Maps and Cartography in Gaming: From Hand-Drawn to Procedural

Game maps are not just navigation tools. They communicate world design philosophy, reward exploration, shape how players understand spatial relationships, and sometimes become gameplay systems in their own right. The choice of whether to give the player a detailed map, a blank one, or no map at all fundamentally changes how they relate to the game world.

Breath of the Wild: Discovery Through Observation

Breath of the Wild’s map design represents a deliberate rejection of the open-world icon-cluttered approach. Climbing Sheikah Towers reveals terrain topography but shows no points of interest, no quest markers, no collectible indicators. Players must spot landmarks visually from tower heights and manually place up to 100 pins and stamps on the map. This forces environmental observation over marker-chasing. When you see a strange rock formation on the horizon, you have to decide whether to investigate it yourself rather than following a waypoint. The result is that exploration feels genuinely self-directed. Tears of the Kingdom expanded this philosophy by adding vertical layers: sky islands above and the Depths below, each with their own map that must be independently explored. The Depths are pitch black until you throw Brightbloom Seeds, creating a secondary exploration system where mapping the underground requires active illumination rather than passive tower-climbing.

Dark Souls: No Map, Maximum Spatial Awareness

Dark Souls provides no map at all. The entire interconnected world of Lordran must be navigated through spatial memory and landmark recognition. This design choice transforms navigation into a skill the player develops over dozens of hours. The moment you discover that the elevator from Undead Parish leads back to Firelink Shrine, connecting two areas you thought were miles apart, is one of gaming’s greatest spatial revelations. The lack of a map also means you can get genuinely lost, which in Dark Souls is both terrifying and meaningful. The game’s world is designed as an architectural puzzle where vertical connections between areas create a three-dimensional web that a flat map could never properly represent. When players eventually draw their own maps or find community-created ones, the density of interconnection becomes visible: Firelink Shrine connects to five different areas, each of which connects to two or three more.

Elden Ring: Hidden Cartographic Layers

Elden Ring gives the player a map but hides significant portions of it. Map fragments must be found at stone stele locations scattered across each region before that area’s geography becomes visible. This creates a progression loop: entering a new region means navigating without cartographic information until you find the fragment, then using the revealed map to plan further exploration. More significantly, Elden Ring hides entire underground areas off the main map. The Subterranean Shunning-Grounds beneath Leyndell, the Siofra and Ainsel Rivers, Nokron, Nokstella, Mohgwyn Palace, and Deeproot Depths exist as separate map layers that many players never discover on their first playthrough. This hidden cartography rewards thorough exploration with the feeling that the world is larger and more complex than it first appeared.

Civilization: Map as Battleground

In Civilization, the map is not a navigation aid but the primary strategic surface. Terrain hexes determine city yields (plains produce food, hills produce production, forests provide both), military positioning (hills grant defensive bonuses, rivers impede movement), and trade route viability. Map generation settings fundamentally change viable strategies: Pangaea maps with one landmass favor domination and land-based empires, Archipelago maps favor naval power and isolated development, and Continents maps create distinct diplomatic blocs. The fog of war means map knowledge itself is a strategic resource, and scouting with Warriors or Scouts in the early game provides information that shapes expansion decisions for the next thousand years of gameplay. The technology system also interacts with cartography: Cartography allows embarking, opening naval exploration, while Satellites reveal the entire map in the Information Era.

Metroidvania Maps: Progression Through Cartography

The Metroidvania genre uses the map as a progression tracker. In Hollow Knight, the map must be purchased from the cartographer Cornifer, found humming in each new area. Until you buy his map, new regions appear as blank space. Even after purchasing, the map only updates when you sit at a bench, meaning recent exploration exists only in your memory until you rest. This creates tension between pushing forward into unmapped territory and retreating to update your map. Dead cells in the map mark areas you have been but not fully explored. Completionists use the map percentage counter to track their progress toward 112 percent completion, a number that itself becomes a cartographic goal.

Procedural Maps: No Man’s Sky and Roguelikes

Procedurally generated maps create unique spatial challenges. No Man’s Sky generates 18 quintillion planets, each with unique terrain, making traditional cartography impossible. Instead, players use beacons, base markers, and coordinate systems to navigate. Roguelikes like Hades and Dead Cells generate new maps every run, meaning spatial memory from previous attempts provides general knowledge about room types and enemy placements but not specific layouts. This transforms cartographic skill from memorization to pattern recognition.

What Map Design Teaches Us

The map philosophy a game chooses reveals its priorities. Breath of the Wild values discovery. Dark Souls values mastery. Civilization values strategy. Hollow Knight values earned knowledge. No map design is objectively superior, but the choice profoundly affects how players experience and remember the game world.

For exploration, see Best Open World RPGs for Exploration. For strategy maps, check Micro vs Macro in Strategy Games.