Virtual Landscape Design Patterns in Albion Online

The digital game industry has significantly contributed to the global entertainment economy in the last twenty years. Designing a virtual landscape consumes the greatest effort and time in game development, but only a limited number of landscape architects are joining the industry. We can expect that future landscape architects will join the industry, as virtual landscape shares similar characteristics to physical landscape, and they need to be prepared. Therefore, we need to understand the current status of virtual landscape design, which is the goal of this research. We selected the concept of Pattern Language because today’s game industry is unaware of the advantages of design patterns and a common vocabulary. Albion Online was selected because the game has various landscapes and relatively easy access. Virtual landscapes in the game were analyzed by reverse-engineering methodology. As a result, sixteen design patterns were found throughout a level. This indicates that today’s game industry isn’t actively using design patterns. However, we can assume that if well-trained landscape architects join the game industry, they could efficiently design richer landscapes with various design patterns. We need to start the education and training of young landscape architects for this new frontier.