10 Video Game Features Every Title Should Have Stolen

3. Enemies & Areas That Don’t Adapt To Your Level - Gothic 2

I admit, my old school RPG fandom might be showing with this one but there’s a special kind of magic to RPGs that do away with level scaling.

Level scaling works for a lot of games, it rubber bands the enemies so they sit pretty close to your level and while some enemy types or bosses may be more challenging, it’s not often you’ll run across an area that’s impossible. In games like Gothic 2 and Might & Magic X: Legacy, areas and enemies have fixed levels so if you can’t deal with them now you’ll want to go find a different conflict which you can handle and then come back once you’re more powerful. It’s an excellent mechanic to make game worlds feel more threatening and when you do manage to take out that beastie you lost to a dozen times, there’s nothing like it.

Knowing you have to constantly gear up and tread carefully is so much more engaging and immersive and it’s a shame that more games don’t do this.