The Disappearing Interface: 2017 and the Rise of Diegetic Textual Cues
In 2017, as the gaming world debated the merits of open-world bloat and loot box mechanics, a silent revolution was brewing beneath the surface of interactive storytelling. It wasn't about fidelity or frame rates; it was about the very fabric of player guidance and narrative delivery: the user interface. Specifically, how a handful of intrepid developers began to dismantle the conventional button prompt, weaving essential player cues and critical story beats directly into the fabric of the game world itself. This wasn't just "minimal UI"—this was UI as a narrative device, an evolutionary leap epitomized by one profoundly overlooked masterpiece: Giant Sparrow’s What Remains of Edith Finch.
Before the Whisper: The Tyranny of the Overlay
For decades, game interfaces, particularly interaction prompts, existed as an unavoidable interruption. A gleaming "E to Interact" floating above a door, a context-sensitive "X to Pick Up" hovering near an item—these were necessary evils, functional yet immersion-breaking. While some developers experimented with disappearing HUDs or subtle visual nudges, the fundamental divide between the game world and its instructional overlay persisted. Players learned to filter out the intrusive UI, accepting it as a necessary tax for interactivity. Even games lauded for their narrative ambition often resorted to static text boxes or obtrusive objective markers, pulling players out of their meticulously crafted environments. This status quo, however, was ripe for disruption, and 2017 proved to be a crucible for innovative minds seeking a more seamless, poetic connection between player and story.
2017's Revelation: Edith Finch's Lyrical Language of Interaction
Released in April 2017, What Remains of Edith Finch, developed by the relatively obscure California studio Giant Sparrow, wasn't merely a walking simulator with a poignant story; it was a masterclass in diegetic design, particularly in its breathtaking use of textual UI. The game’s premise—exploring a fantastical house to uncover the tragic fates of the Finch family—lent itself perfectly to this innovation. Instead of traditional button prompts, players were guided by text that manifested organically within the environment, sometimes forming pathways, sometimes appearing as ethereal echoes of a character's thoughts, often dictating the very actions the player needed to perform.
Consider the sequence where young Lewis Finch, lost in his own fantasy world, navigates a mundane cannery job. As the player controls Lewis's physical body through repetitive tasks, text describing Lewis's increasingly elaborate mental kingdom unfurls across the screen, forming tunnels and structures that Lewis’s imagined self traverses. The player isn't just pressing a button; they are drawing the text, molding it as they control Lewis's daydream. This isn't just a prompt; it's a dual narrative device, simultaneously guiding interaction and delving into a character's psyche. It's an intimate, profound blurring of game mechanics and storytelling, a direct challenge to the conventional wisdom that UI must be separate from content.
Giant Sparrow didn’t stop there. When Edith swings on a swing set, the words "PUSH" and "PULL" don't appear in a sterile overlay. Instead, they dynamically stretch and contract across the screen, mimicking the momentum and rhythm of the swing itself. As the player moves the joystick, these words physically react, becoming a visual metaphor for the action. In another unforgettable moment, as Barbara Finch faces her demise, sound effects and narrative text, representing her comic book-style onomatopoeia, surge across the screen, encapsulating her final, terrifying moments. The UI isn't just telling you what to do; it's communicating emotion, context, and narrative beats with unparalleled elegance.
This commitment to textual diegesis meant that every interaction felt less like following instructions and more like participating in a living, breathing story. The font choices, the way text would bloom, fade, or physically interact with the environment—it was all meticulously crafted to serve the narrative. It transformed the player from an input device into an active participant in the unfolding text, literally reading and performing the story simultaneously. This design philosophy elevated the often-mundane act of interaction into an artistic statement, proving that UI could be more than functional; it could be beautiful, evocative, and deeply immersive.
Complementary Innovations: The Diegetic Wave of 2017
While Edith Finch stands as a towering example of textual diegesis, 2017 saw other developers exploring similar principles, further cementing the year as a turning point for immersion. Fullbright’s Tacoma, released in August 2017, presented an entirely different, yet equally innovative, approach to diegetic UI. Set on an abandoned space station, Tacoma tasked players with piecing together the events of its crew's disappearance through Augmented Reality (AR) recordings. The UI for interacting with these memories, rewinding, fast-forwarding, and focusing on individual crew members, was entirely embedded within the AR system itself. Players didn't open a separate menu; they manipulated holographic interfaces projected within the game world, physically turning their head or moving their cursor to interact with floating digital controls. This approach reinforced the game's identity as a technological detective story, making the act of investigation feel genuinely futuristic and integrated.
Even Ninja Theory’s critically acclaimed Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, launched in August 2017, contributed to this diegetic movement through its radical absence of traditional UI. Senua’s world was devoid of health bars, mini-maps, or explicit interaction prompts. Instead, player feedback, guidance, and even the "sense" of Senua's psychological state were communicated through environmental cues, sound design (the infamous voices in Senua's head), and subtle visual distortions. While not utilizing textual prompts, Hellblade's audacious commitment to an unadulterated, immersion-first experience perfectly aligned with the broader trend of UI dissolving into the game world, pushing players to interpret and engage on a more visceral, less explicit level.
Why 2017? A Confluence of Factors
The question naturally arises: why did 2017 prove to be such a fertile ground for these specific UI evolutions? Several factors converged to create this environment. Firstly, the burgeoning indie game scene had matured, fostering a culture of experimentation where narrative ambition often trumped commercial constraints. Developers like Giant Sparrow and Fullbright, freed from the demands of blockbuster franchises, could afford to take bold risks with fundamental game design elements. Their focus wasn’t on refining established genres, but on forging new emotional and interactive experiences.
Secondly, player expectations were shifting. As graphical fidelity approached photorealism, the jarring presence of traditional UI became increasingly noticeable, undermining immersion that meticulous art direction worked so hard to build. Players were ready for more sophisticated, less obtrusive ways to engage with virtual worlds. The rise of narrative-driven games also demanded UI that could enhance, rather than detract from, complex storytelling. Static prompts felt archaic in worlds striving for dynamic, emotionally resonant narratives.
Finally, technological advancements in rendering and scripting allowed for the fluid, dynamic integration of text and interactive elements directly into 3D environments. What might have been technically cumbersome a few years prior became achievable, enabling developers to animate text with physics, integrate it seamlessly with lighting, and make it react contextually to player input. This was not just a design choice, but a triumph of engine capabilities and creative coding.
The Lasting Legacy of the Disappearing Prompt
The impact of What Remains of Edith Finch's diegetic textual UI, and the broader 2017 movement towards invisible interfaces, has been profound, if sometimes subtly integrated, into subsequent game design. While its specific textual approach hasn't become a universal standard—owing to its unique suitability for linear, narrative-focused experiences—its underlying philosophy has seeped into the collective consciousness of game development. Designers are now far more conscious of UI's potential to break immersion and are continually seeking more elegant solutions.
Narrative adventure games, in particular, continue to draw inspiration. Developers now routinely explore more contextual, less intrusive ways to guide players and convey information. The success of games like Edith Finch validated the idea that players are capable of interpreting subtle cues and that ambiguity can sometimes enhance engagement rather than hinder it. It proved that a game could tell you what to do, what to feel, and what was happening, all without ever pulling you out of the moment. The "E to Interact" might still exist, but now, a generation of designers knows there are far more poetic, powerful ways to invite a player into a story.
In retrospect, 2017 wasn't just another year for gaming; it was a quiet turning point for the user interface, a year where obscure titles like What Remains of Edith Finch, Tacoma, and Hellblade dared to ask: what if the interface wasn't a separate layer, but an intrinsic part of the world, a whisper rather than a shout? Their innovations, though often niche, stand as testament to the boundless creativity within game development, proving that even the humblest button prompt can be transformed into a profound artistic statement.