It's no secret that the hottest trend in gaming today, and in shooters particularly, is the concept of player progression and development — in layman's terms, I'm talking about level and reward systems. From the mechanic's breakout in the 2007 hit shooter Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare to its even more impressive debut in Battlefield: Bad Company 2, it's clear that character persistence is a feature we ought to get used to.
And it's been gravy, both for consumers and the developers behind these titles. Players received a myriad of benefits, including extended time and value propositions to simple feelings of achievement and self-satisfaction. As for the developers, they got a willingly captive audience to push downloadable content upon whom, prior to this, risked the siren calls of freshly baked titles.
Still, it seems that no developers have come up with way to sustain their rank system's relevance. Inevitably, something within the players will flicker and cause a question to arise: Am I done now? At one point or another the answer will become "yes." Sure enough, people will begin to disembark and begin, once again, their search for a new time sink. With any static system this is to be expected; eventually people become tired of your flavor and begin to desire a zestier quality for their gaming taste buds. One has to wonder, however, if there is a way to forestall this exodus. Would a simple sauce or flavor enhancer help to engage players once again? Well, if Halo: Reach is any indicator, it sure looks like it!
Only months of constant, atypical grinding and you too can be Lt. Colonel!
Probably the most deceptively innocent, though truly sinister, mechanic of Halo: Reach is its reward menu entitled "challenges." It's nothing flashy at all; it's a simple list within an menu section that is surrounded by other, more appealing (at least outwardly) sections. The list is merely a handful of daily and weekly challenges which go through constant updates. Were it not for the occasional reminders it delivers, the feature would be downright immemorable. Still, for all its exterior's blandness, it is honestly a pivotal ingredient to keeping players, both committed and fleeting, from abandoning the product. In fact, I'd say that this single mechanic falls within a whole other system of gaming, most commonly found within the social space. That is to say, habit-forming gaming.
With the Farmvilles and We Rules of the world, developers force players to make repeated visits to these games. The only progression possible is through the use of limited resources, which are only replenished through the arduous mechanic of a one-to-one time cycle. You want to reach level two? You better be checking up on those turnips every two hours, lest they spoil and your efforts prove futile. These gruelling standards seem to be the inspiration for Halo: Reach's challenges.
Though not as cruelly timed, Reach asks players to perform optional tasks daily and weekly. If a participant completes them, Reach rewards the player for the work with credits (Halo: Reach's equivalent to RPG experience points) and the knowledge that the next rank is even closer! If players find one or all the tasks unfavorable and ignores them, the game doesn't punish them. The week's challenges will merely refresh with newly posted goals and objectives — just the stuff to provide you with that much-needed boost. Boost is key, as these challenges are all worth their effort in credits.If the system is doing its job of giving players satisfaction, rewards, and enjoyment, then this is merely the dash of salt to keep everyone going until the next big Halo thing.
Never have words and numbers been so compelling!
That's the real genius with this whole mechanic, honestly. Although other considerable factors exist, the fact is that no matter what your playing preferences, Halo: Reach is more than happy to reward you, both through its basic credits system and through its challenges. Be it campaign mode, Firefight, Score Attack, or Matchmaking, the range that Halo: Reach's multiplayer spans is impressive.
Speaking as a mainly casual multiplayer gamer, I know that these challenges have been downright incredible in boosting my already swelling respect for Halo: Reach's ranking system. What used to be a "grind 'till you drop" cycle has turned into a "dip your toe in" routine. Every day I spend at least a minute within Halo: Reach, just to see what that day's and week's challenges are. As someone who has burned out on Halo multiplayer before, especially when going it solo, that minute per day I spent in game is so important that Halo: Reach has become the de facto disc that rests within my tray.
Thanks to Reach's "do as you please" challenges, I've fallen in love with video games that include elements player progression or permanence. I only hope that other developers will take a closer look at the Halo: Reach community and see how many challenges people are chomping down on. With any luck, they'll soon realize that with just a dash of this secret ingredient, they too can prosper!