VR Design Unpacked: Why ‘Embodiment’ is Extra Necessary Than ‘Immersion’

Our sequence Inside XR Design examines particular examples of nice XR design. At the moment we’re wanting on the recreation Synapse and exploring the idea of embodiment and what makes it essential to VR video games.

Editor’s Word: Synapse was launched two years in the past this week, nevertheless it’s insights are as related as ever in 2025! In celebration of its launch anniversary we’re bumping this episode of Inside XR Design again as much as our entrance web page to proceed the dialogue round embodiment as a vital design idea for compelling VR content material.

You could find the entire video beneath, or proceed studying for an tailored textual content model.

Defining Embodiment

Welcome again to a different episode of Inside XR design. At the moment I’m going to speak about Synapse (2023), a PSVR 2 unique recreation from developer nDreams. However particularly we’re gonna to take a look at the sport by way of the lens of an idea known as embodiment.

So what the hell is embodiment and why am I boring you speaking about it somewhat than simply speaking about all of the cool capturing, and explosions, and sensible design within the recreation? Properly, it’s going to assist us perceive why sure design choices in Synapse are so efficient. So follow me right here for only a minute.

Embodiment is a time period I exploit to explain the sensation of being bodily current inside a VR expertise. Such as you’re truly standing there on the planet that’s round you.

And now your cheap response is, “however don’t we already use the phrase immersion for that?”

Properly colloquially individuals definitely do, however I need to make an essential distinction between ‘immersion’ and ‘embodiment’.

‘Immersion’, for the needs of our dialogue, is when one thing has your full consideration. All of us agree {that a} film may be immersive, proper? When the story or motion is so engrossing it’s nearly like nothing outdoors of the theater even exists at that second. However has even probably the most immersive film you’ve ever seen made you suppose you had been bodily contained in the film? Definitely not.

And that’s the place ’embodiment’ is available in. For the sake of specificity, I’m defining immersion as being about consideration. Alternatively, embodiment is about your sense of bodily presence and the way it pertains to the world round you.

So I believe it’s essential to acknowledge that each one VR video games get immersion without cost. By actually taking on your imaginative and prescient and listening to, for probably the most half they routinely have your full consideration. You’re immersed the second you placed on a headset.

However some VR video games handle to push us one step additional. They don’t simply have our consideration, they make us really feel like our entire physique has been transported into the digital world. Such as you’d truly really feel issues within the recreation in case you reached out and touched them.

Okay, so immersion is consideration and embodiment is the sensation of truly being there.

And to be clear, embodiment isn’t a binary factor. It’s a spectrum. Some VR video games are barely embodying, whereas others are very embodying. However what makes the distinction?

That’s precisely what we’re going to speak about with Synapse.

Cowl You Can Really feel

At first look, Synapse would possibly seem like a fairly widespread VR shooter, however there are a number of actually intentional design choices that drive a robust sense of embodiment. The very first thing I need to speak about is the duvet system.

Each VR shooter has cowl. You may stroll behind a wall and it’ll block photographs for you. However past that, the wall doesn’t actually bodily relate to your precise physique since you by no means actively have interaction with it. It’s only a stationary object.

However Synapse makes partitions and different cowl interactive by letting you seize it along with your hand and pull your physique out and in of canopy. This feels actually pure and works nice for the gameplay.

And since you’re bodily transferring your self in relation to the wall—as a substitute of simply strafing backwards and forwards with a thumbstick—the wall begins to really feel extra actual. Particularly, it feels extra actual as a result of while you seize the wall and use it as an anchor from which to maneuver, it’s subconsciously changing into a part of your proprioceptive mannequin.

Understanding Proprioception

Let’s take a second right here to clarify proprioception as a result of it’s a time period that comes up quite a bit once we’re speaking about tricking our our bodies into considering we’re someplace else.

The clearest instance I’ve ever seen of proprioception in motion is that this clip. And hear, I by no means thought I’d be displaying you a cat clip on this sequence, however right here we’re. Watch intently because the cat approaches the desk… with out actually fascinated about it, it effortlessly strikes its ear out of the way in which simply on the proper time.

That is proprioception at work. It’s your physique’s mannequin of the place it’s in relation to the issues round you. To ensure that the cat to know precisely when and the place to maneuver its ear to keep away from the desk with out even taking a look at it, it has to have some innate sense of the house its ear occupies and the way that pertains to the house the desk occupies.

Within the case of the duvet system in Synapse, you intuitively perceive that ‘once I seize this wall and transfer my hand to the proper, my physique will transfer to the left’.

So somewhat than simply being a ‘factor that you just see’ partitions turn out to be one thing greater than that. They turn out to be related to you in a extra significant approach, as a result of you may immediately have interaction with them to affect the place of your physique. In doing so, your thoughts begins to pay extra consideration to the place the partitions are in relation to your physique. They begin to really feel extra actual. And by extension, your personal physique begins to really feel extra current within the simulation… you’re feeling extra ‘embodied’.

Mags Out

And partitions in Synapse can truly be used for greater than cowl. You may as well use them to push magazines into your weapon.

Backing away from embodiment for only a second—that is such a cool design element. In Inside XR Design #4 I spent a very long time speaking in regards to the reasonable weapon mannequin in Half-Life: Alyx (2020). However Synapse is a run-and-gun recreation so the builders took a very completely different method and landed on a reloading system that’s quick paced however nonetheless participating.

As a substitute of constructing gamers mess with stock and chambering, the magazines on this recreation simply come out and float there. To reload, simply slide them again into the weapon. It may appear foolish, nevertheless it works within the recreation’s sci-fi context and reduces reloading complexity whereas sustaining a lot of the enjoyable and recreation movement that comes with it.

And now we will see how this pairs so superbly with the duvet recreation’s cowl system.

The sport’s cowl system takes one in all your palms to make use of. So how are you going to reload? Pushing your journal in opposition to the wall to reload your gun is the right resolution to permit gamers to make use of each techniques on the identical time.

However guess what? This isn’t simply a very intelligent design, it’s one more approach that you would be able to have interaction with the wall—as if it’s truly there in entrance of you. You must know in case your arm is shut sufficient to the wall in case you’re going to make use of it to reload. So once more, your mind begins to include partitions and their proximity into your proprioceptive mannequin. You begin to actually sense the house between your physique and the wall.

So each of this stuff—having the ability to use partitions to drag your self out and in of canopy, and having the ability to use partitions to push {a magazine} into your gun—make partitions really feel extra actual since you work together with them up shut and in a significant approach.

And right here’s the factor. When the world round you begins to really feel extra actual, you begin to really feel extra satisfied that you just’re truly standing within it. That’s embodiment. And let’s keep in mind: digital worlds are all the time ‘immersive’ as a result of they essentially have our full consideration. However embodiment goes past what we see—it’s about what we really feel.

And on the subject of reaching out and touching the world… Synapse takes issues to a complete new stage with its unbelievable telekinesis system.

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