Are Games Becoming Easier and Easier to Beat?

[Lil MuDkiP849]

I personally think there's too much focus on "story" and "graphics" these days.

I think a game only needs a little bit of storytelling to give you a general idea, then the rest of the story is told by its gameplay. The first FPS games did this very well. It's "show don't tell" at its best.

This!

Look at Megaman X's so called "Tutorial Level" for example. It explained absolutely nothing to you, but you learned the ins and outs of the game through how the level was designed. You learned as you played the game, easy as that. No big paragraphs or waypoints saying "go here, do this, press this button to do X". Stuff like that feels a thing of the past, to which THAT is the real problem now.

It's not how games are becoming "unchallenging". It's about how games are becoming so focused on wanting to hold your hand through cinematics/forced set pieces to give you the illusion of success. Lots of designers nowadays honestly don't care to think about creative designs to challenge the player, just look around at the game market. It's much easier to pack a game with QTE's and just alternate death scenes if you fail, than to create the vibe for an epic boss battle that can make the player retry without it feeling cheap.

 

[Warrior Rapter]

I think it may also be in part to our developing technology as well. Think about it, back in the days of the NES, each byte of space for the game was important, so there was likely barely room for a tutorial level if one was even considered. It could also depend on the game, some games are designed to be a pain in the rear (I'm looking at you I Wanna Be The Guy series) and some are intended for younger audiences, where they have to scale down the difficulty to commendate. I think it's also that video games are starting to get to be more widespread than they used to be, so developers are trying to look after the more casual players over the ones who have been playing for years.