Experimental user interface design is worth admiring. When done right, a game’s UI can not only serve the vital role of communicating important game mechanics to the player, but convey something deeper about the universe the player’s avatar inhabits and how they themselves view the world.
One of the most memorable examples of this is the RIG (“Resource Integration Gear”) system in Dead Space, which localizes the inventory, weapons, and health meter of protagonist Isaac Clarke to a sleek and compact interface visible via a small holographic projector on his back. The brilliant, diegetic design takes the information the player needs to know and incorporates it directly into the game’s universe, from keeping track of Isaac’s health bar and ammunition counter to playing audio logs collected throughout the USG Ishimura and projecting cutscenes.
Unfortunately, there haven’t been many games since Dead Space’s initial release in 2008 that have attempted to replicate, let alone improve on, the game’s approach to diegetic interfaces. That is, however, with one notable exception: the 2017 sci-fi stealth horror game Echo.
Developed by Danish indie studio Ultra Ultra, the game centers on En, a young woman who awakens aboard a sentient starship after a century in hypersleep. All we know is that En suffered a gunshot wound to her abdomen before embarking, and London, the ship’s artificial intelligence, is pissed with her for reasons that won’t become entirely clear until much later on.
We soon learn that En’s destination is a mysterious planet that houses a “palace” of untold wonders, including the ability to resurrect the dead. Shortly after landing on the planet’s surface and discovering that it’s in fact an ecumenopolis, a supermassive structure which houses the so-called palace itself, En encounters the echoes: artificial doppelgangers of herself created by the palace in order to stop anyone from obtaining the power within. In order to succeed, En must find a way to defeat these immortal, infinitely multiplying enemies who can copy her every move.
Echo is one of my all-time favorite games. Developer Ultra Ultra’s creative reuse of assets, character models, and motifs masterfully evokes a sense of eeriness and horror, while the chess-like game mechanics are pure elegance. The game’s ornate, futuristic aesthetic was even inspired by Alexander McQueen and the Palace of Versailles. Hell, even Echo’s menu screen is an overt reference to the opening of Æon Flux! I could talk on and on and on about all the things I love about this game, but like Dead Space, its diegetic “hudsphere” interface is especially underrated.
Shortly after landing on the planet’s surface, En is given a space suit equipped with a “hudsphere,” a color-coded radar-like interface that encircles her body in a light-blue-tinted aura. The radius of the hudsphere acts as the player’s compass, pointing them to their next objective as they traverse the winding corridors of this immense palatial structure.
It’s only after encountering the echoes for the first time, though, that the hudsphere’s full functionality comes to the forefront. The closer En is to an echo, the more the suit’s interface reacts in proximity to a potential threat. A blue fractalized shimmer along the surface of the sphere indicates the presence of another humanoid entity; a yellow shimmer indicates the player is about to be noticed, while a red fractal shimmer means the player is being targeted by an attacker. When En is attacked, a quick-time prompt will appear on the HUD, allowing her to break free. After surviving an attack, red spikes will appear inside the hudsphere, signaling that she is vulnerable and will not survive another attack until they have disappeared.
All of this is explained in-universe as a part of the suit’s “assist” mode, which also braces En’s fall whenever she leaps from a great height and stops her from worsening her injuries if she runs for too long. One of my favorite elements of the hudsphere, though, is its “area scan” functionality, which sends out a pulse wave that expands the sphere’s radius, tagging all echoes in your immediate vicinity at the cost of momentarily blinding you to close incoming threats. No matter how many times I use it, it always feels sleek and effortlessly futuristic.
And that’s not even mentioning that, after En draws her pistol to attack, the radius of the hudsphere will seamlessly unfold to become the gun’s reticle. You can even tag enemies to your HUD from afar if you hover the reticle over them long enough. Nearly every element of the game’s broader mechanics and systems is reflected through the hudsphere’s design.
Eventually, En herself comments that the suit’s interface is technically “outdated” due to the century in hypersleep it took to arrive at the palace. Throughout Echo, the creative team at Ultra Ultra seized every opportunity to gesture at the periphery of the game’s universe, peppering enticing anecdotes and dialogue alluding to what it might be like to exist in its particular vision of a spacefaring civilization.
Combined with the game’s sound design, which reacts in response to the escalation of threat levels in real time, you’ve got a system that looks and feels as cool as it is legible and intuitive to respond to. On the whole, the hudsphere in Echo feels like both a reaction to and an evolution of Dead Space’s own RIG system.
Echo is a “dark horse” in every sense of the term: beautiful, difficult to master, and an experience entirely its own. Unfortunately, it was the first and only game that Ultra Ultra had the opportunity to develop; the studio was forced to close in 2019 following the game’s poor sales. That said, I wholeheartedly recommend experiencing it for yourself if you’re looking for an ambitious and unique, albeit imperfect, sci-fi stealth game with gorgeous visuals and music that stands the test of time.
Echo is available to purchase on Steam and PlayStation Store.
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