Difficult levels in any game are important so that it caters to all gamers despite their skill sets and while usually, games provide different difficulty levels that players can choose before they start a game, Sony now has some bigger and better plans for games on its console.
The company has recently filed a patent for technology that would adjust the PlayStation game’s difficulty according to players’ skills if a certain level of performance is not achieved.
New Sony Patents for PlayStation Games Could Allow Game Difficulty to Adapt in Real Time
Sony filed the new patent on December 7th, 2023, and it is dubbed “adaptive difficulty calibration for skills-based activities in virtual environments.” This technology if implemented into games will see that the games dynamically adjust the difficulty in real-time according to how well a player plays and how they deal with certain elements, gameplay mechanics, player abilities, and more. For example, as players go through swaying enemies, the enemy difficulty will be raised over time.
The technology would collect and store player’s information in their profiles as they play games on the console. Then it would adjust those parameters, easier or harder so that the player is engaged and does not feel frustrated and give up nor that the game is easy for them. The patent also mentions that there is a big gap between the easiest and the hardest levels and this new technology would allow for dynamic difficulty for players that’s best suited for them. The patent reads:
The collected data may be evaluated to identify whether a user’s gaming performance level corresponds to an expected level of performance. When the user’s gaming performance level does not correspond to an expected level of performance, parameters that change the difficulty of the game may be changed automatically.
It is also mentioned that several parameters relating to movement speed, delay or hesitation, character strength, number of enemies, enemy AI, and more can be changed until a player is on the expected level of a player playing the game and then the player can be allowed for more difficulty. This process can also be repeated as the players develop their skills over time.
The company also argues that most games these days have fixed levels of difficulty and players can kill enemies at one level pretty easily, they would be frustrated and may not enjoy the next levels. The technology would remove that frustration and keep players engaged with levels as per their skills. However, it cannot be said for certain how this technology would work, but it is likely that it would be an optional feature that players would be able to choose instead of other game levels.
There are already titles that use such a version of technology like Resident Evil 4, Left 4 Dead, and the first Crash Bandicoot title but Sony wants to take it to the next level and see how video game companies are looking to use AI, the technology might be implemented sooner than we think. Electronic Arts also published a patent for similar technology last year that would adjust players’ controller settings based on their skills.
Sony has also published several other patents as well. One such technology will suggest players games and several in-game activities based on their behavior as there are several games in the library these days which easily overwhelm the players. This technology would judge players’ moods during gameplay and suggest the games.
Another one is a story replay technology that would log “trigger points” which are main story moments that players would be able to replay at any time. The company has said that it would allow players to redo some main in-game choices and pick up from a trigger point that would let them start a new timeline. It compared this technology to skipping between movie scenes.
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