we can, simultaneously (rhythmically), exert tremendous focus and experience deep relaxation and restorativeness.
Fifty hours later, or, to speak in terms of televised series’ lengths of seasons, two or three seasons later, my Aloy invaded and conquered the futuristic base that We saw from that cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Enter the final epilogue cut-scene: the world is not completely safe, yet. The final mission punctuated that an immense AI (accidentally created by the now dispatched antagonists) is moving across the galaxy, toward earth, to destroy earth, to destroy life. In the epilogue, we are back at our underground base, our squad mates are departing to enter the world, seeking to convince other peoples throughout the lands to prepare and help against Nemesis, the name given to the approaching AI. As the credits roll, We are flying once again on our winged mount, a machine version of bird crossed with a pterodactyl. We are given the agency to fly anywhere we wish while the credits roll: skirting craggy mountains and soaring over desert dunes, swooping low near waterfalls and skimming over lakes and inlets, brushing close to leaf topped forests and jungles. We are at the end, but not the omega, rather the unclosed end of Alpha-theta rhythms, the continual, counter-intuitive movement between mindful focus and restorativeness.
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Copyrighted by Author
Attribution must be given
Cannot be used for commercial purposes
No derivatives allowed
Endnotes
- [Return to Article]
Broom, Timothy W., Robert S Chavez, and Dylan D Wagner. “Becoming the King in the North: Identification with Fictional Characters is Associated with Greater Self–other Neural Overlap.” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, vol. 16, no. 6 June 2021, 541–551. doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsab021. Accessed 21 Feb. 2024.
- [Return to Article]
Ibid.
- [Return to Article]
Sahni, Pooja and Jyoti Kumar. “Effect of Nature Experience on Fronto-Parietal Correlates of Neurocognitive Processes Involved in Directed Attention: An ERP Study.” Annals of Neurosciences April 2021, vol. 27, no. 2, April 2021, 136-147. DOI: 10.1177/0972753121990143. Accessed 12 Dec. 2023.
- [Return to Article]
Lee, Mijin, Eunsoo Kim, Jiwon Choe, Seonhye Choi, Siyeon Ha and Geonwoo Kim. “Psychological Effects of Green Experiences in a Virtual Environment: A Systematic Review” Forests, vol. 13, no. 10, 3 Oct. 2022. doi.org/10.3390/f13101625. Accessed 10 Nov. 2023.
- [Return to Article]
Gascon, Mireia, Wilma Zijlema, Cristina Vert, Mathew P White, and Mark J Nieuwenhuijsen. “Outdoor Blue Spaces, Human Health and Well-Being: A Systematic Review of Quantitative Studies.” International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health, vol. 220, no.8, 18 Aug 2017, 1207-1221 . 10.1016/j.ijheh.2017.08.004. Accessed 07 Sep. 2022.
- [Return to Article]
Vert, Cristina, Mireia Gascon, Otavio Ranzani, Sandra Márquez, Margarita Triguero-Mas, Glòria Carrasco-Turigas, Lourdes Arjona, Sarah Koch, Maria Llopis, David Donaire-Gonzalez, Lewis R Elliott, and Mark Nieuwenhuijsen. “Physical and Mental Health Effects of Repeated Short Walks in a Blue Space Environment: A Randomised Crossover Study.” Environmental Research, vol. 188, Sep. 2020 2. 10.1016/j.envres.2020.109812. Accessed 02 Oct. 2023.
- [Return to Article]Browning, Matthew H E M, Katherine J Mimnaugh, Carena J van Riper, Heidemarie K Laurent, and Steven M LaValle. “Can Simulated Nature Support Mental Health? Comparing Short, Single-Doses of 360-Degree Nature Videos in Virtual Reality With the Outdoors.” Frontiers in Psychology, 15 Jan. 2020, eCollection, 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02667. Accessed 07 Sep. 2023.
- [Return to Article]Brookings, J. B., G.F. Wilson, and C.R. Swain. “Psychophysiological Responses to Changes in Workload during Simulated Air Traffic Control.” Biological Psychology, vol. 42, no. 3, 5 Feb. 1996, 361–377..1016/0301-0511(95)05167-8. Accessed 14 Aug. 2023.
- [Return to Article]Sahni and Kumar. “Effect of Nature Experience.”
The sun was sliding to the horizon. In-game, one cycle of day and night occurs within 40 minutes of real-time play. I had three minutes, real time, until the sun would fully set, when "creeping murmur and the poring dark," to quote Shakespeare, would fill the underbrush and nestle into the tall ferns and thick trunked forest. Ed Note: Visual essay of nature and nature setting in HFW The mountainous ridges and deep crevices cut into the rising slope, creating in the falling light, intermittent areas of Mirkwood-scaled darkness. My Aloy pushed her way through the undergrowth, climbing upward, rising slowly. I could see the map clearing from its fog, revealing the Pacific Coast of the US—my immediate destination—not because the game pointed me in that direction, but for my own desire—and fear. I pushed on, racing the coalescing dark, desiring to see the sun set over the Pacific Ocean, but, also, I was afraid. As they say, we do not fear being alone in the dark, we fear we may not be alone. In a land rife with deadly machines Ed Note: HFW machine catalogue on Gamespot (robotic simulacra of giant animals and birds, modern and prehistoric) the fear was real, as real as any fear we may feel when immersed in a novel, film, or televised series. And those feelings are real, I am becoming Aloy, Aloy is becoming me.
As the game progresses, and the narrative unfolds and blossoms, We, Aloy and I, are enmeshing into a single entity. Broom, Chavez, and Wagner in "Becoming the King in the North: Identification with Fictional Characters is Associated with Greater Self–other Neural Overlap" relay how we alter neural activity with our exposure to fictional characters: "the greater the immersion into experiences of 'becoming' characters, the more accessing knowledge about characters resembles accessing knowledge about the self."1 That resembling refers to a clinical observation, not a subjectivity: "The ventral medial prefrontal cortex (vMPFC) is a brain region that shows increased activity when introspecting about the self but also when thinking of close friends."2 That “increased activity” occurs with, as their findings show, fictional characters, such as my Aloy. Simply watching a linear, plot-driven narrative, or reading a novel, can induce this activity, perhaps even more so where the player/character merge during gameplay. I have opted for the language of my Aloy or We which is nuanced differently than "me" the player, and "her" the character. How other players connect with their character—how their vMPFC connects with Aloy—is similar, yet different, than my connection. Each player is similar in that the ventral medial prefrontal cortex is more highly activated, but different with what experiences we each bring to the game.
Ahead, We could hear sounds through the darkening leaves, a rushing of waves crashing onto a beach and the call of coastal birds. With mere moments left of sunlight, my Aloy emerged from the shadows high on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean and—incongruent with all of my expectations—a futuristic citadel on an island in the distance, a base, far beyond the technology this world had when it crumbled during the Fero Plague 1,000 years prior in 2064 Ed Note: The TV series Horizon 2074 will be set in the time of the Fero Plague, when machines ravaged the earth and ended most of humanity. There We stoodEd Note: The above poster is a screenshot of gameplay of the moment discussed here, seeing sun beams glittering on the ocean, butterflies hovering and flittering about us, grasses swaying in the onshore winds. Through two installments of Horizon, my Aloy had travelled over 1,500 miles from her home (All-mother mountain, a.k.a NORAD's Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado) to the Pacific Coast (near, what was, Santa Barbara). We stood there, on the edge of a dangerous, post-apocalyptic world, in a still moment of wistful respite, theta brain waves activating.
Relaxing, or meditating, or exploring unknown areas, or moving one's body can activate theta waves, and those seem incongruous-- exploring unknown woods grant us the same theta waves as we achieve when relaxing in a recliner.
Theta waves are an intriguing aspect of our brains as they tend not to have simply corollaries or causation with lived-experience. Relaxing, or meditating, or exploring unknown areas, or moving one's body can activate theta waves, and those seem incongruous— exploring unknown woods grant us the same theta waves as we achieve when relaxing in a recliner. Another seemingly incongruous aspect of theta waves is that they are part of storing or sorting of memory while at the same time, they are the waves that move use toward delta waves, or rather—toward sleep. The answer to this incongruity seems to be more of a mindfulness of one's self and body in space time, be that meditating and mindful or self-aware while exploring a natural setting. There is also an open-endedness to all of those experiences, each more different than a realtively knowable answer to a riddle or research question. There usually is no checklist to mark with these types of experiences. These spontaneous, or extemporaneous, experiences are a central feature to open-world RPGs. Yet, sometimes, gameplay directs these experiential moments. One, small side-quest in Mass Effect: Andromeda is to have a friendly race with a squad member, free-climbing a cliff face to the top Ed Note: video scene of the race up the cliff. The entirety of the side-quest is simply that: to clamber atop a mountain and be awed by the view. Such an experience, even if not directed, is standard fare in open world RPGs: stopping and savoring the view of mountains, or wooded glade, or rushing water falls.
Whether built-in to the gameplay or as spontaneous experiencee in-between missions, many open-world RPGS offer numerous spaces and places for such a savoring. These savorings, though, are happening in us, not the game. "During EEG recordings, participants were presented nature audio/video as stimuli to evoke nature experience . . . . [resulted in] increased alpha along with theta indicates a relaxed yet alert state of mind after nature experience." These findings in Sahni and Kumar’s “Effect of Nature Experience on Fronto-Parietal Correlates of Neurocognitive Processes Involved in Directed Attention: An ERP Study” also revealed that “improved inhibitory control processes could be one of the aspects of enhanced directed attention after nature experience.”3 With video games, nature is not merely presented as audio/visual, but as interactive immersive nature, presenting an environment that responds to the presence or movement of the player character invoking, counterintuitively, rhythmically, alpha and theta waves: intense focus and restorativeness.
Just six minutes of nature exposure lead to participants claiming they felt more positive moods, restorativeness, and physiological arousal.
The immersive natural settings of Horizon: Zero Dawn, Horizon: Forbidden West, and many other games (Ghost of Tsushima, Assassin's Creed: Origins, Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, and Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, and similar open world RPG games) open and reveal blue and green spaces, granting access to virtual ecotherapy.
Interest in the connection of green and blue nature settings, well-being, and virtual experiences increased during the Covid-19/lockdown years, as, surprising no one, those years curtailed applied research, diverting many to perform systematic reviews, such as “Psychological Effects of Green Experiences in a Virtual Environment: A Systematic Review”: “a total of 21 studies, conducted in a green environment such as virtual forests, trees, and parks, were reviewed, and the majority of these studies reported positive psychological effects.”4 In one systematic review (pre-pandemic 2017) “Outdoor Blue Spaces, Human Health and Well-Being: A Systematic Review of Quantitative Studies,” they used 35 other studies that covered “a wide range of [nature] exposures and outcomes.” What White and Nieuwenhuijsen found in that review is that “the body of evidence suggested a positive association between exposure to outdoor blue spaces and mental health and well-being and the promotion of physical activity.”5 In “Physical and Mental Health Effects of Repeated Short Walks in a Blue Space Environment: A Randomized Crossover Study,” Vert et al. found “better well-being and mood responses shortly after walking 20 min in a blue space versus walking in an urban space” and that these “outdoor environments – either natural or manmade – prominently feature water and are accessible to humans.”6 In “Can Simulated Nature Support Mental Health? Comparing Short, Single-Doses of 360-Degree Nature Videos in Virtual Reality With the Outdoors,” Browning et al. found that whether in a natural space or inside sitting in a chair with VR set to a nature setting, just six minutes of nature exposure lead to participants claiming they felt more positive moods, restorativeness, and physiological arousal.7 The conclusion shows that the medium of the natural setting (in real-life or in VR) did not alter those positive changes. Throughout the literature on well-being connected to virtual nature a number of conclusions occurred: stress reduction, emotional recovery, alleviated negative emotions (more than it elicited positive emotions), virtual nature lasting more than 10 minutes showed more consistent effects than those of less than 10 minutes, and an open field of view led to significant emotional recovery and an in-forest view led to significant cognitive recovery.
Counter-intuitive to lived experience, or lived expectations, is that according to the research on ecotherapy, blue and green spaces (bird song, too), or viewing nature virtually, we can, simultaneously (rhythmically), exert tremendous focus and experience deep relaxation and restorativeness.
Surrounded by blue waters, green lands, tinted in the pastels of teal and purple from the lowering sun, the distant calling of birds chirping from forest behind and beach below, the rustling sound of grasses in the wind, We stood watching the sun slide away. I then woke an hour later, but in real time. I woke the next day to Aloy's low evening sun, reinvigorated, restored, enabled. I have done this before. In Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, tired while traversing the Northeast in Northumbria, along the snowy coastline, I stopped my Eivor at a beachhead on her horse, and I dozed while listening to the thrumming of the ocean waves, the call of birds, and the occasioned barking of the seals. But this tiredness was not fatigue from real world work and life or from boredom of the game. Those moments of “being tired” were relaxed, peaceful moments, akin to swinging in a hammock. Theta waves are present during light sleep—or naps; however, relaxation is only one experience where theta waves thrive. In some experiences, when we must increase our concentration, theta waves will increase, such as in an air traffic control simulator. In one study, by directly manipulating the task difficulty through increasing the number of planes to which players had to attend, the theta band power increased.8
Increasing a need to focus and easing stress are not mutually exclusive. Alpha-theta modulations in connection with viewing nature (even on video ) has already been established. Sanhi and Kumar reveal how “studies suggest that enhanced theta indicates the improvement in the capacity to control one’s locus of attention. Increased theta after NE [nature experience] may also mean an improvement in focus and attention.”9 The very medium requesting our focus and attention, such as an open world RPG, is the very medium that induces not only focus and attention but also can have spaces for relaxation, restorativeness, and sound well-being. While people’s motivations to play video games have numerous sources (need for control, escape from reality, ego gratification through leveling up or succeeding on a mission), assuredly, or rather proven, are the physiological and psychological benefits of playing video games that involve nature experiences. What is of more interest to me is the tension involved in these games. Not the protagonist versus antagonist plot lines tension; instead, the tension between focus and relaxation, a practice, a praxis, for developing our IRL skills of focus and transitioning to other objects/subjects of focus. Counter-intuitive to lived experience, or lived expectations, is that according to the research on ecotherapy, blue and green spaces (bird song, too), or viewing nature virtually, we can, simultaneously (rhythmically), exert tremendous focus and experience deep relaxation and restorativeness.
Fifty hours later, or, to speak in terms of televised series’ lengths of seasons, two or three seasons later, my Aloy invaded and conquered the futuristic base that We saw from that cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Enter the final epilogue cut-scene: the world is not completely safe, yet. The final mission punctuated that an immense AI (accidentally created by the now dispatched antagonists) is moving across the galaxy, toward earth, to destroy earth, to destroy life. In the epilogue, we are back at our underground base, our squad mates are departing to enter the world, seeking to convince other peoples throughout the lands to prepare and help against Nemesis, the name given to the approaching AI. As the credits roll, We are flying once again on our winged mount, a machine version of bird crossed with a pterodactyl. We are given the agency to fly anywhere we wish while the credits roll: skirting craggy mountains and soaring over desert dunes, swooping low near waterfalls and skimming over lakes and inlets, brushing close to leaf topped forests and jungles. We are at the end, but not the omega, rather the unclosed end of Alpha-theta rhythms, the continual, counter-intuitive movement between mindful focus and restorativeness.
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Copyrighted by Author
Attribution must be given
Cannot be used for commercial purposes
No derivatives allowed
Endnotes
- [Return to Article] Broom, Timothy W., Robert S Chavez, and Dylan D Wagner. “Becoming the King in the North: Identification with Fictional Characters is Associated with Greater Self–other Neural Overlap.” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, vol. 16, no. 6 June 2021, 541–551. doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsab021. Accessed 21 Feb. 2024.
- [Return to Article] Ibid.
- [Return to Article] Sahni, Pooja and Jyoti Kumar. “Effect of Nature Experience on Fronto-Parietal Correlates of Neurocognitive Processes Involved in Directed Attention: An ERP Study.” Annals of Neurosciences April 2021, vol. 27, no. 2, April 2021, 136-147. DOI: 10.1177/0972753121990143. Accessed 12 Dec. 2023.
- [Return to Article] Lee, Mijin, Eunsoo Kim, Jiwon Choe, Seonhye Choi, Siyeon Ha and Geonwoo Kim. “Psychological Effects of Green Experiences in a Virtual Environment: A Systematic Review” Forests, vol. 13, no. 10, 3 Oct. 2022. doi.org/10.3390/f13101625. Accessed 10 Nov. 2023.
- [Return to Article] Gascon, Mireia, Wilma Zijlema, Cristina Vert, Mathew P White, and Mark J Nieuwenhuijsen. “Outdoor Blue Spaces, Human Health and Well-Being: A Systematic Review of Quantitative Studies.” International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health, vol. 220, no.8, 18 Aug 2017, 1207-1221 . 10.1016/j.ijheh.2017.08.004. Accessed 07 Sep. 2022.
- [Return to Article] Vert, Cristina, Mireia Gascon, Otavio Ranzani, Sandra Márquez, Margarita Triguero-Mas, Glòria Carrasco-Turigas, Lourdes Arjona, Sarah Koch, Maria Llopis, David Donaire-Gonzalez, Lewis R Elliott, and Mark Nieuwenhuijsen. “Physical and Mental Health Effects of Repeated Short Walks in a Blue Space Environment: A Randomised Crossover Study.” Environmental Research, vol. 188, Sep. 2020 2. 10.1016/j.envres.2020.109812. Accessed 02 Oct. 2023.
- [Return to Article]Browning, Matthew H E M, Katherine J Mimnaugh, Carena J van Riper, Heidemarie K Laurent, and Steven M LaValle. “Can Simulated Nature Support Mental Health? Comparing Short, Single-Doses of 360-Degree Nature Videos in Virtual Reality With the Outdoors.” Frontiers in Psychology, 15 Jan. 2020, eCollection, 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02667. Accessed 07 Sep. 2023.
- [Return to Article]Brookings, J. B., G.F. Wilson, and C.R. Swain. “Psychophysiological Responses to Changes in Workload during Simulated Air Traffic Control.” Biological Psychology, vol. 42, no. 3, 5 Feb. 1996, 361–377..1016/0301-0511(95)05167-8. Accessed 14 Aug. 2023.
- [Return to Article]Sahni and Kumar. “Effect of Nature Experience.”