Jan 25, 2021

5 Parkour Moves in Video Games (That You Can Learn Right Now)

article by APK Ambassador Luke Albrecht

(A safety vault shown in Watch Dogs)

Introduction:

Everyone wants to fly! If only we could all move fast and free like the stuntmen in those adrenaline-inducing action movies. Unfortunately, “Hold my beer…!” is as close as many of us get to living out those fantasies, and most of the time that just yields a busted groin and a laughing friend. Video games have risen up to the call, and most games nowadays give us the chance to live vicariously through the superhuman protagonists inside. It’s no wonder a video on YouTube titled “Assassin’s Creed In Real Life!” has millions of views. Over the years, it’s been a huge growing trend to involve stunt-like movement in video games, and some games (like Mirror’s Edge or Dying Light) have even wrapped their entire identity around the idea of parkour.

Whether it’s traversal puzzles, escaping from zombies, or leaping off a 10 story building into a hay pile, there’s no shortage of impressive stunts in the games we love. What you may not have realized is that a lot of these games show a very accessible side of parkour too! Believe it or not, if you give yourself 10 minutes, you too can be mimicking some of your favorite characters (and you don’t have to bust your groin to do so either)!

So, here are five (5) parkour moves from video games that you can learn right now, link to gameplay footage examples in the footnotes section at the bottom.

The first parkour move we’re going to look at is a move so practical that it’s very possible you’ve already done it without even knowing! It’s called a Safety Vault (or Step Vault) and almost every 3rd person action-adventure game shows off this technique. The best recent examples of a Safety Vault can be found in The Last of Us Part II. There are a lot of fallen trees, railings, and low barriers to vault over in that game, and the characters display flawless use of the Safety Vault every time. It involves placing your hand and opposite foot on a waist-high obstacle and pulling your free leg through the opening between your arm and leg. Finish by stepping it down on the other side, and you’ve successfully done a Safety Vault. Anyone who trains parkour will tell you that it’s the first move they ever learned—and that it is a go-to basic that never loses its relevance. To see such a practical and accessible parkour move get so much representation across video games is awesome! The Safety Vault is a move you can learn in 1-3 minutes.

Games that display Safety Vaults:

God of War (2018)
The Witcher 3
The Last of Us
Grand Theft Auto
Uncharted 3

This move is the easiest do almost anywhere and for anyone to try. American Parkour even makes something for people looking to get started.

When’s the last time you jumped? Probably not long ago at all, right? Jumping is as magical as it is useful. Especially if you’re Spider-Man! The thought of being able to jump, and not come back down for a long time is an alluring notion for us all. Almost every superhero we’ve imagined can jump way higher or further than the average human, even when their skills and super powers may not have anything to do with jumping. Jumping is as primal and innate as it gets. Most video games have beautiful, fleshed out worlds filled to the brim with complex environments, so the ability to jump in games is almost always necessary. In-game puzzles and platforming that involve jumping are so commonplace that we're often thrown off when it’s not part of the controls.

In Parkour, jumping from one thing to another is known as a Precision (‘cause you gotta be precise!) When you’re playing Assassin’s Creed and tailing someone from up on the rooftops, you’re doing precision jumps every time to cross over to another roof or jump over to a wooden beam that you have to balance on. Get your Nathan Drake on and learn how to jump around (although hopefully in much safer environments than Nathan)! A good general rule for precision jumps is to make sure you keep your feet together—you’ll bounce forward or back from the obstacle if you mess up rather than, you know, straddle it...so many “Hold my beer…” mishaps could have been completely avoided if they knew this simple tip.

Games that display Precisions:

Assassin’s Creed
Dying Light
Minecraft
Mirror’s Edge
Uncharted 3

(A precision jump shown in Dying Light)

Faith, the main protagonist in the Mirror’s Edge games takes the cake when it comes to Tic-Tacs. Of course you have all the crazy wall running found in Prince of Persia, Anthem, and the more recent Jedi Fallen Order, but Faith’s Tic-Tacs off of walls are actually replicable. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen realistic Tic-Tacs in Watch Dogs 2 too.

In Parkour, a Tic-Tac is when you jump towards a wall and push off of it, usually to get up to something higher in front of you. It’s all about angles with this one. A 90° angle is the most successful angle to work with, and a good rule of thumb is that the higher you step the higher you’ll go, with appropriate speed of course. While Faith doesn’t have any issues with her feet slipping, the rest of us sure do! Always check your surfaces and get a good feel for the traction you have before you do your Tic Tacs. Remember that EVERY wall is different and safety comes first.

Games that display Tic-Tacs:

Mirror’s Edge Catalyst
Prince of Persia
Watch Dogs
Anthem
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

(A Tic-Tac shown in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order)

Since we’ve mentioned Tic-Tacs and Safety Vaults, we have to bring up Pop Vaults and Wall Runs. In Parkour, a Wall Run actually describes running UP a wall. The best parkour athletes have no trouble running up walls well over twice their height.

You use a Pop Vault for a wall that’s around shoulder height, too high to just vault over, but not so high that it requires a full Wall Run. Dying Light and Mirror’s Edge are games that utilize Wall Runs the most (I’m trying not to default to Assassin’s Creed for everything!) and Aloy in Horizon Zero Dawn does a fair amount of realistic Wall Runs as well. If you get good enough at them, you can be a total badass like Kratos and start doing them with just one arm like we saw in the last God of War game.

Similar to Tic-Tacs, the higher you step, the higher you go. A Pop-Vault uses one step on a wall to get you up to a Front-Support position, from which you’re able to top out or continue over the wall. Strong/stiff arms are your friend here as you push down on the top of the wall to get to that Front Support position. A Wall Run uses one step on the wall (sometimes two) to launch up and grab the top in what’s called a Cat Hang position (which we’ll talk about next!). Speed, timing, and A LOT of practice is required for a good Wall Run. Stepping on the wall at about hip height, and making sure to swing your arms up at the same time that you’re stepping on the wall is what you’ll focus most on.

Games that display Pop Vaults & Wall Runs:

Genshin Impact
Dying Light
Mirror’s Edge
Assassin’s Creed
Horizon Zero Dawn

(A Pop Vault shown in Watch Dogs)

A Cat Leap is your first step towards becoming a real life ninja.

In movies you usually see it as an actor jumping across a bottomless chasm to a cliff, dangling with one arm for a while before being able to finally swing the other one up and pull themselves up to safety. This very same scenario shows up in lot of video games too, especially the Uncharted games. But hands down, The Assassin’s Creed games have the best examples of Cat Leaps out of any video game. And it makes sense since they used actual parkour athletes for all the motion capturing. I do have to mention that the 1st Person Cat Leaps in Dying Light are pretty thrilling, especially knowing that zombies are cascading down the gap you just jumped over. Decidedly the trickiest move in this list, Cat Leaps definitely require some practice. And you’ll need a decent amount of strength if you’re going to finish with the climb up too. The most important tip is to always make sure you land feet first! Jumping and landing hands first will usually mean a belly flop against the wall is sure to follow. Check your surface and feel out the traction before you give it a whirl.

Games that display Cat Leaps: