This is only a small taste of what this game will show you.
The developers of a game put a lot of work into making that Scenery Porn, so they're going to want to make it stand out. Enter the Video Game Vista, a singular moment when the player is allowed to see the splendor laid out before them, typically from a cliff or other great height. This is usually preceded by the crossing of a threshold or scaling of a mountain of some kind to really make the eye-poppiness of the scenery stand out by contrasting it with an enclosed space.
The primary reason for doing this is the implication that the player can and will go to most of the places they can see at that moment, which not only gives the player a greater understanding of their impending journey but also heightens the illusion that the game is larger than it is and really feels like an all-encompassing world, especially if the game is more linear in its design.
This is especially common in open world games, since they have a tendency towards large open spaces to begin with. It will typically come immediately after completing the tutorial or starting area and may feature a striking shot of several important landmarks to give the player a good idea of where to go first.
Compare Crow's Nest Cartography, which is more of a mechanic that allows the player to see points of interest, but still may involve showing off the game's world from high up. May involve a Scene of Wonder if the character reacts to a spectacular view. Contrast Scenic-Tour Level, which is when a more linear game takes you through a more scenic level either to show off the visuals of the game in question and/or give you a taste of the environment. Has nothing to do with Windows Vista.
Examples:
- ANNO: Mutationem: On the first visit to an apartment building in Noctis City, Ann looks out over an outdoor viewing on the rooftop, giving an entire view of the city and the setting itself, complete with the main title appearing.
- BioShock:
- BioShock: After Andrew Ryan concludes his "I chose Rapture" speech in the bathysphere, the player is treated to the first sight of the underwater city of Rapture, as a whale swims by and a giant squid shoots past.
- BioShock 2 opens with a more standard version, where Delta walks over a small underwater hill to see Rapture in complete and utter ruins, a shadow of what it looked like in the first game.
- Bioshock Infinite introduces Columbia in a manner deliberately very similar to the first game, with an airship flying past Booker's capsule in the exact same way a whale did back in BioShock.
- Dante's Inferno: When Dante hijacks Phlegyas, he pilots him across a long bridge to the City of Dis. Once they're close enough, the camera pans out, showing a panoramic view of the whole city.
- Elden Ring has plenty of opportunities to showcase its glorious environments:
- The first that most players will see is the expanse of Limgrave laid out before them the moment they finish the tutorial dungeon, inviting them to begin their journey in the large world of the Lands Between.
- If you've defeated Godrick or found a route around Stormveil Castle, the next Grace you find is positioned by a cliff overlooking Liurnia of the Lakes, giving the player a view that extends towards Raya Lucaria Academy, Mt. Gelmir, and even Leyndell the Royal Capital.
- The closest Grace in Caelid (not counting any teleporter traps) is located next to a cliff that overlooks most of the barren wasteland and the giant lake of Scarlet Rot in the center of the region.
- Once you set foot into Leyndell and embark on its battlements, you are treated to a glorious view of the capital city and the petrified corpse of the dragon that has breached its walls.
- The Elder Scrolls:
- Morrowind: At the start of the game, the Player Character arrives on a boat and, after a short Forced Tutorial, steps outside for the first time. The first view is of the coastal village First Town set in one of the greener areas of the island. Additionally, letting you know that this isn't going to be a run-of-the-mill Medieval European Fantasy like the previous two games, is the Silt Strider against the far bank of the river. Finally, the orchestral swell of the main theme is timed to hit as soon as you step outside adding to the "epic" feel.
- Skyrim features two:
- First, after escaping from Helgen's tunnels, the player-character will have the eastern half of the Falkreath Hold arrayed before them, with sights like Lake Ilinalta, Bleak Falls Barrow and its mountain, and the valley between the barrow and the Throat Of The World directly in your line of sight to give the player a taste of the scope of the game.
- Second, if the player-character is following the game's main story after escaping Helgen, they will head to Riverwood and be asked to head down to Whiterun to inform Jarl Balgruuf of Helgen's destruction and that it was a dragon that did it. Following the path north out of Riverwood will eventually take the player to the edge of a ridge that overlooks Whiterun Hold, a massive plain with mountains in the distance and the hill on which the city of Whiterun itself is built, revealing the true scope of the game's world.
- The massive Game Mod project, Beyond Skyrim, features one in its Bruma pre-release. As the player character crosses the border to Cyrodiil at Pale Pass, and makes their way down from the Jerall Mountains, the player is treated to the sight of the lush and green Nibenay Valley stretching out in the lowlands before you, with Lake Rumare and the Imperial City at its center, and the red mountains marking the border to Elsweyr being just barely visible in the far distance, hinting at the scope the Beyond Skyrim project will have once it's done.
- Fallout 3: When the player first leaves Vault 101 near the beginning of the game, they will be standing on a cliff with a sign with the words Scenic Lookout printed on it. From here the player can see the ruins of the town of Springvale and its elementary school. In addition, the settlement of Megaton can also be spotted in the distance as well.
- God of War:
- God of War has a Scenery Gorn example: after making his way through Athens, Kratos emerges from a tunnel through a cliff face, where he can see down into a huge valley where a ferocious battle is raging as a gigantic Ares towers overhead.
- God of War III features the entrance to Tartarus, a seemingly-endless volcanic plain that reaches out into the distance. Kratos doesn't stay long, though, mostly because of Tartarus' most dangerous occupant, Cronos, trying to kill him.
- God of War Ragnarök: There is a ridge in Vanaheim that showcases a beautiful view out over the jungle. The first time Kratos steps out over it the Celestial Wolves soar overhead and turn the night to day. Also worth noting is the mountain that holds Faye's shrine at the end of the game where Kratos and Freya join forces that looms over the whole Lake of Nine.
- Vistas are downright a collectable in Guild Wars 2. Reaching specific points in the map (usually requiring some platforming to reach) causes a cutscene to play out that zooms out and shows around the surrounding area, usually a particular point of interest. Getting all the Vistas is necessary to 100% complete a zone.
- Hades features one such location on every level; in the very first room of each floor, there is a cliff that Zagreus can stare out over to look down into that level of the underworld, and a final one after beating his father Hades where he can look down into snow-covered Greece.
- Half-Life series:
- Half-Life: The Surface Tension chapter has you crawl out of a pipe and onto a sheer cliff face of a desert canyon, which is the most expansive bit of scenery you'll see until you hit Xen. With every remake the beauty of the vista only grew in scope and detail. Black Mesa properly gave this treatment to the first glimpse of Xen as well.
- Half-Life 2: Episode Two: At one point, during the early stages of the episode, you're required to take a look at the scenery towards the destroyed City 17, an event that prompts a resonance wave that removes a fence and allows you to continue.
- Half-Life: Alyx: The very first thing you're treated to after the introductory text fades out is an expansive view of City 17 and the incomplete Citadel from Alyx's rooftop hideout.
- Hob features several spots where the player character can sit down to enjoy scenic views. They even get marked on the map.
- Horizon Forbidden West: After her escapade at the Far Zenith spaceport trying to find a GAIA kernel, Aloy takes the huge Oseram elevator down into the Daunt, a narrow but beautiful and secluded valley that represents the very edge of Carja territory. The player can likely see all the way to Barren Light at the border of the Utaru territory from that high above, and the elevator ride's conclusion represents the first time they are truly cut loose and are free to explore the world.
- In Kingdom Hearts 0.2: Birth by Sleep -A fragmentary passage-, to get trophy nr. 24, the player has to reach the uppermost spot of Castle Town (a part of Cinderella's world). Upon reaching it, the camera pans out to show an aerial view of the town, then pans in to focus on the castle, as seen here (around 08:40 mark)
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- The Last of Us: Near the end of the game, Ellie runs off ahead of Joel, who runs after her through a cramped abandoned building before coming out onto a balcony, where he sees Ellie petting a giraffe as its herd migrates through Salt Lake City.
- In The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III and IV, you can take landscape photos at certain points to send in for rewards.
- The Legend of Zelda:
- In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, when Link first enters Hyrule field, we get a panning shot of the whole thing. Most new areas get a similar establishing shot, but this first one serves a narrative purpose, as Link grew up confined to Kokiri Forest, and this is a whole new world to him.
- In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a sweeping shot of the Great Plateau occurs when Link leaves the Shrine of Resurrection. Since Link has amnesia, this is again a whole new world to him.
- Mass Effect 2: In the "Overlord" DLC, as Shepard and company travel across the planet, the Hammerhead's VI will take note of a visually pleasing view for the player to witness nearby.
- Master Detective Archives: Rain Code: In the prologue, Yakou takes Yuma to the rooftop of an abandoned building to give him an overlook of Kanai Ward with the city itself being displayed promptly from a scenery shot.
- Metroid Prime Trilogy generally adds a cutscene every time a new area is visited for the first time. Of particular note in their Scenery Porn value are the cutscenes for Sanctuary Fortress in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and for Elysia in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.
- Early on in Monster Hunter: Stories, after the player defeats the blight-infected Nargacuga, they run up a hill and see the rest of the continent spanning before them.
- Pokémon Black and White: Skyarrow Bridge gives you a wide view of Castelia City's skyline, complete with dynamic camera angles, as you cross it early in the game to enter mainland Unova.
- Resident Evil Village: When Ethan Winters gets out of the woods, he sees the view of a European village for the first time. The view includes the castle and the mill.
- In The Saboteur, you can find several lookout points with telescopes that give magnificent views on Paris and its surroundings. You even get contraband rewards for finding them.
- Sniper Elite:
- Sniper Elite 4: Upon reaching the clock tower ruins in the "San Celini Island" mission, Karl, and by extension, the player, is given an excellent view of the rest of the beautiful island, which of course shows most of the targets and objectives of the rest of the map, and also establishes how much bigger the maps in this game are compared to its predecessor.
- Sniper Elite 5: The opening section of "Spy Academy" showcases just how massive and beautiful the island of Beaumont-Saint Denis is, which in this case covers 3/4th of the map.
- Spec Ops: The Line: Chapter 5-The Edge is the first moment that lets Walker — and by extension the player — suddenly feel the verticality and scope of the city of Dubai, as the player realizes how high up they are after walking out onto the edge of the skyscraper they just battled through.
- ULTRAKILL: 2-1 features a long, enclosed corridor and upward shaft that V1 fights its way through before arriving on a huge platform overlooking the layer of Lust, with the Corpse of King Minos looming in the distance. It's accomplished with Retraux PlayStation-style graphics, so there's not much to see visually, but the depth and scale of what the player is seeing accomplishes the same effect.
- Uncharted: Drake and co. are constantly in high-up places looking out over ancient, abandoned, breathtakingly beautiful cities. The entrances to Shambhala, Ubar and Libertalia definitely all qualify, though.
- Unreal features scenic vistas designed to boast the graphical capabilities of the Unreal Engine:
- "NyLeve's Falls" has Prisoner 849 exiting from the ship to a large, vast wilderness with some rabbits and flies and huts. And corpses. Just outside of the Vortex Rikers, there's also the crash site, in a cliff that allows you to see the ginormous lower levels and the big lake.
- "The Sunspire": Just entering the level, you witness the eponymous mountain, housing the central area, surrounded by a thin ledge with a bridge acting as the entrance.
- "Nali Castle": As if the intro of the game wasn't enough, just exiting from the cave nets you a long view of the eponymous castle.
- Xenoblade Chronicles: Every time you reach a new area, the game gives a brief cutscene of Scenery Porn with the name of the region.
