Resident Evil 4 was programmed to Fudge

El Mahdi · Jun 3, 2015

Resident Evil 4 was programmed to Fudge. It had an adaptive difficulty level that varied based on the actions of the player in order to maintain an optimal game experience - much like a Fudging DM.

This sliding difficulty scale helped make Resident Evil 4 one of the most popular video games ever, selling almost 6 million copies and garnering a 96/100 rating on Metacritic.

Apparently Fudging does make a game better - as long as the player doesn't know it's happening, and the DM knows what they're doing.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/resident-evil-4-mastered-game-200002658.html

http://www.polygon.com/2015/6/2/871...ed-in-game-difficulty-by-shutting-up-about-it

[The following] video from Mark Brown explains something that a surprising amount of people didn't know: Resident Evil 4 came with a sliding difficulty level that was constantly being adjusted for the player, but was never discussed.

This allowed the player to stay in a state of "flow," that great feeling where the game is just hard enough to give you a challenge while still allowing you to play at your highest competency.

This approach won't work on all games, but by removing any indicator that shows you when the difficulty is adjusted and not discussing it in interviews, the team behind the game was able to give players the best possible experience without making them feel weak for taking advantage of the system.

Resident Evil 4 is an amazing game, and this sort of invisible system is part of the reason why.

[video]https://youtu.be/zFv6KAdQ5SE[/video]

Resident Evil 4 was programmed to Fudge

El Mahdi

Muad'Dib of the Anauroch

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