What Makes a Game Feel Mysterious?

What makes a game feel mysterious? And how do we make a player feel like an active participant in solving the mystery? Let's dig in to some amazing games.

=== Before you watch ===

This video contains no major spoilers for the games discussed. When more detailed information is provided, a timestamp is shown on screen so you can skip ahead.

=== Sources ===

[1] The mystery box | TED

[2] Tunic: This Was Here the Whole Time | GDC Vault

[3] Creature feature: The surreal pixel art and animation of Animal Well | Game Developer

[4] Rain World Is Like STALKER but a Platformer and You’re a Rodent | Vice

[5] Road to the IGF: Starseed Pilgrim | Game Developer

[6] Designing for a Sense of Mystery and Wonder | Runevision

[7] Two Years After Elden Ring, Miyazaki Trusts the Players to Figure It All Out | IGN

[8] Master of Play | The New Yorker

[9] Sparking Curiosity-Driven Exploration Through Narrative in Outer Wilds | GDC Vault

[10] Designing for Curiosity in Outer Wilds | Full Indie

[11] Rediscovering the Mystery of Video Games | Noclip

[12] The secrets of Animal Well, coming to PS5 | PlayStation Blog

[13] Designing the Secrets of Animal Well (ft. Billy Basso) | Design Delve

[14] The Design Evolution of Tunic | Noclip Crew

[15] The Witness Documentary | Noclip

[16] Practically impossible: The quest to decipher Fez‘s cryptic final puzzle

=== Chapters ===

00:00 - Intro
01:58 - What Makes Something Mysterious?
02:24 - The Locked Door
05:05 - The Rules
08:33 - The Landscape
10:46 - The Enigma
13:25 - Questions and Answers
15:20 - Metroidbrainias
19:30 - Super Secret Secrets
21:39 - The Answer
23:55 - Invisible Questions
27:06 - Conclusion
28:07 - Credits

=== Games Shown ===

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild | 2017
Rain World | 2017
Elden Ring | 2022
Outer Wilds | 2019
Tunic | 2022
Animal Well | 2024
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End | 2016
Boxes: Lost fragments | 2024
Hyper Light Drifter | 2016
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy | 2017
Crow Country | 2024
Dark Souls | 2011
Super Metroid | 1994
Hollow Knight | 2017
Spelunky | 2012
Isles of Sea and Sky | 2024
Lorelei And The Laser Eyes | 2024
Horizon Forbidden West | 2022
Demon's Souls | 2020
Starseed Pilgrim | 2013
Shadow of the Tomb Raider | 2018
Assassin’s Creed Mirage | 2023
The Legend of Zelda | 1986
Riven | 2024
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown | 2024
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword | 2011
The Talos Principle | 2014
The Talos Principle II | 2023
The Forgotten City | 2021
Her Story | 2015
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | 2015
Return of the Obra Dinn | 2018
Chants of Sennaar | 2023
Metroid Dread | 2021
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night | 1997
Epigraph | 2024
Fez | 2012
System Shock | 2023
La-Mulana | 2012
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD | 2013
The Witness | 2016
Super Mario Bros. | 1985

=== Credits ===

LOST © ABC Studios

=== Subtitles ===

[starvoid_official]

The secret sauce is banger soundtracks

[GameTesterBootCamp]

Oh SNAP! I actually worked on Rain World! Super happy to see it get represented on a big channel! Nice!

[williamwen]

I find Return of the obra dinn still being underrated despite being one of the best mystery game.

[ryanwillingham]

i'd argue that answers ARE important to some players. imagine if every time you asked a question, the answer was always "just because" - as mark said, players will start predicting the answer, and stop asking the question in the first place.

i've lost interest in some games very quickly because although their worlds were fascinating and complex, there was never anything hidden below the surface. "what's through that door?" "what could i find in that dark corner?" and "i already know which way is forward, but what could be behind the other passageways i haven't explored?" are all questions that can be just as compelling as any puzzle, but if there's never anything to find in those areas, players will quickly stop exploring. answers don't have to be limited to items or upgrades, either. a beautiful view, a bit of environmental storytelling, or even more questions to answer are all great rewards for an attentive player who took the time to investigate the most unassuming of locations.

sincerely, a player tired of poking around empty rooms.

[Justinb]

My favorite genre!
The worst part of Metroidbrainias, especially Outer Wilds, is that you can only play them once without having the knowledge keys and you are forever seeking out games to replicate that feeling of discovery.

[Koopaperson]

Step by step guide to boost your views slightly-
1. Put rainworld in the thumbnail
2. That’s it

[soltreeii]

Absolutely recommending Void Stranger for one of big great mystery games!

[bradb]

I have to disagree regarding the payoff of the mystery being unimportant. This is the same opinion that J.J. Abrams espoused in his "mystery box" TED talk. It creates an experience like the "Lost" TV show, which you referenced, whose ending famously disappointed everyone. Or in Star Wars, where "somehow Palpatine returned", because there was no planned answer to the various mysteries from the beginning. When you set up a mystery, you're making a promise. It's important to deliver on your promise.

[yanwittmann]

RAIN WORLD IN MY GMTK??? YES, PLEASE?

[amoliski]

I start every puzzle game thinking "I'm going to solve this myself!" only to end up with a walkthrough telling me the solution. It's at the point where I'll have a guide open while a friend plays a game so I can give them a bare-minimum hint if they get stuck. Even as simple as "Hey, you can solve this with what you have"
That kind of makes it suck to have a puzzle like the Animal Well one in your game that REQUIRES you to collaborate without any indication in the game itself that that's what's expected of you.
Are you following the developer intention by jumping on reddit, or did you just spoil the game for yourself?

[CheesecakeMilitia]

Mark's been cooking on this deluxe Metroidbrainia episode for a while

[dcbdce]

I love how virtually all progress in Outer Wilds happens inside your head. Once you learn its secrets, beating the game is almost trivial. I also love how it provides a mind-map to track what you've learned, in lieu of saving your progress.

[ryanwillingham]

as someone who recently finished Tunic and whose favorite game ever is Outer Wilds (which i discovered through the gtmk episode on time loops!) this video was MADE for me

[BlackMarluxia]

Tossing in Void Stranger as another game that rewards curiosity and hides a lot more thsn one might initially expect

[dontstealmydiamondsv]

For sure the mystery is way more valuable than their solutions. That being said I want to warn against the JJ Abrams style 'mystery box' technique running rampant in modern storytelling, which prides itself on aggressively riding the hype of mysteries that turn out to be completely arbitrary by design. Feelings of wonder are one thing, feelings of being ripped off are another. This is ultimately a problem of expectations though, so you aren't going to run into this problem by having a random hidden chest with a worthless item in it for example. The player wouldn't really have anything riding on that chest to begin with. Larger scale mysteries on the other hand...be careful

[geeshta]

Subnautica. That's the game that filled me with the sense of wonder and mystery the most, as well as dread and unease.

[typemasters]

The Ace Attorney series doesn’t count as a mystery or “puzzle box” game but I do like how it can give players a similar feeling when playing
Yes you can just brute force your way through each game, and the games do fall into the old point-and-click critique of “you need to follow the designer’s train of thought”
But when it works, you are trying to unpuzzle each case, making hypothesises of how each crime was committed, only to make a new hypothesis whenever the gave provides new evidence or when try to submit evidence that supports your own hypothesis only to be told you’re incorrect and needing to adjust your hypothesis

[line]

Not a game but reminds me of first time Beast titan spoke in Attack On Titan, broke my understanding of the world that story was taking place in & made me even more interested in the story & it paid off unlike Lost.

[jackmcawesome]

For anyone who likes metroidbrainias and games that feel deeply mysterious, I recommend void stranger! It's a linear series of block-pushing puzzles on the surface, with vast secrets underneath that reveal crazy lore tidbits and turn it from linear into a sandbox where you can jump around the void as you please. That being said, it can be quite unforgiving and it will require doing a lot of block-pushing puzzles, sometimes more than once, in order to get a peak below the surface. If you hate block-pushing puzzles, or just don't have a lot of patience for them, the game's secrets likely won't be worth it to you to find.

[bungercolumbus]

I think another game which goes well in this category is Minecraft or Terraria. Even tho it doesn't seem like it I remember the first time I played Minecraft or Terraria I had no idea how things worked. I explored the world and saw all kinds of different things, materials. The nether was something insanely cool for me as a child. Each time I got a new ore or weapon in Terarria I went to the main NPC and asked what could I build out it. Some amazing games for a first experience.