What Virtual Worlds Tell Us About the Real One.
Video games are often dismissed as escapism. A waste of time. A distraction from the ‘real’ world. But what if games are the purest mirrors we’ve built—places where human truths leak through the code, unfiltered?
Think about it.
What’s left when you strip away the pixels, the controller, and the lore? Choice. Struggle. Reward. Loss. Connection.
We witness the oldest human truth in Dark Souls: life is suffering, yet we persist. We respawn not because the game forces us to, but because something deep within us refuses to quit, even when faced with inevitable death.
In Animal Crossing, we see another truth: our longing for peace and control. It’s a perfect, curated world where weeds are pulled, debts are manageable, and neighbors never truly hate you. It echoes the life we wish we could live—one without chaos at our heels.
In MMORPGs, the tribal instinct is still alive and well. Humans have always gathered around campfires, told stories, and hunted together. The campfire is a Discord call, and the hunt is a raid boss. The tools have changed; the truth hasn’t.
In competitive shooters, we tap into our primal hunger for dominance. We test our reflexes, claim our place in the hierarchy, and prove to ourselves that we can win. Every victory has a spark of the same ancient rush that drove our ancestors to survive.
The Truth of Forgiveness and Redemption
Some games, like Undertale, challenge our moral compass, forcing us to confront the weight of our choices.
In this world, your actions directly shape the story, and you must face the consequences—or seize the opportunity to make amends.
This mirrors our real-world desire to make things right. Games offer a safe space to explore our capacity for forgiveness and redemption in a world where we can’t always undo the past.
They speak to a powerful truth: we seek opportunities to improve, to fix what we’ve broken, and to prove that our worst moments do not define us.
The Truth of Mortality and Legacy
Games with powerful narratives often force us to confront our mortality and the concept of legacy.
In Red Dead Redemption 2, for example, you play as Arthur Morgan, a character whose story is about his slow decline and ultimate quest for redemption.
You witness him grappling with a terminal illness and the meaning of his life.
This resonates deeply because, at our core, we’re all grappling with the same questions about our purpose and the mark we’ll leave on the world.
There’s a profound truth here: we all want our lives to mean something before they end.
The Truth of Patience and Delayed Gratification
In a world of instant feedback and one-click purchases, games like Stardew Valley and Elden Ring reveal a different truth: the value of patience and delayed gratification.
Stardew Valley requires you to plant, water, and wait, rewarding consistency and long-term planning. It shows us the satisfaction of nurturing something from scratch.
Elden Ring demands a different kind of patience—that of trial and error. You’ll die repeatedly, but with each defeat, you’ll learn.
Eventual victory is not about raw power, but rather, persistence and the immense satisfaction of conquering a seemingly impossible challenge.
In their ways, both games remind us that the most rewarding things in life often require time and effort.
Games are not the opposite of reality.
They’re condensed reality, stripped of its slow grind and accelerated and distilled into experiences we can experience in hours instead of decades.
Maybe that’s why we keep coming back. Games offer what life can’t always provide: clear goals, instant feedback, and a tangible sense of progress.
In a world where meaning is elusive, games allow us to grasp it, if only for a moment.
The most incredible human truth in gaming?
We are the game.
Games are not the opposite of reality.
They’re a condensed version of reality, stripped of its slow grind and accelerated and distilled into experiences we can experience in hours instead of decades.
Maybe that’s why we keep coming back. Games offer what life can’t always provide: clear goals, instant feedback, and a tangible sense of progress.
In a world where meaning is elusive, games allow us to grasp it, if only for a moment.
We carry our instincts, desires, and fears into every digital or physical world.
We’re just trying to win, survive, and belong in both.
