Snow in Video Games



Snow levels, snow themed music, snow graphics and physics. This stuff is all over the video game industry and today I want to take a long hard look at it. Feel free to put this video while you work, sleep, study, or whatever else it is you need to do. Hope you guys all have a great holiday season. Love ya.

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Stylized Station snow video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYZXOPJPoIo

00:00 – Winter
02:31 – Evolution
10:14 – Music & Ambience
14:49 – Snow Levels
24:09 – Snow Games
27:37 – & More

#snow #videogames #ghostcharm #redeadredemption2 #graphics #snowmusic

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50 thoughts on “Snow in Video Games”

  1. One of my favorite things/weather patterns/settings in videogames and real life.

    Edit: And yes, RDR2's snow is incredible. First time I played, I spent quite a lot of time just plowing through it.

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  2. I live in North Alabama. We get a GOOD snow on average, about once every 2 years, if that. When it happens, the world just stops and slows down for a day or two, and just walking around seeing your neighborhood engulfed in the white snow is always SO magical. THAT'S why snow levels in video games are always my favorite. It's such a rare, magical experience in real life, so the usually one area in a video game that has snow creates a rare, magical experience for me.

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  3. While i have experienced so many awsome uses of snow in games, and Mario 64 was a landmark, my all time favourite use of snow which I mmediately thought of when i saw this vid is Banjo Kazooie's Freeze easy peak.

    Thatlevel has snow, Christmas thenes and just a whole coxy feeling that i will always love.

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  4. I’m exactly 5 seconds into this video. Just came here to say that the moment I saw the thumbnail, title, and who it was posted by, I let out an audible “Oh, hell yeah” then started the video.

    That’s all.
    I’m going back in now.

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  5. Waking up during winter break as a kid and hopping on Runescape will forever be a memory that I will cherish. All of your friends online, the whole world of Gielnor, covered in snow, holiday events in-game, unique items, and not to mention: SNOWBALLS.

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  6. My first notable experience with snow in a video game. Where I actually noticed it and thought “woah”. Was the opening the Rise of the Tomb Raider.
    The mountain top view and the interactive snow with the main character was incredible.

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  7. Man I have to say, you are easily one of my favorite video game creators on the platform. So much of the time, when creators make videos breaking down video game themes and mechanics, there is an air of pretentious ego involved, like they are some sort of expert or connoisseur on the subject. These kind of people feel like if I said I enjoyed a certain game, I’d be judged for it if it isn’t a conventionally popular title (like Starfield for example). But somehow your videos have a sense of genuine passion and just positivity for video games and the art and hobby of it. Thanks for being you man, and I love the content!

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  8. for me the best ice levels and areas in games from my childhood coem from Megaman X, the penguin boss level, and tales of destiny, where you start in a ship that then crash-lands into a snowy area where you spend the better portion of the start of the game before moving onto opering the larger world.

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  9. Thanks for the shout-out for The Long Dark, one of my favorite of all games. Recommend people watch Jacob Geller's video "Fear of Cold" which discusses TLD and Frost Punk further. And TLD is due to get its final updates to both Story and Survival modes in the next couple months, the player base is pretty hyped for it now.

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  10. Although several of the games that come to my head instantly are named in this list (Skyrim of course is the big nail that got hit, Stardew Valley as well), I have a couple that I go back to for various reasons in games not mentioned. I grow along the great lakes, where snow is frequent and plentiful, so lots of snowy memories were made just cozying up in the house while several feet of snow pile up in a day, hoping that the next day will also be a school snow day.

    Command and Conquer Red Alert ('95) was the first game I remember seeing with snow in it. I remember sneaking to watch my father play the game, watching him defend his Mammoth tanks in fields of snow. Of course I'm sure he knew I was watching, but it didn't change how much it reverberates in my mind.

    Celeste- Summit is another major snow covered landscape that I go to frequently for snow. Celeste is one of my favorite games of all time, resonating with me on many levels, with it's amazing gameplay that keeps me going back for more, torturing myself with harder and harder challenges, such as going through each level completely deathless, quite a difficult task. Ending the main story in a push for the summit in a surreal snowy environment just keeps it there.

    A couple other ones I think of are Snowrunner, another game where it's the trudging through snow that's the joy, Persona games, specifically 4 Golden, The games are so well written and the joys of feeling like a kid wanting to go on adventures with friends in the snow really bring me back so much in that game, even if not much is done in the snow itself. Super Mario Galaxy has multiple levels in it that bring me back to the snowy joys soon after Christmas of getting that game, playing through Shiverburn Galaxy.

    On light snowfalls, where the roads are just freshly slick, one of my favorite things still is just to go driving with Mario 64 or Mario Kart 64 music playing (admittedly probably too loudly), while I bring back how it felt to race the penguin in M64 or spin out in MK to my little young kid brain. As a teacher, my views on snow days have changed some, wanting to actually be able to help students, especially those who have troubles at home, but there is still that part of me that just hopes for a little bit longer of the snow days, to relax and not have to prepare a lesson plan as quickly as I otherwise would have.

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  11. love how you talked about music, would love to see a video of you just talking about music in games.

    my own thought that makes music sound snowy is persistent layers, like the strings ostinato in skyrim's tundra theme, slightly symbolizing wind. makes things sound colder. its all about layering baby, got a layer for wind, got a layer for ice, got a layer for water, and all of those layers mixed together creates the mental image of snow and cold.

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  12. My fav snow level has gotta be from Rockstar's Bully. It was tied to the calendar so it was temporary but it was so much fun that I made saves specifically on those dates just to play in the snow.

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  13. The horror of the cold isn't that the world is out to get you. It's the knowledge that the world is entirely ambivalent to your existence. It can not be killed nor convinced. It's existence being formed by the very absence of energy.

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