The world is our playground – especially when it is scanned and replicated exactly in a video game.

A wave of new games use a technique called photogrammetry to produce digital replicas of the real world. The technique can be used to recreate rooms, objects, streets and even whole cities, says Krzysztof Plonka of special-effects studio Better Reality in Poland.

Better Reality started out creating effects for the film industry. Now for the first time its technology will be used in a video game. Get Even is being developed by Polish studio The Farm 51. Another games studio in Poland, The Astronauts, is using a similar approach in its latest game The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. (The images in this article are all taken from this game.)

Canadian studio Pixyul wants to take the technique to its limit – scanning the whole world using drones and reconstructing it inside a game.
Add in virtual reality, which The Astronauts is also experimenting with, and immersion is taken to another level. (1)

We create our reality.
And if we wish, we can do it in HD analysis…

It may seem funny or just a sophistry.
But it is philosophy of the highest quality. In practice.