Building mental maps for large open worlds

A mental map is not a memory of the whole world; it is a set of routes and anchors. Three techniques reduce the time spent opening the map screen in any large game.

Quick answer

• Pick one anchor per region: a tower.
• Learn the routes between anchors before learning what is inside each region.
• Name regions in your own words.

Why this keeps happening

Spatial memory works from anchors, not from coordinates. A distinctive object at a junction is remembered far better than a distance or a direction.

The second technique is chunking. A world learned as five connected regions is easier to hold than one continuous space, because each region can be recalled independently.

What to do, in order

1. Pick one anchor per region: a tower, a bridge, a distinctive tree.
2. Learn the routes between anchors before learning what is inside each region.
3. Name regions in your own words, not the game's names.
4. Walk one route deliberately without the map, then check how close you were.
5. Add a second route only after the first is reliable.
6. Review the anchors before a session, not during it.

How to measure it

Map openings per hour is the measure. Below five means the mental map is working; above fifteen means the routes are not yet anchored.

Mistakes that undo the work

• Trying to memorise the whole world at once.
• Using game terminology that carries no visual association.
• Learning routes only by fast travelling, which removes the spatial information.

Frequently asked

Read next

• Life Without a Minimap: Surviving Big Open Worlds
• Slow Puzzles vs Fast Puzzles: What Each Trains

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• Shooter Zombie Survival
• Space Painters Deluxe
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