What is encounter design?
In the broadest sense, an encounter is simply any antagonistic force that the player…encounters:
Encounters are a game’s units of conflict. While almost any obstacle could be considered an encounter, the term refers more specifically to a battle or combat exchange.
Each game handles them a little differently, but there are broad patterns that repeat within genres and some overarching rules that differentiate fun from irritating encounters.
Some games have encounters with wave after wave of reinforcements; others depend more on their boss design and cinematography; many encounters have chance-based elements, while others never change.
A great game with poorly optimized encounters is like having a toothache on your wedding day. They’re impossible to ignore—even if encounters don’t take up the bulk of players’ time spent in a game, the important ones often fill an outsized portion of the memories being formed.
What are the different types of encounters?
Encounters can be sorted into two overarching forms:
1. Discrete encounters:
- Transition to new battle screen
- Usually different mechanics and controls
- Clearly defined beginning and end (e.g. in a turn-based RPG, all the enemies fall, some fanfare plays, you receive a reward, then it warps you back to the previous map)
2. Continuous encounters:
- No separate map transition (but may still be limited to movement within a room)
- Button mappings don’t change
- Other encounters can overlap (this is what enemy mobs are—a series of overlapping encounters)
There are more nuanced differences between discrete and continuous encounters, with some games incorporating a mix of both—and most of it comes down to the game’s genre.
How encounter design varies across genres
Encounters are how the game challenges the player and resolves conflict. Many games take a subtly unique approach to encounter design, but the majority of your encounters will still follow one of the following patterns.
RPG encounters:
RPG encounters can play out on 2D, 3D, or even 2.5D maps. These games are usually single-player, meaning most combat will be PvE.
Encounters in single-player RPGs prioritize strategy and preparation. More often than not, the battle must be won before it starts by optimizing equipment, preparing the right abilities and leveling up sufficiently.
MMORPGs offer the option to separate encounter types by server, for players who would rather focus on either the PvE or PvP elements. Here are the server systems for several popular MMOs:
Many Souls games have encounters that throw countless smaller enemies at you, but we rarely view these as being excessively hard to understand or respond to (in contrast with the reputation of certain FromSoft bosses).
Since enemies’ behavior in relation to each other is less controlled in these games, the rules of combat are easy to understand.
This, then, is probably why boss encounters tend to be the most frustrating—they’re deliberately designed to interrupt the normal rhythm of combat with unusual attack timings, unintuitive hitboxes, and multiple combat phases, often with unique movesets.
FPS encounters:
These always occur on a 3D map and usually prioritize multiplayer, so FPS encounters feel very different from those in most RPGs.
There’s usually minimal in-game preparation, as players start with the same equipment set and find guns, ammo and other helpful picks lying on the map itself:
Player skill is a huge factor; reaction time, aim ability, teamwork and map knowledge can all yield a competitive advantage.
These are typically the most important principles to consider when designing an FPS encounter:
Survival horror/stealth game encounters:
Games like Silent Hill and Metal Gear Solid might not seem very similar on the surface, but they both strongly encourage avoiding combat by making encounters as anxiety-inducing as possible.
The original Resident Evil understood this perfectly. If the zombie only occasionally pops out and you never know where or when, it has the same effect as delaying the big reveal in a horror movie:
Players are usually given few weapons and limited ammo/healing supplies to add the extra weight of resource management to each encounter. Any non-stealth action that would be trivial in other games, like firing your gun, has higher stakes (and tends to be less effective).
These contrast with something like Doom, where you’re almost always running headfirst into danger—but each encounter makes you feel powerful instead. Enemies fall easily and you can expect a steady supply of health and ammo pickups:
2D side-scroller encounters:
Metroidvanias and 2D side-scrolling platformers nearly always have continuous encounters.
The main exception is boss encounters, which usually get their own room, either as part of the narrative design or just for cinematic effect. Even the original Super Mario Bros. halts the side-scrolling camera to signal Bowser’s boss status:
Since metroidvanias are essentially platformers with more RPG elements, even mechanically similar regular encounters can be affected more by preparing certain abilities or equipment.
Platfomers place more of an emphasis on the technical mastery of their game mechanics, while metroidvanias typically require both player skill and a strong understanding of the available character skills.
Both restrict enemies to a narrow movement range, giving the player freedom to move in and out of the combat phase. Any exception to this rule is terrifying—it’s the whole reason the persistent SA-X in Metroid Fusion makes for such tense encounters:
Strategy game encounters:
RTS games like StarCraft II mix combat encounters with city-building and resource management elements—here, one player has set up a row of tanks to attack their opponents’ units and buildings simultaneously:
With the constant need to balance both priorities, one of the most important skills to have here is recognizing when you’re already in an encounter. Your opponent would love for you to not notice until it’s too late.
4X games like Civilization VI, on the other hand, allow players to plan out encounters and typically give plenty of notice beforehand—it’s kind of hard to ignore all these troops inching closer to that city’s borders each turn:
But these encounters can also stretch out endlessly. For instance, if I declare war on a neighboring nation, that encounter doesn’t end until we mutually agree to peace—even if we stop sending units to attack each other and no actual combat is taking place.
Encounters in other genres:
There are of course many more genres than the ones I just covered, but this is the point where we start to stretch the definition of what an “encounter” is:
- Puzzle games arguably use puzzles as encounters, but they usually don’t have anything resembling combat; it’s not as though the puzzle pieces will move around or try to intercept your deduction.
- Racing and sports games comprise a sort of singular, ongoing encounter that doesn’t really fit the term (since an encounter is something separable from other elements of the gameplay).
- Text-based adventures and simulations have gameplay focusing on things like exploring peaceful environments or managing a plane’s complex controls, but these are also more of a single, fluid experience than a real encounter (compared with, say, waves of fighter jets chasing your plane).
- Fighting games are almost 100% a series of PvP encounters, with only occasional single-player PvE options:
How level, combat and enemy design affect encounter design
It’s easy to conflate encounter design with aspects of combat design, enemy design and level design, as they frequently interact with each other.
Level design and encounter design:
Encounter design can determine a level’s layout (“we need enough space for…the player needs visibility on…”), and level design can be used to generate unique encounters (that courtyard appears safe, but there’s really a sneaky sniper in a high-up window).
Here are a few examples of how just adjusting the elevation can dramatically affect encounters:
Level design choices generally fall between two extremes (the “balanced movement” and “restrictive movement” options above).
Confined, hallway-style spaces that make it easier to predict where enemies may be hiding:
This gives players more time to plan ahead and makes it easier for them to influence the direction enemies’ attacks will be coming from.
In contrast, wide open spaces typically allow for more free-flowing combat, as exemplified by areas like this in Hades:
Multiple enemies attacking from multiple angles will make the encounter more chaotic, so your level and enemy design should account for that to avoid overwhelming players, repeatedly locking them into stun animations, or generally letting things get too out of hand.
FromSoftware games constantly use level design to create thrilling encounters—many areas will hit you with one of these:
- Enemies that attack while you’re on a spiral staircase, creating exciting encounters where the player has to account for the enemies’ movements while navigating the terrain vertically and horizontally.
- A cave filled with dark-colored enemies that would stand out in most areas but can easily sneak up on you under limited visibility, creating anxiety-inducing encounters that keep the player on high alert.
- Surprisingly difficult non-boss encounters that leave a clear path to run away—a ladder, safer area to jump down to, or something similar. The powerful enemy will slowly chase you, creating an extended, panicky encounter.
- A shining chest sitting in an open room. “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is”—and, 9 times out of 10, there’s an enemy hiding just inside the doorway. …The 10th time is when the chest just stands up and eats you:
Combat design and encounter design:
Encounters are all about combat!
While combat can be fluidly intermixed into the core gameplay (as in most platformers), it can also occur on another screen with a different set of game mechanics (as in turn-based RPGs).
In fact, the defining feature of Action RPGs is that their encounters don’t transition to a new map.
For instance, Diablo IV (and every Diablo game) has a safe town area and unsafe dungeons (with separate boss rooms), but the majority of the encounters work more like those in platformers, with enemies freely flowing around large, often invisibly defined areas:
First-person shooters mainly comprise PvP encounters occurring on a single relatively large, but clearly bounded map or PvE shooting galleries with enemies popping out for the player to aim at, inside a shoebox and hallway structure.
They’re more concerned with issues like the map’s resource spread, the camera’s ability to track multiple moving targets, and tweaking the mechanics to make guns feel either realistic or exaggeratedly powerful, depending on the game’s theme.
Enemy design and encounter design:
Enemies determine the pace, difficulty and overall theme of encounters. Many games include variations of at least a few of these enemy design tropes:
- Vast mobs of easily avoidable enemies that make the player feel powerful
- Enormous, camera-filling bosses that overwhelm the player (usually with a soundtrack to match)
- Enemies that outspeed the player, to teach them about defense and evasion
- Magic-wielding enemies dressed like wizards, knights in armor that are as hard to stagger as they look, and other pre-contact hints to enemy behavior
- Sneaky enemies that hide behind walls, or can become invisible
- Apparently weak creatures that transform into intimidating ones when you bully them
Having such a wide variety of enemies allows these games to recombine them into countless types of encounters.
What does engaging encounter design look like?
These are some of the key components of enjoyable and fulfilling encounters:
- Balanced difficulty that’s challenging enough for most players without being too frustrating
- Healthy variety of ways to win; not repetitive or boring
- This is important just for the “fun” factor, but also plays into the game’s difficulty.
- Elden Ring offers countless weapons, abilities, accessories and consumables to approach each boss in creative ways. Some are designed specifically to prevent you from using the same strategy through the whole game (i.e. too fast to hit with jumping attacks, huge fire resistance to de-incentivize fire abilities and weapons, etc.).
- Intentionally designed and less random
- Visually intuitive abilities and movement systems
- The camera always shows what the player wants it to
- Creative and inspired level design
Take this part of God of War: Ragnarok:
Isaiah Everin has a lot to say about the relationship between enemies and encounters in his Enemy Design substack, and these challenge arenas show how even an enemy’s spawning position can shape an encounter:
More often than not, the most engaging encounters are those with this much attention to detail.
Unfulfilling or forgettable encounters, on the other hand, tend to have:
- Less designed and more random (this is genre-specific, but just as a rule of thumb)
- Repetitive, boring, predictable combat sequences
- Visual elements are unclear/can mislead player (e.g. a boss with attacks that have completely different hitboxes than they appear to)
- Enemy abilities that can lock you into a loop of inaction, like the status effects in earlier Pokemon games
- Imbalanced difficulty—far too easy, or too hard, or shifts jarringly from one to the other
- A camera makes it impossible to tell what’s happening
- Uninspired level design
For instance, a recurring topic of discussion in AI development is the encounter design behind Left 4 Dead 2’s “AI Director”:
Valve created this system to dynamically adjust mission pacing in a way that makes each replay of a level fresh and new.
The AI Director determines which enemies can attack each player based on their current “stress” level (which it estimates based on how dicey their current situation is looking).
Even when the intention is for the player group to get overwhelmed by waves of enemies, the most polished games of this kind have systems that make the experience easier to understand.
Another option is to simply make basic enemies incredibly predictable and only give special enemies more complex attacks and behavior, accompanied by clear call-outs and plenty of warning to allow players to avoid these harder encounters.
In short—try not to do this:
How to design a satisfying video game encounter
These are the key steps involved in crafting an engaging and rewarding encounter:
1. Learn the difference between a “fair” and “unfair” challenge
Fairness usually comes down to preserving player autonomy, but ultimately, what matters most is what your game’s audience will deem fair vs. unfair. Understanding these patterns ahead of time can help you build the game around them.
For instance, hidden collapsing floors feel unfair when they’re impossible to predict or notice and have a negative effect, like lost progress. A fair version of this would be a floor with subtle cracks or discoloration.
Example: It’s immediately clear which floor panels are about to fall away in this boss encounter in Link’s Awakening (2019):
2. Offer more than one way to win, but not too many
Too many options can make the encounter feel tedious, or require excessive time investment to test them all out, but too few leads to boring repetition.
The goal is to find the happy medium where players acquire new abilities and equipment at their preferred rate—enough to get excited about the potential of their increased toolkit, but not to feel like it’s a chore to explore every last one.
Example: The Binding of Isaac offers an almost endless array of power-up combinations, with the freedom to skip any upgrades—but for some players, an overabundance of choices still feels like this:
3. Include a healthy amount of randomization
Randomization can be an extremely helpful game design tool, as it tends to make the experience seem more realistic and unconstrained (while emphasizing deterministic and reactive timings tends to make everything feel more “gamey”).
But randomizing the conditions for beginning the encounter itself often means taking too much control away from the player, which can be frustrating.
Example: Randomly initiating encounters can still be situationally useful in situations where there aren’t traditionally navigable maps and the game has already conditioned players to accept a certain degree of random happenstance—like Faster Than Light:
4. Make all abilities and movements visually intuitive to players
You can skew the hitboxes slightly to make character skills have more forgiving animations, or make the player character’s hitbox small to give the impression of more easily avoiding attacks, but skewing these too far in either direction can ruin the player’s immersion.
A problematic camera can easily break an otherwise solid encounter if it can’t adjust to the enemy/boss’s movement.
Example: This boss from Elden Ring’s DLC frequently breaks the otherwise well-designed camera with its odd, jerky movement style and quick attacks:
5. Use level, enemy and combat design to support encounter design
In anything heavily movement-based, like most FPS games, significant issues with the level design or enemy design can hamper the whole experience.
For instance, if the combat is based around acrobatic movement, most levels should offer plenty of space to move around. If the goal is for players to experiment with their growing toolkit, don’t tie new abilities to rare consumables.
Level design might not be the most critical element of most RPGs, but that creates an opportunity for creative, well-thought-out levels to set them apart from their peers. (Players always appreciate when a game is willing to explore beyond its genre’s usual expectations.)
Example: The puzzle elements in games like Wild Arms 3 add a welcome layer of complexity to each dungeon map:
And that wraps it up!
Quite simply, it’s hard to create a worthwhile encounter if the key components—abilities, enemies, movement, visuals—aren’t each fun to play around with themselves.
If you want to learn more about encounter design primarily from an enemy design perspective, I can’t recommend the Signals and Light substack enough.