If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, it would be hard for me to imagine that in a game world labeled “tactical competition” and full of gunfire and life-and-death contests, a fast food restaurant sign would suddenly appear.
KFC, it broke into the Erangel map of “PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS” in an almost abrupt but accurate way. I am not unfamiliar with this game. It is a favorite “chicken-eating” battlefield for young people and an emotional outlet for a generation of digital natives in the middle of the night. But now, the gas station has been transformed into a fried chicken restaurant, just like an old flowering tree suddenly growing in the concrete forest, absurd, but highly symbolic.
In my memory, the first time I controlled the character to walk into the renovated “restaurant”, the touch in my heart was not joy, but confusion. The ordering machine was lit with a cold light, automatically identifying the character’s identity. The ID that jumped out on the screen seemed to be a confirmation of “who I am” by the digital world, and the fried chicken meal appeared on the counter so openly.
I observed carefully and couldn’t help but feel that this is not a simple game prop, it represents the result of a certain cultural grafting. The fried chicken family bucket is equivalent to a first aid kit. When using it, the character will make a gnawing chicken leg action, and the satisfied expression seems a bit ironic in the background of gunfire, but it is also real enough to make people think. And the “secret recipe fries” replaced the bandages, and the drinks became energy drinks. The replacement of these symbols is not only a design ingenuity, but also reveals a strong reflection of reality.
You see, such a design makes us think: Has the consumer culture of the real world quietly taken root in the virtual field? In Erangel, Miramar, Sanhok and even on the plane taking off, KFC logos can be seen everywhere. They are as eye-catching as advertising placement, but not as rough as in reality; instead, they build the illusion of “life” on the simulated battlefield in a “pseudo-real” way.
And players are not opposed to this, but flock to it. Perhaps it is because, in the anxious reality, this fried chicken has become a kind of emotional projection – although the game is fictional, fried chicken is a real symbol, it symbolizes familiarity, stability, heat, and even a kind of human warmth.
I noticed that a restrained mechanism is set in the game: each player can only order once in each KFC, and can only use it again after the game enters the fourth stage. This “waiting mechanism” reflects to some extent that modern people still desire a rhythm arrangement in instant gratification. The sense of restraint, sense of order, and hope in waiting in people’s hearts are implicitly expressed through the ordering mechanism.
This reminds me of the first foreign fast food restaurant that opened on the corner at the end of the last century. At that time, we also stopped at the door and looked at the fried chicken, hamburgers, and soda inside through the glass, as if looking at another world. Now, we reproduce this feeling in the game, and experience the little joy of “eating fried chicken for the first time” again in the form of roles and virtual identities. This is a cultural reincarnation and also a psychological compensation.
The addition of KFC not only enriches the interactivity of the game, but also reveals the increasingly blurred boundaries between the virtual world and real life. Eating fried chicken in the game seems funny, but it is so real. It reminds us that in this universe built by algorithms and codes, human emotions still yearn for warmth, order, and that familiar taste.
In a broad sense, this is not a brand linkage, but another extension of the lifestyle of contemporary people. A virtual fried chicken meal may be the red rope we hold tightly in the torrent of information, involving the fireworks of old life, and comforting our increasingly thin empathy in reality.
The virtual world will eventually expand infinitely, and this small KFC restaurant seems to be the path leading to the depths of human nature, reminding us that in the intervals between the charge, we must also remember to look back, eat a bite of food, and live well.