Replayability: Do games these days need the replayability?

( 1 Vote ) Fellow gamers, do you enjoy very long-lasting RPGs like Pokemon? Have you ever showed interest in Halo 3 or Gears of War? Why do you play Resistance 2 so much? You’re probably experiencing something that is called “replayability”. What’s replayability, you may ask? Well, it’s the replay value that your games contain; it’s what’s going to keep you playing the same game over and over again. Most of the games being released this generation have shown a great improvement in terms of replayability, adding either some multiplayer to the game, achievements and trophies, or just simply additional classes.

Why do you think so many people play World of Warcraft and for so long? It’s sometimes hard to believe that people are still playing this game since its launch date in 2004. What we see here is replay value. With such a big and expanding world to explore, one has to wonder how long it takes to explore this whole world, gain so many levels, and start all over again with a different character. Then, expansions will come out for WoW adding even more content, which increases the replay value of the game even more. There is probably not even an ending to how much replayability one game can have, and when it comes to the WoW universe, it’s most likely endless.

Since Quake 1, and even before, multiplayer has been a big thing in FPS games, racing games, and so on. It’s also one of the most used clichés in this generation of video games, but it works well when it comes to well known games and developers with good reputation. Since Xbox Live, gamers have been playing console games online against people all over the world. Halo 2’s successful multiplayer brought players together to compete against each other as teams, free-for-all, and one on one. Since then, multiplayer on console and PC games (but less noticeably handheld games) has been getting more and more popular, and more games are seeing the integration of this feature.

One more thing that can add a lot of replayability to a game are trophies and achievements. With Microsoft first introducing this well known system on their Xbox 360 console, gamers have been trying to achieve points by completing challenges on their favourite games to show off to other people their skills acquired while playing the game. Hard achievements and trophies have been adding a lot of replay value to games, teasing the gamer with 150 Gamerscore points, or a platinum trophy to add to their total score/collection.

While some people don’t really care about this stuff, others enjoy getting these achievements and trophies as it implies a great deal of self gratitude when it comes to earning them. Games like Uncharted (additional cheats) and Halo 3 (Armour permutations) have achievements that if earned gains the player the ability to use certain thing that could not be acquired at the beginning of the game. I’d personally like to see Nintendo get this sort of thing one day, guess it’s just a matter of time.

So does replay value make you decide if you should buy a game? Absolutely not. A game can be very enjoyable, even if there’s no multiplayer, achievements to be earned or more things to be discovered. Like Zelda, Mario, Halo, Metal Gear Solid, Doom, all those exciting games that were fun back then are still fun today. That’s the true meaning of replay value: enjoying a game over and over again.

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