Wild hidden mechanics in your favorite games

Video games are built around them Mechanics. These can range from the way you navigate the world to how combat plays out to the way you interact with trash. Mechanics are the basic rules by which a game operates, and through which you interact with the world. They determine what you can do and what it means when you do something.

Most games lay out their mechanics step by step (usually in a tutorial) so you know what you're dealing with, Sometimes games will hide their mechanics. There are many reasons for doing this, from an amplified immersion in the value of realism to encouraging a certain style of play without directly “enforcing” it. The following games are all very popular, but for these reasons and many more, they have Hidden mechanics operating in the background that will blow your mind.

The time signature matches the level you're playing (thumper).

A musically inclined method of increasing difficulty

Thumper A very interesting rhythm game that is less about hitting specific notes and more about making moves in time with the rhythm of the song. It's like a lot Metal: Hellsinger or even Hi-Fi Rush In that way. You control a Beetle-like spaceship on rails, grinding along tracks and dodging obstacles in time with the beat, and even fighting bosses to close out each level.

Any music theorist knows that time signatures are fundamental to musical composition; The higher the time signature, the more complex the song. In the case of thumper, Which directly applies to every level of the game. For example, levels 1 and 2 are in 2/4 time (or 1/2 for level 1), level 3 is in 3/4 time, level 4 is in 4/4 time, and so on. This is a clever way to gradually increase the difficulty of the game by tying the difficulty to the songs in each level.

Fewer enemies spawn when traveling in a straight line (Suikoden).

Makes traveling between destinations easy

One of the most frustrating aspects of old JRPGs is the random enemy encounters. They usually appear as you explore. Without warning, you'll be thrust into combat with a random assortment of enemies from the local area. These encounters can make exploring a drag, especially if you're not grinding and just trying to get to your next objective. The genre tried a few different ways to mitigate this: Chrono Trigger Made enemies visible, while Pokemon Players were given the option to run away from the encounter. Suicoden Take a more nuanced approach.

When you're traveling in a straight line across the world map from town to town or to a specific location, you'll encounter fewer enemies, which speeds up your travel time by eliminating the stop-start of random encounters. Meanwhile, if you're traveling more aimlessly, like exploring or when you're trying to grind for XP, more enemies will spawn, which means grinding becomes easier when you're actually trying to grind. It's a really great way to balance both gameplay aspects to keep things moving forward.

Xenomorph has two separate brains (Alien: Separation)

The method behind the monster

Speaking of the famous enemy AI, Alien: Alienation The Xenomorph enemy is widely regarded as having the most detailed AI in gaming history. You play as Amanda Ripley (Ellen Ripley's daughter) as she discovers the Sevastopol station while searching for her mother. There are human and android enemies to deal with, the biggest threat by far is the aliens themselves. It will look for you, learn your tendencies, and adjust its strategy accordingly. If you hide in lockers or under beds too often, the Xenomorph will find you easily.

Alien: Alienation Enhances Xenomorph by giving it two separate “brains” that operate its AI: one moves the creature around the level, finding its way through venting and away from areas it's already explored, and the other learns and signals the first brain where to go. This second brain takes in your behavior and tells the alien where to look for you, where you like to hide, and any patterns to follow when you explore (or escape). What's most impressive is how these two minds work together, creating a match that not only feels like a thinking enemy but often feels like it's smarter than you.

Enemies target isolated players (4 dead left)

Stay with the group

Left 4 dead It is a team based game. Sure, you can play it solo with three other AI allies, but at the end of the day, you'll have to work together with other survivors. Those massive waves of zombies are too relentless to handle on your own, and even the most talented players will eventually be overwhelmed by the hordes of undead bearing down on them.

The thing is, since Left 4 dead Also playable in co-op, there's no guarantee that all four players will live up to that expectation, so the game does a bit of background trickery to force you into teamwork. While zombies may seem mindless, they still have AI, and that AI will separate players who are out on their own. In other words, you will be targeted instead of your teammates while being away from them. The same goes for players who don't spawn as many enemies as others. Basically, if you don't actively help your team, the zombies will come after you.

Enemies cannot turn 180 degrees (Batman: Arkham Asylum)

They will never see you coming

Batman: Arkham Asylum Batman inherits many aspects of the franchise: combat, investigative instincts, and, of course, theft. It's a pioneering play on the meme “it makes you feel Like Batman,” and there's a reason for that. This Batman is a crime-fighting menace. He deliberately walks into Arkham Asylum during wholesale prison breaks and takes down each supervillain threat one by one. It's the kind of thing Batman is known for, but to achieve that level of authenticity, the game takes some short cuts.

While hidden loading screens are a big part of that, the way enemies handle Batman when he's hiding is another. The main thing is that they are not afraid until they look behind them. They will somehow turn 90 degrees, but never all the way around, giving you all the opportunity you need to hide behind them while making sure they never appear to be standing still. However, once they enter the “frightened” state, they may move around, becoming more alert when their friends are picked up. This means that encounters get more difficult as you progress, which they should feel like.

Your health bar will last forever (DOOM).

It always feels like you just made it out alive

fire in DOOM It's deliberately busy, and it plays in the boomer shooter style that ID Software is going for. Abominable ghosts are everywhere, spreading before and behind you, and your best chance for survival is to keep moving. No hiding behind a cover here; Constant speed and gunfire is the recipe for success.

With that being said, have you ever noticed that you often finish an encounter with a small chunk of your health? It doesn't happen all the time, but it is a surprisingly frequent occurrence. The reason for this is that the last bit of your health bar is actually worth more health than it seems. This helps give the impression that you have barely escaped the skin-on-your-teeth battle. Assassin's Creed Uses a similar mechanic, where the last notch in your health bar is much stronger without performing like this. It's a sly little way for these games to make you feel like a total badass.

Machines evolve if you kill too many (horizon zero dawn)

As would an AI

Machine enemies are within Horizon zero dawn Come in all shapes and sizes. There are tiny Stalkers and Grazers, stealthy Stalkers and Snapmaws, and giant Thunderjaws, all of them trying to turn Aloe into a red smear in the post-post-apocalyptic wasteland. His only option is to fight back, and he does, but with every machine he takes down, the AI ​​behind them gets stronger.

That too is not just a matter of knowledge; These machines really evolve the more times you kill them. For lesser machines like Chargers, you'll need to kill a dozen or more before their behavior changes, but for larger enemies like Stormbirds, only one kill is necessary. This development mainly takes the form of increased armor, especially in the vulnerable areas of the machine. It also only applies to machines being produced in the Cauldron, so older machines like Corruptors don't evolve. It's a pretty cool detail that enhances the gameplay of both Horizon zero dawn While tying into the lore of machines.

You can use enemies as human shields (Hotline Miami)

This is very specific and not very useful, but it can be done

Hotline Miami is a violent game. The actual context surrounding that violence is not all that clear. The whole thing sounds like a mid-80s fever dream, where mysterious packages are delivered to you and you're told to go and kill lots of people, and you do, usually with a baseball bat or a series of guns. Enemies go down in one hit, but so do you, so the game's isometric levels often feel more like puzzles than arenas of bloodshed, as you plot your course through the legions of gun-toting thugs standing in your way.

Most of the time, when you encounter a firearm, it will be a two-handed assault rifle or a shotgun. Both of these are extremely effective, so don't pass them up. However, if you end up with a handgun, Hotline Miami There is a hidden mechanic that you can use in very specific situations. If you're carrying a handgun and you knock an enemy down (say by hitting them with a door), instead of executing them standardly, you'll pick them up and use them as a human shield. It's not all that useful – it basically just absorbs a bullet, with the possibility of it following behind – but it's a very nice hidden detail that you could easily play through the entire game and never see.