Have you ever watched someone look SO satisfied with their food it made your mouth water? Well, prepare to get hungry as Fandom takes you through the best eating animations in video games!
Recipes that will take your breath away – The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Breath of the Wild took Switch audiences by storm upon its release. One significant component of the game is keeping Link’s hearts and belly full! In a game where monsters are around every single corner and the threat of the elements is deadly, getting your cooking skills top tier is serious business. Whilst travelling the world and new areas, players collect fresh ingredients to create, that’s right: new dishes! BoTW’s cooking is at its best when players experiment. Not everything you cook will be successful, but with the right mix, your food not only bolsters health but also adds specific bonuses! The cooking process is alive with movement as the ingredients jump around in the cooking pot, but the moment we know we’ve made something great is seeing Link using both hands to dive in and then patting his belly in satisfied glee.
Turning up the Heat and Stealing Hearts – Persona 5
P 5’s central protagonist, Ren, is like any typical teenager… but with special powers. However, between the secret heists in the metaverse with his friends and a suspicious cat, he still needs to study, sleep, wash, and eat! Living with Sojiro, a close friend of Ren’s parents, above his cafe, Cafe Leblanc, Sojiro teaches Ren to make his signature dish: curry. Sitting in the Cafe’s comfortable booths, relaxing music on the speakers, dining alone or with members of the Phantom Thieves, these eating scenes are rare moments of calm in their hectic and dangerous lives. Ren makes the food and, like any beginner, some are hits, some are misses; the secret to becoming a curry aficionado is practice! Or, failing practise, I guess you could always order in…
I’ve Come Up With A New Recipe! – Final Fantasy XV
No food has ever looked as good as the food in FFXV. Fact. The use of photogrammetry elevates the dishes beyond what we are used to seeing in video games. The developers strived to create delicious-looking food, similar to those that appear in movies or anime. In FFXV you are travelling with your party, camping out under the stars, and Ignis is serving up his latest creations. Like in BoTW, collecting new ingredients and new experiences lead to new recipes.
Whilst you can sample exclusive dishes at diners and restaurants, it is the outside cookouts that clinch FFXV’s place on this list. The cookouts lend to a sense of comradery, with each different camp you learn more of each other.
Something to Sate These Monsterous Appetites – Monster Hunter World
Nothing builds up an appetite like a hard day travelling across the different landscapes and stalking prey! Whether solo or in a group, in Monster Hunter World you work to kill or trap monsters for great rewards. Similar to FFXV and BoTW, eating in MHW grants players health and stat buffs and it may be that advantage that gives players the edge over the opponent. In MHW we don’t just get a little slice of an eating animation, oh no we get the whole pie! A cooking animation of the Chefs cooking up the Chef’s Special shows dedicated chefs dazzle with their culinary skills – all given the careful once over by the head chef of course. Then it’s our turn to enjoy the HUGE platters of food that are placed in front of us. Whether it is meat or fish, it’s eaten with huge gusto, with food in one hand and ale in the other. Perfect after a hard day out on the hunt. Honestly, we’re getting strong ‘it’s been a long day, I’m reaching for the phone and ordering delivery’ vibes from this animation…
“Oh Feebee Lay” (I’m Hungry) – The Sims 4
Like a person-shaped Tamagotchi, in The Sims players are responsible for tending to the needs and whims of their sims. Keeping them alive, happy, and well-fed. Unless, of course, they have created a tiny version of Karen from the office and Karen happened to go for a swim when the pool’s stairs aren’t working… Anyway, feeding the sim can be a relatively relaxing process – assuming everything resisted being set on fire. Now you’ve successfully made some food, each sim can react differently, and it depends on the traits your sim has. Some will take a bite and waft the delicious aroma closer to them and others express their distaste by shaking their heads and grumbling noisily! Whilst arguably the least extravagant of the animations, it is the different responses to the dishes that keep the animations fresh.
Putting this together has made all of us at Fandom famished! If you’re as hungry as us, then satiate those grumbling stomachs by ordering in with foodpanda. Why not take note of your own eating animation to notice how satisfied you look?