A lot of times people talk about the end game in online games and how most games don’t have one. What exactly is this end game people are looking for? Let’s start by looking at what is mostly considered end game.
In online games, “endgame” refers to the content and challenges available after you’ve completed the main story or reached the level cap. It’s essentially the “late game” where things get tougher and the focus shifts to:
- Deeper challenges: This could involve high-difficulty raids or dungeons in MMOs, challenging boss fights, or competitive PvP (player vs player) modes.
- Character progression: Refining your character’s build with better gear, skills, or abilities.
- Long-term goals: Collecting rare items, participating in seasonal events, or climbing leader boards.
However, The nature of endgame content varies depending on the game genre:
- MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games): Often feature raids, challenging dungeons, andPvP battlegrounds.
- Action RPGs (ARPGs): May have high-level difficulty areas, special bosses, and grinding for the best gear.
- Shooters: Can offer competitive ranked modes or challenging co-op activities.
Not to mention here that a lot of game in 2023 & 2024 don’t have a distinct endgame. Some focus on providing a continuous stream of new content throughout your playtime. But for many, the endgame is where players sink their teeth into the most demanding and rewarding aspects of the game.
This is what games and developers are looking to provide us with when we reach the end of story in a game so that we stay and keep playing it and hopefully for hem start doing microtransactions if we are not doing them already, or buy a buyable DLC.
The reason question is not what the companies are tying to provide as end game but what the players want as end game. These two are not so different but they do have different perspectives.
What most people likely want from an online game endgame in 2023 and 2024 is:
- Challenging activities: Players seek experiences that test their skills and mastery of the game’s mechanics. This could involve difficult raids, high-level dungeons, or competitive challenges against other players.
As true as the above is, and of course the challenging aspect is not for everyone, here is where people has issues with this end game. Some are not too skilled nor they want to spent their time to become skills to reach the end game, as that would require effort and time. Those people feel as the end game is bad and give up an also feel disappointed at the game overall. Another problem is that a a lot of people like to play solo and most end game activities are made for group content. Perhaps, games should have both? Maybe, but most don’t.
- Meaningful rewards: The effort put into endgame shouldn’t feel wasted. Completing tough activities should grant rewards that are truly exciting and valuable. This could be powerful gear, unique cosmetic items, or in-game currency that allows further customization.
Unfortunately, personally I haven’t played any game that offer amazing rewards for completing hard dungeons, challenges or raids. Most of the times killing a boss give you tokens to get your gear from the vendors. This does not feel rewarding and more of a job. Most people ( including me) want to kill a big bad ass boss and then loot his corpse and get their rewards, may that be gear, weapons etc. Getting some token, well that feels meeeeh!!! Also the entire randomised loot drops have made game somewhat of a gamble with no guarantee that if you put the effort in and the time you will get that end game amazing loot. Most game don’t keep tract of effort. As effort I mean how many time you have defeated a boss and every time to increase your chance for the loot or keep track of items you have already looted so that you don’t get the same item of a set 20 times. This makes player after 10-20 attempts to feel as they will never get the item they are looking for and leave the game to seek a better environment and chances or a “better” end game in a new game. Some player will stay in a game
- Long-term engagement: The best endgames provide a reason to keep playing even after conquering the initial challenges. This might involve leader boards that incentivize competition, character progression systems that offer continuous improvement, or new endgame content that is periodically released to keep things fresh.
This long term engagement might be the harder part in games. I mean you can make bosses drop loot over tokens, or keep track of attempts etc. Creating new and engaging content is the hardest part for any developer. You imagination and ideas go only so far. To generate new environments, new mechanics, new looks, new maps, new enemies etc every 4-6 months is a serious undertaking. On top of that this content will have to be balanced, and challenging enough for all to play and play it for 4-6 months. Most new content I have played in the last two years and I was waiting for 4-6 months or more to come out i finished in 6-7 days and then I had nothing to do in the game, therefore started to look for a new game.
Other contributing factors that make games feel that they have no end game are:
- People play too many hours games: A games will play anything between 6-12 hours a day where an average persons will play 3-4 hour IF a day. This means that the games will finish content much, much faster and will need new things to do in less than 1 month.
- Too many games come out too soon: There are so many games released per month in all platforms. More that 100 games are released every month.
- Hype: Advertisement and promotion of games, no matter how good they are make people exited and try the new game. Companies want the players to play a game 1-2 weeks or a bit more, then sale them the next game that is exactly the same as they one they play but with different graphics. Easy for them to make and to make more money. This way no need for end game. Sale a game, make player play the story, no end game or massive updates, sale them a new game to play just for the story. Rinse and repeat. People, might jump ship for a new title quickly, especially if it offers a fresh take on their favourite genre.
- Twitch: Twitch big streamers that promote games and they play a game 1-2 week max only the main story. Not getting gear, or achievements, or exploring the game. almost never reaching the end game. They reach the end of the game ( story) not playing end game. They have no time. New games come out to fast. It’s their job and they are good at it. I have nothing against that. But I do thing the a lot of people watching say: ” if he is playing it.. it must be good.” So they buy and play.
For me games in 2024 are coming down to this:
Find a game genre you like playing. Buy it and play it. It doesn’t need to be one game, it could be 2-3 games. Enjoy it, then when you are done, find a new one. Games are meant to be played and have fun. Not grind and move to the next one every week. IF a new game comes along and it look great, make a note, finish your game then move down your list. I don’t expect to find an end game in any game coming our from now on. So I play what I like for as long as I want to. When I get bored, I move on. The golden days of playing a game for years and years and still having fun are long gone as many thing like that have gone in real life. Everything has its era. That specific era is gone. Now for older games like myself, we have to adapt or just still to what we know and not complain how the world has changed. The wold has changed many times before our time and it will change many more after our time. So will the gaming world. I am just happy to see the changes. I will end this post with a quote from a favourite song. “I don’t want to change the world, I don’t want the world to change me!”