Summary
An underappreciated aspect of a good role-playing game is its inviting world-building. RPGs with cozy, captivating, and homely worlds, especially ones where the player feels that they would love to move to for real, help ground players into the often long journeys depicted in such games. And when it comes to settling in, nothing quite captures the feeling of home and comfort like a good meal.
As well as delivering a warm, fuzzy feeling to players, the mechanics surrounding a good cooking system can add to the gameplay. Picking ingredients, hunting for meats, fishing, and building up culinary skills isa great side activityto counterbalance the weight of having to save the world, defeat the ultimate evil, or collect every sacred MacGuffin spread across the land.
If there’s one thing that helps build camaraderie in a group, it’s cooking and eating together. Many ofFinal Fantasy 15’s best moments take place around a campfire or in the various havens where the player takes all the ingredients they gathered during the day and cooks them up for a tasty bonus the next day. While players may not be able to literally taste anything they made in-game, the foods producedare a visual treat: dumplings, hearty soups, and even the instant noodles look mouthwatering, thanks to theFF15’s photorealistic rendering of each of the dishes.
Ignis can learn new recipes by sampling dishes in restaurants, finding recipes throughout the world, and receiving different kinds of ingredients from the party. Just like in real life, the more often he cooks for the group, the better he gets. Gathering ingredients can be just as rewarding as cooking and eating, as Noctis canspend time hunting down animalsfor their delectable meats and fishing for fresh seafood, the latter being a skill in itself.
While a little dated by modern gaming sensibilities,Arx Fatalisstill has a few surprises that are not seen even in younger, flashier titles, its cooking mechanics being one of those surprises. While it doesn’t have thousands of recipes, the process of cooking is incredibly immersive. Unlike most games with a cooking system, there are no menus. Instead, players cook meat and bake bread in real-time by physically dragging each ingredient around in the right combination of moves.
Pies have to be made from scratch by rolling a rolling pin over some dough. There’s something satisfying about spilling water over dry dough and watching it fluff up into a golden loaf next to a flame or watching a hock of meat crispy brown as it cooks. Since it’s still an example ofone of the best immersive sims, there’s also a robust magic system that interacts with the environment in realistic ways, players can also whip up a full roast chicken by throwing a fireball at a hapless hen.
Suikoden 2is a game about a wandering mercenary who, after obtaining their own castle, is able to build their own army to fend off an invading kingdom. One of themany, many available recruits(108 in total) is a chef, Hai Yo. While he may not be very effective in combat, he is a skilled and famed culinarian. After stealing a secret recipe from his former corrupted master, he is challenged to a cook-off by a member of his former organization. Hai Yo must battle twelve chefs to retain his honor and win back passage to his homeland.
Each chef brings something different, and the player must help Hai Yo cook something that will please each of the judges in each cook off. Recipes can be found as loot throughout the world, but during the competition, players have to be careful which type of dish to cook, how to spice it, and how to match their selections to the appetizer, main, and dessert catagories. Players have to aim for the highest scores, but each of the judges can be surprisingly fickle.
The deceptively named “Hardcode Mode” inFallout: New Vegasadds a lot to the game, and not really much in terms of difficulty for those already afraid to go outside because of baby deathclaws and wandering cazadores.Speaking of terrifying creatures, the monsters of the wasteland aren’t the only ones looking to take a bite out of something, as just about everything can be cooked up on a campsite for questionable amounts of sustenance. Can’t live on Sugar Bombs and Fancy Lad Snacks exclusively, after all.
Mole rat stews, grilled mantis legs, fire ant fricassée, and many more “acquired taste” items restore hunger on Hardcore Mode, but even with it switched off, food inFallout: New Vegasrestores health and confers a S.P.E.C.I.A.L. bonus for keeping it all down without throwing any of it back up. Food can be crafted at a campfire, and the ingredients for most of the food recipes can be found growing in the trash, burrowing underfoot, and in just about every Mojave wastelander’s nightmares.
The creators ofKingdom Come: Deliverancewere clearly interested in giving players adeeply immersive medieval experiencethroughout the RPG’s playtime. The protagonist, Henry, is a peasant who needs to drink, sleep, and eat. Players can find cooking pots at just about every town and campsite but can also go about gathering foodstuff to keep themselves well nourished. While the cuisine of a medieval peasant isn’t the most sophisticated, it is presented with a great deal of realism. However, thoughtfully cooked meals can help the player in a number of ways.
Chickens need to be de-feathered before their flesh can be cooked (although this is done with a straightforward sword swing, resulting in a convenient, simultaneous removal of all feathers). Most meat can be cooked, smoked, or dried, giving foodstuff less weight, longer lifespans (useful for long trips), or a better selling price. Certain filling foods will offer higher levels of nourishment but will reduce Henry’s energy levels. If he eats too much meat and cheese, he may find himself in a food coma.
