For almost as long as video games have existed, food has played an integral role in the medium. Food can influence gameplay, acting as health items and power-ups, or they can just serve as a bit of decoration. In either case, food can often be one of the most memorable aspects of a video game.
Food in gaming ranges from virtual representations of the real world’s finest dishes to strange culinary concoctions that can only exist in a fantasy world. There's plenty of food that make players wish they could reach into their favorite games and take a bite.
10 The Food Looks So Shiny In Genshin Impact
In Genshin Impact, food acts as consumable items that can heal players or give them a temporary stat boost. A wide variety of food can either by purchased at restaurants or cooked using ingredients found across the world of Teyvat. All the food in Genshin Impact has a shiny and pristine look to it.
In fact, most of the food looks even more appetizing than their real-world counterparts. Players would not be wrong in wanting to take a bite of intricate dishes like Golden Crab or Jewelry Soup. Even the simpler dishes like Steak or Teyvat Fried Egg can leave players with watering mouths.
9 Players Can Find The Finest French Cuisine In Kingdom Hearts III
It’s safe to say that the way food is implemented in Kingdom Hearts III is unlike any other game. In what other game can players cook gourmet meals with Remy from Ratatouille in a restaurant owned by Scrooge McDuck? Through various cooking mini-games, Sora and Remy can craft the finest of French cuisine that when consumed gives the entire party a stat boost.
At Le Grand Bistrot, players can cook a full-course meal with various appetizing options such as Consommé, Beef Bourguignon, Crêpes Suzette, and of course, Ratatouille. If players are not so enticed by French cuisine, Kingdom Hearts III also has several appearances of the iconic sea-salt ice cream that has become a staple of the series.
8 Get Served Some Hearty Meals In Monster Hunter: World
The Canteen has become a staple of Monster Hunter, where players can pay for freshly cooked meals. In Monster Hunter: World, the meals served at the Canteen appear to be particularly hearty.
Players can chow down on meals using ingredients sourced from monsters in the game like Wyvern Eggs or Aptonoth Meat in order to gain Food Skills that boost their stats. The Iceborne expansion adds even more ingredients and foods that players can use to create massive platters to fill their monstrous appetites.
7 The Food In Stardew Valley Is Pixel Perfect
In Stardew Valley, once players upgrade their farmhouse, they will gain access to a kitchen where they can cook a wide variety of recipes. Even with the game’s charming pixel art style, the food in Stardew Valley still looks delicious.
From the Survival Burger to the Pink Cake, Stardew Valley is full of fun recipes for the players to learn. Plus, players can get a sense of satisfaction from cooking a recipe with ingredients that they have farmed or foraged for with their own hands.
6 Anime Fried Chicken Is Abundant I Love You, Colonel Sanders!
I Love You, Colonel Sanders! A Finger Lickin' Good Dating Simulator is an official KFC dating sim parody centered around its founder and mascot, Colonel Sanders. As one might expect, the game heavily features food found on the KFC menu.
Although ILY,CS!AFLGDS doesn’t take itself too seriously, it's still an unapologetic advertisement for the fast-food chain that embraces its blatant product placement. With a constant bombardment of anime-styled fried chicken, biscuits, and mashed potatoes, it might be enough to make players crave the real deal.
5 Food Brings Reality To Final Fantasy XV
In Final Fantasy XV, over 100 recipes can be served to the player by Ignis, one of the party members, while camping. All these dishes look good enough to eat in real life. In fact, many of the 3D models for the different dishes were made by preparing the recipe in real life, before being photographed and scanned into FFXV. This process gives the food in Final Fantasy XV a photorealistic look to it that blends nicely with the game’s setting, a world where the real and the fantastical collide.
4 Pokémon Sword and Shield Introduces The Curry Dex
One of the signature features of the Pokémon series is the Pokédex, which catalogs every Pokémon you have collected. A new feature added in Pokémon Sword and Shield is the Curry Dex. 151 varieties of curry can be cooked by mixing and matching different berries and ingredients.
While curry is given to Pokémon in order to heal or level them up, these recipes are enticing enough for human consumption. Especially with ingredients like Smoke-Poke Tail or Moomoo Cheese that are implied to come from Pokémon, several of these curry recipes would be unlike anything that can be experienced in real life.
3 Follow DIY Recipes To Cook Food In Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Eating fruit is something that players could do since the very first Animal Crossing. However, a feature added in Animal Crossing: New Horizons is fruit giving players a bit of stamina. With the release of the Ver. 2.0 update, players will now be able to learn DIY cooking recipes and grow a variety of crops to cook these new recipes.
Some of these recipes include soups, salads, sandwiches, and pizza – which when eaten by a player gives them stamina equal to five fruits. These food items are presented with the signature Animal Crossing charm that make them almost too cute to eat.
2 The Cake Is Not A Lie In Portal
Food is not something that is featured heavily in Portal, but there is one specific dessert in the game that has become rather infamous. Throughout the story, GLaDOS promises Chell cake to motivate her to complete various tests. The repeated message, “the cake is a lie” scribbled on the wall of a hidden area of the test chambers even spawned one of gaming’s most iconic memes.
However, at the end of Portal, the cake is shown to be real and is a beautiful Black Forest cake. While a recipe for the cake is provided, it would not be wise to follow it as it contains ingredients such as “fish shaped dirt” and “fiberglass surface resin.”
1 Simple Materials Make For Appetizing Dishes In The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild
As you explore Hyrule in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Link can collect various materials that can be eaten to regain health. Burning or freezing these raw materials will give Link added bonuses. BotW also has a robust cooking system where Link can combine up to five materials in a cooking pot to create one of several dishes that provide different stat boosts in addition to regaining health.
Even the simplest combinations can come out as a mouthwatering dish, like Seafood Skewer or Simmered Fruit. While many of the dishes found in the game look appetizing, it would probably be best not to eat any Dubious Food.