There's also the fact that you can't save an online FPS - the game happens whether you're there or not, so by having a character system that tracks your progress via levels, the game still creates a feeling of continuity. you're really playing one game separate points in time.”Īs far as DICE is concerned then, a levelling up system can help an online FPS deal with the absence of a conventional story and ebb and flow in its levels (which in a single player game, would be provided by cut-scenes and scripted events). As players gain experience levels, they grow in strength, receive customization options, and gain access to new equipment and areas to explore.”ĭICE's Sebastian views it thus, “ On a very, very fundamental design level it's a way to tie together separate gaming sessions into one coherent, meaningful experience for the human mind.
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We're big fans of small talk but levelling is a serious matter, so we go straight down to it with our first question: why add levelling to a game such as Bad Company 2? And how does it work in a game with a more traditional RPG such as Torchlight?Įrich puts it like this, “ I think the primary purpose of a levelling system is to provide a regular reward system for the players in the form of a series of not-too-distant goals. Two guys who know more than any grown adult ought to about levels and how they relate to games design are Sebastian Armonioso, one of DICE’s top developmental brains and a key man behind Bad Company 2 and Erich Schaefer, lead designer on the iconic Diablo games and co-founder of Runic games, makers of the modern classic Torchlight. Gaining in levels typically tends to unlock access to more items and abilities, which in turn can be levelled up.
The question then, is why is levelling up so popular?įirst things first, we should define 'levelling': it's having a game character or object whose skills and abilities are tracked and quantified by the game, and which increase in power over time based on how often or successfully they're used. While gamers often lament a lack of innovation in games, game mechanics change as rapidly as styles do in other forms of media - so while levelling has gone mainstream, the health bar appears to be on the way out and very few games these days features lives or continues. The vast majority of modern games monitor, quantify and reward your skills in a way that would only have been familiar to the biggest geeks in the 1980s.
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Today, you can still level up in an RPG such as Dragon Age, but you can also level up in far wider variety of games, from sports titles (think of the Be A Pro mode in numerous EA Sports games) to FPS games such as Bad Company 2 to driving games like Dirt 2. Why Everything Is Trying To Be An RPG NowTwenty years ago, the idea of levelling up in a game was confined to a very specific genre: the role-playing game, whose systems were based on pen-and-paper games such as Dungeons & Dragons.
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