Topic: Do you struggle with motion sickness?

There have been 3D first-person games that I stopped playing because I experienced motion sickness while playing. The pattern is baffling because I had often played for hours before it happens, and do not have the problem with other 3D games. Any tips?

I gave up playing Metroid Prime 3 and my second playthrough of Epic Mickey (both Wii games, though I played the former on my Wii U) due to this experience. Other kinds of 3D games I had no trouble with: Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, Super Mario Odyssey, Xenoblade Chronicles X, Hogwarts Legacy, BOTW/TOTK.

@cwong15
For me, I’m kinda in the same situation as you. Generally I don’t have motion sickness playing games, unless it’s for too long or I play Minecraft. For whatever reason Minecraft is really bad for me and I can’t play for long because I get really sick. I have found that playing games like BOTW/TOTK for too long can start making me sick. Although, if I’m sitting too close to the TV or traveling (in a car/airplane) I tend to feel sick more easily and earlier than if I’m at home sitting on my couch. I do find that taking breaks, making sure I’m not too close to the TV, and trying to limit how much the camera rotates has helped. I don’t play too many games that make me sick, but when I do it’s generally because of the camera and how fast it rotates (like minecraft). I’ve never played Prime, but I’m guessing that because it’s a FPS the camera might be the reason why you feel sick. I think that’s also the reason why some games are more severe than others, some cameras don’t rotate/move as fast as other games do. Sometimes games do have a setting to help reduce motion sickness, but it doesn’t work all the time or might not even be there at all. (Sorry that was kind of a jumbled mess, let me know if I need to clarify anything)

Happy gaming

In some VR games yes very much so otherwise no.

I don’t think I've truly experienced motion sickness, but sometimes when the games are too hyper realistic or when graphics are too busy, it’s like my eyes have problems deciding what to focus on.

Pretty much all first person games give me pretty serious motion sickness. It's fairly common to some extent or another. I can't play games like portal and I avoid games like Metroid Prime which is sad because I like Metroid. When I was a kid I didn't have this issue as badly so it has apparently gotten worse for some reason.

I deal with it by just not playing first person games.

I don’t struggle with motion sickness. But I have a hard time getting through any flight section in a game where I need to fly the plane upside down or sideways. I had to do them did GTA V and despite being disorienting and killing my brain it was thankfully not sickening in any way.

I never do, but sometimes my eyes do strain or hurt whenever the game has a lot of stuff on screen or if it has very bright lights, which worsens if I am too close to a TV screen or in the dark. I made the poor decision once to play a game late at night and during a cutscene the background turned entirely white (for effect) and it really hurt my eyes for a few seconds. Some games that do effects like that to the extreme can REALLY make me feel somewhat sick or make my eyes hurt real bad.

I'm not especially prone to motion sickness in general, but some games do cause me to feel sick or are otherwise unpleasant. First-person games are among the worst. Basically any game where the background or the environment can move or rotate quickly. In first-person games, if I move too fast, it could be an issue. I think it's the constant cycle of losing focus and having to regain it. I want to mention that the Gamecube versions of Metroid Prime 1 and 2 never caused me problems because movement is much slower than what is possible with a mouse for typical first-person games on PC, or with a motion pointer like on the Wii for Prime 3. I hated the motion controls in Prime 3 in general, regardless of any sick feeling, which I can't recall in that case. Some SNES Mode 7 games also make my brain hurt, such as the overhead stages in Contra 3. I find third-person 3D games are much more pleasant. Camera movement is usually slower, but it's easier to focus because the player character is always the focal point, so it doesn't feel so bad. Also, strong screen shake in some games bothers me as well. Not many games did that back in the day, and the ones that did only shook a little, with some exceptions.

I get really bad motion sickness in cars, especially in the back.
...as for games? Hyrule Warriors Legends is the only one that made me feel physically ill. My eyes hurt, I was sick, shivering - it was awful.
That was only with the 3D on though, in 2D it was fine. I was scarred though, can't say I had the will to finish it

Maybe I'd experience it more with first person games, but I don't really enjoy that perspective in the first place. Meanwhile I can play Mario Galaxy or Gravity Rush with no issues.

@SmashBall35 Good point about taking breaks. I wonder if motion sickness is simply a sign that I've been playing too long. I've not had the experience recently, and it could be because I no longer have time to do long play sessions.

Camera movement may be one reason I've never had trouble with 3D Zelda games: you can recenter the camera instantly with the Z-target button. I wish all 3rd person 3D games had this feature. Xenoblade X's version (L button) was horribly sluggish and Hogwarts Legacy does not have a camera recenter button. But then, I never had motion sickness trouble with those games. It's just that managing camera perspective was an unnecessary bother.

@cwong15 It's first person games that are pretty famous for making people motion sick so I'm not surprised you haven't had issues with Zelda. There are even academic research papers on first person games and motion sickness. I looked up one at random and it said this effects 10%-60% of people which is a large range 😅 I've also seen claims that it may (somewhat) vary by race or gender because of inner ear or balance differences.

There are different theories of why it happens, but the basic is that first person games trick your eyes and brain into thinking the character motion is your own motion so your eyes think you have one type of motion and your body feels something completely different, hence motion sickness.

One theory of why this happens evolutionarily is to protect yourself from poison — if you accidentally eat a bad mushroom and start seeing things that don't correspond to your body's motion, the safest thing you can do is vomit to minimize digested poison (hence nausea caused by motion sickness).

Ah then I simply lack basic survival skills.

Camera jerkiness seems to do that, and I've heard of people feeling motion sick when playing 3D platformers that have off camera controls. I do remember people complaining about the camera motion in Epic Mickey back when it first came out. It never bothered me, but maybe you might want to keep an eye on the Rebrushed edition that's coming out? The camera really seems to have been improved in this one.

If given the option, I toggle screen shake to "off" in every game.

No problems in a vehicle or plane, but if my video game display gives a little shimmy?

dizzy

I get it sometimes and it's mostly corridor first person shooters. Especially when I'm not familiar with the map, or the map is hard to make sense of. That sense of disorientation just makes it worse. Interestingly it's not so bad in games like Metroid Prime and I never had this issue in a game like Halo. But something like Doom or Alien Isolation....

Also it tends to be worse with low framerate games. And by low framerate I mean N64 era, in the teens. One of the many reasons I'm not a huge fan of that era of gaming. The main reason I know a low framerate makes it worse is that the first game I ever played sick playing was Stunt Race FX. And it was the first and only time I've ever felt motion sickness playing a racing game

Yessssss, I also experience motion sickness in 3D first-person games I find games like Super Mario Odyssey and Breath of the Wild to be safer, while intense first-person perspectives or rapid movement, like Metroid Prime and Epic Mickey, can be pretty problematic.

Hmm. Never from a game, but then I do get really really sick on cars and buses. Like I want to vomit so badly.
Trains are oddly ok. Is that a kind of motion sickness?

Yeah, I get some of that too though not as badly as you. The general cause is the same for motion sickness in boats/buses/etc as from first person games — your eyes see a different type of motion than your body feels. In first-person games, you aren't really moving your body much but your eyes think you are whereas with vehicles you do feel movement but it's not consistent with the movement your eyes see (e.g. bumpy car jiggling your body around versus incredibly fast running). Since those two cases are different it makes sense one might effect a particular person but not the other.

As for trains, I think it is simply because they are so much smoother than cars and buses so you don't feel the same level of confusing body movement.

No. But if I'm already feeling nauseous, I would avoid playing anything that is overly (visually) stimulating.

@FishyS Ah, right. Thanks for explaining that. I don't really play first person games, so that might be why I have yet to feel sick from a game! Makes sense trains would be smoother and less sickening. I should probably try patches/pills for it.