It’s when you notice the little details in games that they really come alive. Those little things that hint at some sort of existence outside your control or awareness. They could be art props made to suggest who lived in the spaces you’re romping through, or little room layout details that show how the world works, but some of the touches that bring games to life the most come through animation.

This is a celebration of incidental animations that don't help you win or make you lose or do much of anything important. They just happen, and you probably don’t even notice them, or think about how much work they actually took. There’s a madness to incidental animation, that so much effort has been lavished into producing something so ancillary, something which many players might never come across. But it can make the difference between a game feeling right and feeling that little bit off. It’s about conjuring that suspension of disbelief. It’s where the magic is.

This selection of great incidental animation can’t hope to be exhaustive, since it’s simply compiled from the games I’ve played, and even within that paltry selection it’s only the things I’ve noticed, remembered and captured (with some pointers from some friends). But hopefully it’ll give you a new appreciation of the little things.

Assassin's Creed: Origins: Wet Bayek

Props to that special moment when a game nonchalantly plays out a very human response to something you’ve put your character through. Bayek doesn’t complain at you getting soggy, but his little hand and foot shakes give a sense of the person under all the stabbing. 

Rise of the Tomb Raider: Wringing out the ponytail 

Relatedly, Lara’s attention to her hair after coming out of water is a reminder of the tricky nature of dealing with long locks in extreme conditions. It’s just one of the many little animation details in Rise of the Tomb Raider, but several friends pointed towards it as their favourite and heck, they’re right.

Prey: Q-Beam wobble

Who was it at Arkane Studios who realised, "The Q-Beam absolutely has to comprise three objects which wobble as you move"? They are a genius. Weapons in games rarely passively react as you move around, and OK, that’s maybe because it’s a little distracting, but here in the Q-Beam, it’s wonderful. 

Overwatch: Junkrat's grenade launcher

Another delightfully ramshackle weapon is Junkrat’s Frag Launcher. The way all its jiggling bits and pieces move as you walk do a great job of communicating Junkrat’s pegleg limp, and the way the flap on the end of the barrel flips as you fall really gets a sense of momentum across. You can almost imagine how his insane launcher actually works.

Titanfall 2: Alternator

Still on guns (because games are basically guns, right), I just love all the unnecessary (i.e. necessary) movement in Titanfall 2’s otherwise fairly straight Alternator submachine gun. Little bits flick back and forth as you fire, simply to express and celebrate its name. The Alternator was designed by Respawn animator Ranon Sarono, who’s a master of the gun animation form. His showreels and game gun jokes on his YouTube channel are recommended viewing.

Far Cry 2: jammed shotgun

Technically, Far Cry 2’s gun-jamming animations don’t fit our criteria for incidental animation because they directly affect the game, but they’re just so expressive. The sheer annoyance of the player character, as demoed here by Tigerfield, is just wonderful, and completely matches your own reaction to finding your gun suddenly refusing to work.

Far Cry 2: Hand

Far Cry 2’s filled with incidental animation. The way the player character’s hand interacts with the world around you set new standards.

But here’s the real incidental animation gold in Far Cry 2: the fingers change position to turn the watch’s bezel one way or the other. I’m sure Ubisoft Montreal could have designed it more efficiently, and I’m so pleased they didn’t.

Head over to page two for more wonderful incidental animations, including indie Quadrilateral Cowboy, Dishonored 2 and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus.

Metal Gear Solid 5: iDroid 

Look in the background, and you’ll see Snake’s thumb mirroring your control of the iDroid menu on a little side-mounted joystick. Utterly pointless. 

Quadrilateral Cowboy: Bathroom 

Blendo Games’ Brendan Chung is something of a connoisseur of incidental animation, so I asked him to pick out what he’s most proud of from his own games. He chose the bathroom in QuadCow’s Valencia Villa. "The bathroom is way too detailed and interactive considering it has no gameplay impact and is not part of the critical path," he says. Every cabinet opens, every component works. "The excess I'm most happy with is how both the shower and sink, after you turn their water off, continue drip-dropping for a few seconds before completely stopping. I am secretly hoping this becomes industry standard."

Who fancies starting a campaign? 

Prey: Boiling curry 

Or maybe it’s a stew. Either way, this combination of a lovely shiny shader effect and a very simple undulating mesh brings a pot eternally cooking in Talos-I’s kitchen to life, if you should ever notice it. Chances are, you won’t. 

Dishonored 2: Audiograph 

Even more Arkane, here’s Dishonored 2’s wonderfully characterful audiotape player. Watching the handle wind around and its punchcard jigger in and out makes having to stay nearby to hear the tape almost bearable. 

Destiny 2: Sweeping bot 

This bot, found in a dead end in the depths of Destiny 2’s social area (if you put the time into exploring it), is a callback to a sweeping robot which featured in the first Destiny’s Tower social space. We can all cherish its heartbreaking dedication to a thankless task—perhaps it’s a reference to all the effort that went into animating it?

Little Nightmares

If you take a moment to watch them from safety, you’ll see one of Little Nightmares’ awful chefs perform a little under-face scratch which is just fantastic.

Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus: Reactor

Most incidental animation is small, but it doesn’t need to be. A way into his new adventure, B.J. Blazkowicz enters a vast hall that houses a reactor at its far end. The hall’s monumental machinations serve absolutely no function, the flying saucer-looking thing having no discernible purpose, and yet there it all is, but you were too busy shooting Nazis to see it.

Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus: Digital readout 

Still on Wolf 2, someone Machine Games went to the effort of making actual digital readouts on the assorted Nazi control boards that you probably never spent any time looking at, ensuring they count meaninglessly up as far as the digits allow. This is perfection, and an exemplar of the form. 

So here’s to the most lavish of incidental animation. Let it only become more so.

Assassin’s Creed Origins lets you step back in time and experience the twilight years of ancient Egypt. The line of pharaohs is coming to a sorry end, Greek and Roman culture is rapidly sweeping across the desert, and the old gods are being abandoned. Monuments, cities, and temples litter Origins’ immense world map, all of which have a long, rich history far beyond what you experience in the game. Here are some of their most fascinating stories.

Krokodilopolis

The Egyptian crocodile god Sobek was associated with fertility, power, and military prowess. He was worshipped by the Cult of Sobek in ancient Faiyum, in a city christened 'Krokodilopolis', or Crocodile City, by the invading Greeks. The city was famed for the sacred pond in the Temple of Sobek where a giant (and, if legend is to be believed, tame) crocodile adorned with jewels and gold was kept and paid tribute to. Bayek visits the city in Origins and is asked by a local priest to find out why the sacred beast has suddenly begun weeping blood. With giant statues of Sobek lining the streets, you can only imagine what the Greeks thought of this incredible place when they first discovered it.

Bent Pyramid

The ancient Egyptians weren't always master pyramid builders. The so-called Bent Pyramid is an early attempt, commissioned by the 4th dynasty pharaoh Sneferu around 2600 BC, and could owe its odd shape to the unstable ground it was built on. A popular theory suggests the increasingly heavy pyramid began to sink into the sand before it was finished, forcing the builders to sharply shift to a shallower angle at the top. One of Bayek's targets is hiding out in the pyramid's inner chamber in Origins, giving you a rare chance to venture inside. A smaller satellite pyramid was built 55 metres south of the Bent Pyramid to house the pharaoh's Ka, or vital essence, which also appears in the game.

Cyrene

Sailors who saw the grand Greek (and later Roman) city of Cyrene from the sea described it as 'the white shining breast.' And with its gleaming marble temples and statues glinting in the sun, it must've been quite a sight. Nicknamed the Athens of Africa, Cyrene was the seat of the Cyrenaic school of philosophy and was famously defensible thanks to its location among the high, rugged mountains of modern Libya and abundant water sources. You can visit the crumbling ruins of the city today, but in Origins you get to experience the place in its heyday. It's one of the most impressive locations in the game and Bayek can earn some extra coin there fighting in the gladiator arena.

Library of Alexandria

One of history's greatest tragedies is the destruction of the Royal Library of Alexandria. Dedicated to the Muses, the nine goddesses of the arts, this was a vast temple of knowledge and a research institute, packed with hundreds of thousands of scrolls charting the history of the ancient world. But after several wars, invasions, and uprisings, the library and its priceless contents were destroyed—although there are conflicting theories about who was actually responsible. Bayek visits the library in its prime and finds the halls filled with scribes and the shelves lined with scrolls. Visitors to Alexandria were obliged to surrender their books to be copied and stored in the library.

Giza

One of the most famous places in ancient Egypt, Giza was a necropolis for the pharaohs. The plateau is dominated by three iconic pyramids, including the legendary Great Pyramid, which was the tallest structure in the world for over 3,800 years. The pharaoh Khufu is widely believed to have commissioned this impressive building, although the irony is that, other than this, there are very few details left about his life and reign. Despite the fact that Origins is set many years after the Great Pyramid was built, it's in much better shape than it is today. You can still see the white, polished limestone casing stones that used to surround it, and the striking gold pyramidion at the top.

Memphis

Memphis was once the capital of the Old Kingdom, strategically positioned at the mouth of the Nile delta. For years it was a thriving centre of trade, commerce, and religion in ancient Egypt, and was believed to be protected by Ptah, the god of craftsmen and architecture. Memphis also had close royal ties, being the place where the pharaoh would receive the Pschent, or double crown: an important symbol of a unified Egypt. But Memphis' glory didn't last thanks to the steady rise of nearby Alexandria and its decreased religious significance as the old gods were abandoned. Bayek visits Memphis several times in Origins and finds a city already beginning to lose its prominence.

Great Sphinx of Giza

The Great Sphinx is one of the defining images of ancient Egypt, although not much is known about it. Carved from limestone near the Great Pyramid, it's believed to depict the pharaoh Khafra, although some disagree. No record of the statue's construction has ever been found by archaeologists. The Great Sphinx is carved into the bedrock of the Giza plateau; the same place where the stone used to build the Great Pyramid was quarried. The statue is in a pretty sorry state today, but in Origins we see the nose and ceremonial pharaonic beard intact. Bayek comments that it's smaller than he expected, a common remark from people who see the Great Sphinx in person.

Nitria

Death was an important industry in Egypt, and the sacred mummification process required a number of materials, including a salt called natron. This naturally occurring substance was extracted from dry lake beds and was used as a drying agent in the preparation of bodies for the afterlife. Bayek visits a natron mine in Origins, in a place called Nitria, where you can see hundreds of workers, hands caked in salt, mining chunks to be delivered to cities like Memphis for use in mummification. And overlooking the mine is the ever-watchful statue of Anubis, the god of death and embalming, who you occasionally see priests praying to, perhaps for a bountiful harvest of natron.