Wild hidden mechanics in your favorite games

Video games are built around them mechanics. This can be anything from the way you move through the world, to the flow of combat, to the way you interact with the trash can. Mechanics are the basic rules by which the game works and by which you interact with the world. They determine what you can do and what it means when you do something.

While most games break down their mechanics step by step (usually in a tutorial) so you know what you're working with, sometimes games hide their mechanics. There are many reasons to do this, from increased immersion at the cost of realism to encouraging a certain style of play without outright “forcing” it. All the following games are very popular, but for these and many other reasons they have hidden mechanics working in the background that will take your breath away.

Time signatures match the level you're playing (Thumper)

A musically focused method of increasing difficulty

Thumper is a very interesting rhythm game that is less about hitting specific notes and more about making moves in time with the beat of the song. It's very similar Metal: Hellsinger or even Hi-Fi Rush in this way. You control a bug-like spaceship on rails, grind along the side of a track and dodge obstacles to the beat of the beat, and even fight bosses to close out each level.

Every music theorist knows that time is the foundation of musical composition; the higher the beat, the more complex the piece. In case firing pin, which directly applies to each of the levels 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. It's a pretty clever way to gradually increase the difficulty of the game by tying that difficulty to the songs in each level.

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

It makes it easier to move between destinations

One of the most frustrating aspects of older JRPGs is random enemy encounters. They usually appear when you explore. Without warning, you will be thrown into combat with a random selection of enemies from the local area. These encounters can be a hindrance to exploration, especially if you're not grinding and just trying to get to the next objective. The genre has attempted to mitigate this in several different ways: Chrono Trigger made enemies visible while Pokemon gave players the ability to run away from an encounter. Suikoden took a more subtle approach.

When you travel across the world map in a straight line, such as from one city to another or when heading to a specific location, you'll encounter fewer enemies, which speeds up your travel time by eliminating stopping and starting random encounters. Meanwhile, if you're traveling more aimlessly, like when you're exploring or when you're trying to grind for XP, more enemies will appear, meaning that grinding is easier when you're actually trying to grind. It's a really cool way to balance both gameplay aspects to keep things moving forward.

Xenomorph has two separate brains (Alien: Isolation)

The method behind the monster

Speaking of the famous enemy AI, Alien: Isolation The Xenomorph enemy is widely considered to be one of the most detailed AI in gaming history. You play as Amanda Ripley (Ellen Ripley's daughter) who explores Sevastopol Station in search of her mother. While there are human and android enemies to contend with, by far the biggest threat is the alien itself. It will hunt you, learn your tendencies and adjust its strategy accordingly. If you hide in cupboards or under the bed too often, the Xenomorph will find you easily.

Alien: Isolation improves on this by giving the Xenomorph two separate “brains” that control its AI: one moves the creature around the level, finding paths through openings and away from areas it has already searched, and the other learns and advises the first brain on where to go. This second brain picks up on your behavior and tells the alien where to look for you, where you like to hide, and what patterns you follow when exploring (or escaping). What's most impressive is how these two minds work together to create a cohesive unit that not only acts 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 is a team game. Sure, you can play it solo with three other AI allies, but at the end of the day, you have to work together with the other survivors. These massive waves of zombies are too relentless to handle alone, and even the most talented players will eventually be overwhelmed by the hordes of undead that descend upon them.

The point is that since Left 4 Dead can also be played in co-op, there's no guarantee that all four players will live up to that expectation, so the game does a little trickery in the background to force you to work as a team. Even though zombies may seem soulless, they still have AI, and that AI will pick out players who are out. In other words, if you wander away from your teammates, you will target them instead. The same goes for players who don't burden enemies as much as others. Basically, if you're not actively helping your team, the zombies will go after you first.

Enemies cannot turn 180 degrees (Batman: Arkham Asylum)

They will never see you coming

Batman: Arkham Asylum he gets most aspects of Batman right: combat, investigative instincts, and of course stealth. This is the game that pioneered the “It makes you feel like Batman,” and there's a reason for that. This Batman is a crime-fighting threat. He deliberately walks into Arkham Asylum during a prison break and takes down each supervillain threat one by one. It's something Batman is known for, but the game takes some shortcuts to achieve this level of authenticity.

While hidden loading screens are a big part of this, another is the way enemies treat Batman when he's undercover. The main thing is that they never look back unless they are scared. They will turn 90 degrees to one side or the other, but never all the way around, giving you all the opportunity you need to sneak up behind them while ensuring they never look like they're just standing still. However, once they are in a “frightened” state, they may turn and become more alert when their mates are picked off. This means that encounters get more difficult as you progress, which is exactly how they should feel.

Your health takes longer to drain (DOOM)

It always feels like you barely make it out alive

Gunfights in FATE they're intentionally hectic, and it plays into the boomer shooter style that id Software is after. Horrible demons are everywhere, spawning in front of you and behind you, and your best chance of survival is to stay moving. There is no hiding behind cover; constant momentum and shooting are the recipe for success.

That being said, have you ever noticed that you often complete an encounter and only have a tiny bit of health left? It doesn't happen all the time, but it's a surprisingly common occurrence. This is because the last bit of your health bar actually has a lot more health value than it seems. This helps give the impression that you only escaped the fight by a skin. Assassin's Creed uses a similar mechanic where the last notch in the health bar is much more robust without showing as such. It's a clever way to make these games feel like a total badass.

Machines evolve if you kill a lot of them (Horizon Zero Dawn)

Just like AI

The machine is hostile Horizon Zero Dawn they come in all shapes and sizes. There are tiny Stalkers and Grazers, stealthy Stalkers and Snapmaws, and massive Thunderjaws, all trying to turn Aloy into a red blob on the post-apocalyptic wilderness. Her only option is to fight back, and she does, but with each machine she takes down, the AI ​​behind them gets stronger.

This isn't just a matter of tradition either; these machines actually evolve the more you kill them. For smaller machines like Chargers, you'll need to kill a dozen or more before their behavior changes, but for larger enemies like Stormbirds, killing one is enough. This development mainly takes the form of increased armouring, especially on the weak points of the machines. It also only applies to machines that are still being made in Cauldrons, so older machines like Corruptors don't evolve. It's a pretty cool detail that both improves gameplay Horizon Zero Dawn while building on the tradition of the machines themselves.

You can use enemies as a human shield (Miami hotline)

It's very specific and not very useful, but it can be done

Hotline Miami is a violent game. The actual context surrounding this violence is not so clearly explained. The whole thing feels like a mid-80s rush where they deliver mysterious packages and tell you to go kill a bunch of people and you do, usually with a baseball bat or a series of firearms. Enemies go down in one hit, but so do you, so the game's isometric levels often feel more like a puzzle than an arena of bloodshed as you plot your way through the army of gunmen that stand in your way.

Most of the time when you come across a weapon it will be a two-handed assault rifle or shotgun. Both are extremely effective, so don't skip them. However, if you end up with a handgun, Hotline Miami it has a hidden mechanic that you can use in very specific circumstances. If you're holding a gun and knock an enemy down (say by slamming a door into them), instead of the standard execution, you'll pick them up and use them as a human shield. It's not that useful – it basically just absorbs one bullet and more than likely follows right after it – but it's a very cool hidden detail that you can easily play the entire game and never see.