There was once a time when video games didn’t support screenshots, a dark time indeed. But enter the social media age and it’s an assumption most games will support them in some way. It’s a feature that has had its effect challenged recently, with some developers implying that a screenshot has the potential to ruin a story heavy experience. At the other end of this is
Final Fantasy XV, which embraces screenshots to their fullest potential and helped make a JRPG with a lot of customisation features such as costumes and mostly a non-linear exploration feel even more personal.
Since every current gen console supports taking and sharing screenshots in some way, Final Fantasy XV took this idea and ran with it, making one of the core characters, the cheerful Prompto, a photography lover and photography AI. They developed a unique AI system that takes photos in real time and at the end of the day, Prompto (like any good photographer), shows you the photos he took and leaves it to the player to decide whether or not they want to keep or share the good ones, and delete the ones that aren’t so great. He even has a limited amount of photos he can store on his camera, just like a real one.
Other than the idea of a photo-taking character serving his purpose well in both the story and his photo AI work being pretty cool in general, this photo taking is easy to connect with on a simple level: it’s pictures of things you did and chose to do within Final Fantasy XV. Whether it’s in a battle or at a photo spot, the time of day, area, outfits and filters are all influenced by the players actions in some way. The photos from my Final Fantasy XV experience will be mostly different from another player’s, because
we probably played XV differently. This was something I enjoyed noticing when reviews for Final Fantasy XV were coming out; when you look at
my review's pictures compared to another, you can see differences in weather, costume and location that gives a personal touch.
The biggest benefit of Final Fantasy XV’s photo-taking function is being able to share them. If you take a look at the Final Fantasy XV hashtags on any social media, among the usual fan art and cosplay photos, you’re greeted with photos taken in game, with everyone showing off their most beautiful and amusing shots off with pride. I loved scrolling through my Twitter feed during the week of XV’s release, as seeing the pictures of what everyone else was doing in the open world was fun and also inspiring as it made me want to explore the places my friends had. XV has only made this better recently, allowing Noctis to also take pictures and add filters as well, The cherry on top of these shareable pictures is the beautifully framed end game picture, which displays the hours spent in XV and the level it was completed at, a rewarding personal touch that not only made me want to frame a video game screenshot in real life for the first time, but felt like a nice momentum to round off my experience with.
Photos in Final Fantasy XV was something I subconsciously enjoyed a lot during my continuing experience with it, and is something I’ve come to appreciate even more thanks to the recent decision of a certain big JRPG to not include this feature. Sharing my pictures from Final Fantasy XV was something I did without thinking - I had cool pictures and the option was there to show off my personalised pictures in a very easy way, and with social media being used daily by most people, it was a great way to connect with my friends in a single player experience. Final Fantasy XV’s loveable character and photo-taking AI Prompto allows players to be social by embracing the share culture that is prominent nowadays and serves as a great example of how to make an experience more personal while also creating buzz and hype for the experience itself. While I can understand on some level the reasons some companies don't think this is so great, when I think back to what I saw in screenshots during my slow playthrough of Final Fantasy XV, I maybe remember seeing mild spoilers but they just made me want to play more. These spoilers didn't tell me the ending, context or how to get there, it was simply a picture of a possibility in XV and inspired me to try find my own way there. Sharing game pictures are a great way to built on enjoyment in a game and your unique way Final Fantasy XV does this is a fun thing to look at when I want to relieve my experience.
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What do you think of screenshots and sharing in games? What game do you have the most screenshots from?
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