For ages, video games have had a few difficulty options available before you start the game. This can help players get into a game without feeling they are being too overwhelmed. Likewise, this could help players get more of a challenge if they are going through the game too easily. Then, there are options where you can head into the settings and change the difficulty if you’re feeling a need to readjust your gameplay experience. But in the future, we could see Sony bring out an option that completely adjusts the game difficulty to how you’re playing.
A new patent we’re discovering from Insider Gaming showcases a new difficulty-setting feature. Sony’s patent submitted is all about making adjustments to the gameplay on the fly. There’s no real setting to select with this patent. Instead, as you progress through the game, data will be stored from how you’re playing. This data can store just how easy or rough of a time you’re having in the game. That would then prompt the game to make adjustments. So think of it as a level where too many enemies are spawning, which will be adjusted to make the area a bit easier to manage.
At the same time, if the game finds you’re going through the game too easily, then it can start ramping up the difficulty. Perhaps a boss enemy becomes stronger, or more enemies can pop into the level. The idea here is likely to keep players engaged with the title rather than dropping out. Meanwhile, I can also see how some players would not be fond of incorporating this feature into their gameplay experience. After all, some games released are brutal for a reason.
Players who like a real challenge might find a setting automatically being adjusted will feel cheated out of their experience. As a result, we could see some developers ensuring that this automatic difficulty setting would be something that a player could enable. But again, this is only a patent, and that doesn’t mean we would ever see this feature come to fruition. Patents are a great way to see companies’ ideas for the future. However, not every patent sees the light of day, which could end up on the cutting room floor. So, this doesn’t mean we’ll see this feature incorporated in upcoming games from Sony first-party studios.
