Gaming has evolved since it first came into being, the evolution has gone from strength to strength with gaming environments becoming larger and more complex, and with a whole range of different objects, and inherited properties thrown in.

For the past 10 years gaming environments have been an equivalent to a patch work quilt, with small arenas dotted around and connected by a small network of tunnels/pathways/fixed routes that blend into the backdrop or new areas are loaded after a cut scene; after which you enter into another area in the game.

But now we have procedurally generated environments that involve generating landscapes and areas of a map using maths, and variations of a series of base creatures and their properties, that are morphed into a similar creature with slightly different features with some games (No Man’s Sky).

A level of detail is added to the current place a person is on the map and the closer they get to an place on the map, the more it comes into focus, and level of detail increases; at the same time the area they left goes out of focus and the level of detail becomes less the further they are away from it. Everything seen in these procedurally generated environments is an actual place in that world that a player can go to.

What this means for gaming is that we don’t necessarily have to rely on fixed style arenas, and they can be vast and unlimited as they are generated on the fly by the maths and the hardware resources required are only used for that part of the game they are currently playing.

Those gaming environments like the upcoming “The Legend of Zelda”, will most likely be a hybrid of this with some obvious boundaries to mark the end of the different dungeons and arenas (areas on the map like Hyrule field or a palace), but the environments will be vast and explorable in any order.

You also have games where content is constantly being updated, and where they exist in the cloud and users will pay a subscription fee for a game that will really never end as long as players still have an interest, and will always be evolving and new areas opening up as they are developed and added.

But wait there’s more; what about Illumiroom and Hololense. With Hololense we could see characters jump out the screen at us, or some object fall out of a tree and roll out of the T.V and to the base of our feet; there is so much more than can be done with this technology and it’s use in gaming.

We also have Illumiroom, where the gaming environment and the environment around the T.V become merged via a fully interactive projection system; this increases our field of view and we will be able to see things that we could not have previously seen within limited dimensions of a standard screen.

There could be at some point in the future, games where we could physically enter into 3D environments through our minds and walk around with those worlds using some sort of a chamber and interface.

Exciting times ahead to come…