I'm not quite sure how to put this into words.. so I'll try not to ramble.

Everyone has memory hooks; they're a quintessential part of how our mind works a simple sensation, sound, or smell can send us hurtling back to another time or place. But every once and a while you form a hook that doesn't really take you anywhere..

Well, I've got a very specific one that does just that, I get a wave of nostalgia.. warm familiarity but when I think about it I haven't got the faintest idea why!

The dumb and very specific thing is.. City maps with deep sunset skyboxes...

Told you it was dumb! Anyway I stumbled accross it again today while getting some screengrabs from System Shock 2, the game's opening map on earth has you step out of a subway into a narrow street, and sure as sure can be it hit me again!

The skybox, the low detail brutalist architecture, the quiet white ambience humming away in my ears, all triggered that false sense of nostalgia. There isnt a time or place in my life where I've been anywhere like this, and yet it feels so damn familiar and never fails to raise my spirits regardless of the mood I'm in.

If anyone out there knows what this is called, or just gets a similar feeling from being in/seeing specific spaces please let me know. In the meantime I'm going to spend Christmas eve digging through my maps & mods collection to see if I can find other examples.