How many games have there been where you’ve finished all the levels but still wanted more?! With the introduction of an “open world”, players are given just that: “more”. Whilst there is still a main story, of which offers a finite amount of entertainment, the vast world surrounding it can be filled with side content, additional downloadable content, recycled content and even simply beautiful sights, that lead to an infinite amount of entertainment (so long as the player’s interest is kept).

During my first play-through of Red Dead Redemption 2, I ran through the story as fast as I could in order to be able to review it. I was playing on my PS4, and so I was able to track my achievements for completing each chapter with other players. Although the game had already been out for a month or so, only about 20% of PS4 players had completed the second chapter (if my memory serves me correctly). Needless to say these games could be played forever and ever.

Game: Fallout 4

The idea of difficulty scaling, invented first with the steep and brutal curves of difficulty in those early arcade machines mentioned early, is used again in these types of games. How long the player has spent playing the game, and how many items, experience points and resources the player has collected, is directly translated into an appropriate level of difficulty. In other words, areas (or levels) of the world have no associated difficulty attached to them. The difficulty of the game instead increases as the player’s character becomes stronger.