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Infinity Nikki <\/em>and Assassin\u2019s Creed Shadows <\/em>have become my twin obsessions for their meticulously detailed environments, textures, and weather. With open-world dress-up game Infinity Nikki<\/em><\/a>, I continue to be agog at how clothing textures are rendered with such detail and fidelity that by mere sight, I know exactly what a piece of fabric will feel like. For Assassin\u2019s Creed Shadows<\/em>, an action-packed romp through feudal Japan<\/a>, I\u2019m constantly in a state of awe at the natural beauty of the Japanese countryside, a feature that has been widely celebrated<\/a> since its release. Both games are so visually arresting they made me fall in love with a video game staple that I\u2019ve never really cared about before: photo mode.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Photo mode, which typically pauses the game to give players the ability to take professional grade images of their video games, is a modern gaming feature that\u2019s been around long enough to become a standard inclusion, especially in AAA games<\/a>. But I\u2019ve never seen their appeal. It\u2019s a video game, not some fleeting life moment. I\u2019m not gonna fondly flip through my PS5 media gallery in five years going, \u201cAww look at the time Yasuke chopped the arms and head off that guy,\u201d like I\u2019m looking at my grandkids\u2019 baby photos. I definitely appreciate the skill with which others have made the most out of photo modes \u2014 like what my friend does<\/a> with<\/a> Overwatch<\/em><\/a> \u2014 but it was always something I ignored. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n I\u2019ve played no shortage of games so interesting their moments demand to be captured and shared<\/a> but that compulsion is on another level with Infinity Nikki<\/em> and Assassin\u2019s Creed<\/em>. So, starting with the dress up game, I opened photo mode, started fiddling around with apertures and vignettes and was genuinely surprised with the results. The photos looked good! The photos weren\u2019t Vogue<\/em> quality, but they started to resemble the pictures that get upvoted to the moon on the Infinity Nikki <\/em>subreddit. Even though I don\u2019t really care to post my own photos there, it\u2019s thrilling enough to know I\u2019m developing a talent for something I didn\u2019t know was in me to begin with. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n I took that success with Infinity Nikki <\/em>and translated it to Assassin\u2019s Creed<\/em>. I\u2019m actually glad the game doesn\u2019t have the feature from the last Assassin\u2019s Creed <\/em>where your horse automatically follows the road. Without it, I am forced to take in the game\u2019s impressive weather and foliage<\/a> as I drive ole\u2019 Kikai around rather than looking at my phone after setting him on auto-pilot. That\u2019s how I found my first picture. I was roaming around as Yasuke and I rode by a long road flanked by Japanese maples in full, deep-red autumn foliage. (At least I think they\u2019re Japanese maples. The codex could stand a few more flora and fauna entries, Ubisoft.) The colors were so vibrant and the sound of the wind through the leaves was so invigorating, I felt I had to preserve the moment despite none of it being real. The urge was strong enough that it completely changed my feelings about photo mode altogether.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I saw that entirely fake scenery made of pixels and code and immediately opened up photo mode as though I was capturing real natural phenomena. I placed the camera behind him and zoomed out to see as much foliage as I could fit into the shot, while still keeping Yasuke as the focus of the picture. I then tinkered with the lighting to brighten the leaves and the saturation so their colors would pop. I wanted it to look like a shot Akira Kurosawa could have composed for one of his samurai epics \u2014 a kind of thought I\u2019ve never had while taking pictures in real life or in games. This moment completely changed my perspective on video game photography. What once seemed like a cool party trick now felt like a real avenue of creative expression.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Putting the photo modes in Nikki <\/em>and Shadows<\/em> through their paces, I\u2019ve discovered game photography is now something I can really, earnestly do, and want to do more of. I hope to get better at it so I can one day take those skills from capturing video games to capturing real life. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n