Replayability in game design(medium.com)
medium.com
Replayability in game design
https://medium.com/super-jump/replayability-in-game-design-798fbb91a726
35 comments
Note though that a game can have emerged complexity arising from simple rules. Classic examples will be chess and go.
Right; when I said game systems being trivial, I meant trivial in that the player can completely predict the outcome with very little effort — not that the rules defining the system are trivial. Conway’s game of life (and Turing machines even) is the quintessential example of trivial system definitions producing very non-trivial systems.
And in fact that should be the goal — maximizing system complexity, minimizing system definition (perhaps there are better terms for this…)
Games that manage to do so successfully have the opportunity to be replayed through multiple lifetimes
And in fact that should be the goal — maximizing system complexity, minimizing system definition (perhaps there are better terms for this…)
Games that manage to do so successfully have the opportunity to be replayed through multiple lifetimes
Chess and Go are only popular for legacy reasons, they shouldn't be used as examples of good game design. People care about the complexity in those games only because of the legacy culture and competitions, people would never care about them as new games without all that history.
People care about the complexity in those games only because of the legacy culture and competitions
I think this is less than half true. People wouldn't care about those games, if they didn't have the amount of emergent complexity that they do. It would be more accurate to say that they soak up so much attention because of legacy culture and competitions. But those wouldn't exist, if those games didn't have certain qualities which made them eminently interesting and replayable in the first place.
Could they have been replaced through different accidents of history with other games entirely? Sure. But those games would have had many of the same qualities.
I think this is less than half true. People wouldn't care about those games, if they didn't have the amount of emergent complexity that they do. It would be more accurate to say that they soak up so much attention because of legacy culture and competitions. But those wouldn't exist, if those games didn't have certain qualities which made them eminently interesting and replayable in the first place.
Could they have been replaced through different accidents of history with other games entirely? Sure. But those games would have had many of the same qualities.
They're only POPULAR for legacy reasons, but popularity is a very poor proxy for game design. Chess and Go are great games.
Fixed start, no hidden information, turn based games are pretty rare anymore. They're not eyecatching, but they're still good concepts.
Fixed start, no hidden information, turn based games are pretty rare anymore. They're not eyecatching, but they're still good concepts.
I love both of these games although I'm not particularly good or knowledgeable about either.
Just out of curiosity, do you think there are any interesting resolutions to the issues around the balance of who gets to go first? (First-Move Advantage)
WARNING: KINDA A RAMBLE, STOP READING HERE IF BORED EASILY.
I've also played a lot of Magic the Gathering, which of course has hidden information and a hybrid fixed start. Both players have the same number of cards in their hand and on the field[1], but will almost certainly have different cards to each other even in Deck X vs Deck X mirror match ups.
In competitive MtG with a best-of-3 system, there can be a sense felt by the players that the die roll for Game-1-Turn-1 has a disproportionate effect on the match. Despite the roll giving you the choice of first or second turns, it is decidedly unusual for players to win the roll and choose to go second (even though the player who goes first skips their first card draw).
For the sake of the argument, if we assume going second definitively has lower chance of victory then the players perceptions can become frustrated and this can effect their desire to replay the game.
Because the loser of Game 1 selects who goes first in Game 2, and will likely pick themselves, and the winner of Game 1 is more likely to have won the Game-1-Turn-1 dice roll.
We get an outcome in which beating your opponent in Game 1 cascades, because your opponent will choose to go first in the 2nd game and either win returning the turn 1 advantage to you for the tiebreaker G3 or lose and the match concludes. Because Game 1 has disproportionate significance AND is the only game where luck decides who goes first AND is chronologically the the first to occur, I have observed (and felt) a kind of stewing frustration at 'playing out' the rest of some matches after losing the die roll and then having a poor early game 1.
I believe a this is mostly concerns players emotions and perceptions about 'inherent' advantages, which is why I've talked about it as a factor of replayability rather than just strategy.
[1]In a typical circumstance, some cards or deck types can alter the initial game state of the board or hand.
WARNING: KINDA A RAMBLE, STOP READING HERE IF BORED EASILY.
I've also played a lot of Magic the Gathering, which of course has hidden information and a hybrid fixed start. Both players have the same number of cards in their hand and on the field[1], but will almost certainly have different cards to each other even in Deck X vs Deck X mirror match ups.
In competitive MtG with a best-of-3 system, there can be a sense felt by the players that the die roll for Game-1-Turn-1 has a disproportionate effect on the match. Despite the roll giving you the choice of first or second turns, it is decidedly unusual for players to win the roll and choose to go second (even though the player who goes first skips their first card draw).
For the sake of the argument, if we assume going second definitively has lower chance of victory then the players perceptions can become frustrated and this can effect their desire to replay the game.
Because the loser of Game 1 selects who goes first in Game 2, and will likely pick themselves, and the winner of Game 1 is more likely to have won the Game-1-Turn-1 dice roll.
We get an outcome in which beating your opponent in Game 1 cascades, because your opponent will choose to go first in the 2nd game and either win returning the turn 1 advantage to you for the tiebreaker G3 or lose and the match concludes. Because Game 1 has disproportionate significance AND is the only game where luck decides who goes first AND is chronologically the the first to occur, I have observed (and felt) a kind of stewing frustration at 'playing out' the rest of some matches after losing the die roll and then having a poor early game 1.
I believe a this is mostly concerns players emotions and perceptions about 'inherent' advantages, which is why I've talked about it as a factor of replayability rather than just strategy.
[1]In a typical circumstance, some cards or deck types can alter the initial game state of the board or hand.
Go already solves it in a quite elegant way: black pays white 5.5/6.5/7.5 (depending on ruleset) points in komi for the right to go first. The general feeling is that 7.5, the most common American standard, is a little high and gives white an advantage. 5.5 is a little too low, so 6.5 is ideal but not commonly used for a variety of complicated reasons around rulesets and how games are scored.
The general feeling of playing white v black is also very different. Since white has free points, you try to play exchanges as evenly as possible, whereas playing as black (for me) has a constant sense of trying to find enough points to win the game. A theoretically perfect even exchange is actually a slight loss for black and a slight gain for white.
This also ties into the handicap system extremely well. The higher ranked player lets the lower ranked player place free stones on the board (in predetermined locations), depending on how far apart their ranks are. Generally this leads to fairly even games if the handicap is set correctly.
chess clock handicaps if one deems it necessary. For chess it isn't really needed. It's most pronounced at the beginner level where certain openings have a high chance of beating an opponent who hasn't learned to counter them.
I also like bidding systems. Bid some in game resource for the right to go first. On ties, pick at random. If the game is popular the meta will converge on a fair bid to null out the advantage, and may evolve over time. Twilight Struggle is a great 1v1 board game that settled on this.
I also like bidding systems. Bid some in game resource for the right to go first. On ties, pick at random. If the game is popular the meta will converge on a fair bid to null out the advantage, and may evolve over time. Twilight Struggle is a great 1v1 board game that settled on this.
They're popular because they're good. Other board games existed long ago that few have heard of and no one plays. But chess and go stuck around for a reason...
> The ultimate problem stopping replay
For me it's time. If I know in advance the game will take 10 hours to finish then no matter how much variety it has, I'm not gonna play it again.
For me it's time. If I know in advance the game will take 10 hours to finish then no matter how much variety it has, I'm not gonna play it again.
Another variant of the _time_ promblem. I do have a day or week to play Words with Friends. I don't have 30 minutes to an hour to play scrabble. Otherwise they are essentially the same game. I wish more good games were built with respect for this.
Why did you play it the first time? Why would the second time be different? Your statement doesn't answer this fundamental question about replayability.
The first time you play it, you will be encountering the game’s art, music, and design for the first time. Will it be good? Bad? Just okay? Will there be one surprise that takes your breath away? It’s full of novelty and possibility.
The second time, you mostly know what you’re in for. There may be different paths to take, there may be new stuff unlocked by your first play through. But if you made it to the end then you’ve probably exhausted most of its unique content. There may be other things to come back for (DLC, competitive play, 100%, achievements, etc) but it’s easy to put it down for good.
How many books, movies, or TV shows do you come back to? How many do you go through once and never again? Why should a game be any different?
The second time, you mostly know what you’re in for. There may be different paths to take, there may be new stuff unlocked by your first play through. But if you made it to the end then you’ve probably exhausted most of its unique content. There may be other things to come back for (DLC, competitive play, 100%, achievements, etc) but it’s easy to put it down for good.
How many books, movies, or TV shows do you come back to? How many do you go through once and never again? Why should a game be any different?
> How many books, movies, or TV shows do you come back to? How many do you go through once and never again? Why should a game be any different?
You can design a game such that it's a somewhat unique experience every time you play it. Even games with limited variation in setup allow different approaches from the player. That's not possible with traditional novels and film. At best, maybe you can review a film or a book and pay more attention to some detail you didn't notice that much in the first view, but in the end you are rather passively consuming a fixed narrative.
Of course, how meaningful this is depends on whether the game mechanics stand out on their own, or if it's mostly a vessel for a fixed narrative. If the game is just a mechanically bland walk from one cutscene to another, with little agency, it might not seem worth it. A lot of AAA titles are like this IMO. If the game generates a unique set of challenges every time you play it, or rewards new approaches, there is much more fun to be had replaying it.
You can design a game such that it's a somewhat unique experience every time you play it. Even games with limited variation in setup allow different approaches from the player. That's not possible with traditional novels and film. At best, maybe you can review a film or a book and pay more attention to some detail you didn't notice that much in the first view, but in the end you are rather passively consuming a fixed narrative.
Of course, how meaningful this is depends on whether the game mechanics stand out on their own, or if it's mostly a vessel for a fixed narrative. If the game is just a mechanically bland walk from one cutscene to another, with little agency, it might not seem worth it. A lot of AAA titles are like this IMO. If the game generates a unique set of challenges every time you play it, or rewards new approaches, there is much more fun to be had replaying it.
> The second time, you mostly know what you’re in for. There may be different paths to take, there may be new stuff unlocked by your first play through.
This is what I mean by the systems are what matter, not content variation. You can play sim city repeatedly, despite there never being new content, because learning the game systems (inputs, and predicted outputs, and then achieving goals based on that) is what’s valuable, and there’s a lot there to unpack.
Assassin’s creed on the other hand should only be played once, because the game systems are trivial — you’ve probably understood everything it has to offer long before you’ve completed the major storyline. So the only driver is content, and really only the shallow surface novelty of that content (story, aesthetics, etc).
So once you’ve seen it… why see it again?
This is what I mean by the systems are what matter, not content variation. You can play sim city repeatedly, despite there never being new content, because learning the game systems (inputs, and predicted outputs, and then achieving goals based on that) is what’s valuable, and there’s a lot there to unpack.
Assassin’s creed on the other hand should only be played once, because the game systems are trivial — you’ve probably understood everything it has to offer long before you’ve completed the major storyline. So the only driver is content, and really only the shallow surface novelty of that content (story, aesthetics, etc).
So once you’ve seen it… why see it again?
Depending of the definition of "to finish", this is completely not applicable to any open world RPGs. E.g. unless you consider game not finished until you completed all the side quests.
Same for open-ended building games like Minecraft (technically completed when you kill the dragon), Cities: Skylines, or Factorio (when you send a rocket).
Same for open-ended building games like Minecraft (technically completed when you kill the dragon), Cities: Skylines, or Factorio (when you send a rocket).
why should a book or movie be different from a game? well for one they're wildly different media. what you wrote only applies to linear narrative-focused games, and if those are the kinds of games you like, that's fine… but the medium has so much more to offer!
I would rather try a janky, kind of bad, yet mechanically/systems-wise interesting game like Kenshi over another AAA movie-game any day of the week. I have no problem with linear/linearish narrative-focused games—I'm currently playing through a visual novel actually. but interactively conveying a pre-defined narrative (possibly with some "choices" sprinkled in here and there) is only the tiniest tip of the iceberg of possibilities the medium affords!
the problem here is, video games are still a very young medium, so many people have preconceptions about conventional storytelling/narrative structure that they carry over from film and literature. many people want a video game they're considering purchasing to be something with an Hour Count you can look up online, weigh against your interest in the plot/setting/characters/whatever, and decide if playing through the predefined arc of the game is something worth their time. few people look for games with mechanics and systems that converge in interesting, complex, emergent ways, and say to themselves, that looks like something fun to play (with) for as long as I keep enjoying it!
Sea of Thieves is an interesting game because it attempts to bridge this gap. when my buddies and I play it every now and again, we enjoy planning some loosely-defined goals for a session, then just fucking around on the open seas as we see fit. for us, something like seeing how many powder kegs we can gather and fit into the crow's nest so as to test the viability of hucking them into the water and shooting them when fighting player ships, is infinitely more entertaining and interesting that playing through the scripted storyline quests. but on the other hand, my fiancée loves to play through these scripted storyline quests with the wife of one of my friends, just dutifully following the quest instructions, looking up how to do things online if needed, whatever is necessary to check that quest off their list. this same friend's wife has expressed in the past that she cannot for the life of her understand the appeal of the roguelike/lite genre—"why would you just want to play the same thing over and over?"
many people like (and expect games to be) linear narrative experience video games, but more games should try to be more gamey, more systemsy, more emergent, because that's what makes the medium unique and different than others. the only issue with this is player expectations, which hopefully will shift somewhat with time.
I would rather try a janky, kind of bad, yet mechanically/systems-wise interesting game like Kenshi over another AAA movie-game any day of the week. I have no problem with linear/linearish narrative-focused games—I'm currently playing through a visual novel actually. but interactively conveying a pre-defined narrative (possibly with some "choices" sprinkled in here and there) is only the tiniest tip of the iceberg of possibilities the medium affords!
the problem here is, video games are still a very young medium, so many people have preconceptions about conventional storytelling/narrative structure that they carry over from film and literature. many people want a video game they're considering purchasing to be something with an Hour Count you can look up online, weigh against your interest in the plot/setting/characters/whatever, and decide if playing through the predefined arc of the game is something worth their time. few people look for games with mechanics and systems that converge in interesting, complex, emergent ways, and say to themselves, that looks like something fun to play (with) for as long as I keep enjoying it!
Sea of Thieves is an interesting game because it attempts to bridge this gap. when my buddies and I play it every now and again, we enjoy planning some loosely-defined goals for a session, then just fucking around on the open seas as we see fit. for us, something like seeing how many powder kegs we can gather and fit into the crow's nest so as to test the viability of hucking them into the water and shooting them when fighting player ships, is infinitely more entertaining and interesting that playing through the scripted storyline quests. but on the other hand, my fiancée loves to play through these scripted storyline quests with the wife of one of my friends, just dutifully following the quest instructions, looking up how to do things online if needed, whatever is necessary to check that quest off their list. this same friend's wife has expressed in the past that she cannot for the life of her understand the appeal of the roguelike/lite genre—"why would you just want to play the same thing over and over?"
many people like (and expect games to be) linear narrative experience video games, but more games should try to be more gamey, more systemsy, more emergent, because that's what makes the medium unique and different than others. the only issue with this is player expectations, which hopefully will shift somewhat with time.
One topic that I didn't see it address: should your game be replayable? For many (most?) of my favorite games, movies, and books, I don't really care about experiencing them again. The first time through was delightful, and then I'm happy to move on and try other things.
It's great if your game is replayable, but not all games need to worry about replayability. And even if your game is replayable, it should still be fun even to people who only play through once, without locking core mechanics behind endless repetition. And the pursuit of replayability is no excuse for trying to get your players addicted; players should feel free to stop when they've had their fill, without any pressure to consume more.
It's great if your game is replayable, but not all games need to worry about replayability. And even if your game is replayable, it should still be fun even to people who only play through once, without locking core mechanics behind endless repetition. And the pursuit of replayability is no excuse for trying to get your players addicted; players should feel free to stop when they've had their fill, without any pressure to consume more.
Just look at the recent release of Stray. You can sink about 5 hours into it and get the whole story out of it. Sure, you can spend double that and get all the small collectables and achievements, but it is not needed for everyone.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1332010/Stray/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1332010/Stray/
And implementing replayability often comes at a cost: it is much more difficult to create an interesting and compelling story, for example, or witty dialogue, if it must also have the sorts of variation to allow for novel experiences upon replay.
That’s not important for all games, but for some, it absolutely is the difference between a deep and meaningful experience and one that has better replayability mechanics but lesser emotional impact.
I’ve seen a number of high potential games get ruined because the developers thought they had to make it more replayable, which precluded other aspects of the game.
That’s not important for all games, but for some, it absolutely is the difference between a deep and meaningful experience and one that has better replayability mechanics but lesser emotional impact.
I’ve seen a number of high potential games get ruined because the developers thought they had to make it more replayable, which precluded other aspects of the game.
Two different kinds of games. Some of them are almost interactive movies with little replay value and some, especially multi player competitive games are entirely replay.
As pointed out in other comments, this article doesn't discuss the fundamental prerequisite for replayability, which is to build a core loop that is fun and rewarding. The fact that there are so many definitions of "rewarding" (challenging, relaxing, aesthetically pleasing, competitive, collectability) makes the solution space huge, and loot tables and biomes are a very small fraction.
Agreed that you need a rewarding core loop and also one that becomes richer over time (more characters? more actions, more power, less power...). But, I think you also need a longer term engagement element beyond the core loop: being engaged with the goals of game. If there's only one (e.g. only one ending) then if you love the game you'll try to reach it at least one. If there are more you might be tempted to try them all.
Another thing that helps and isn't discussed much in the article is the "meta" game around a game. Especially if the game has liveops and new characters come out, there are events etc. Most by themselves probably won't make someone replay. But if there's enough new stuff and a community which is constantly discovering new stuff to do then that can spark the desire to play again.
Another thing that helps and isn't discussed much in the article is the "meta" game around a game. Especially if the game has liveops and new characters come out, there are events etc. Most by themselves probably won't make someone replay. But if there's enough new stuff and a community which is constantly discovering new stuff to do then that can spark the desire to play again.
My favorite way for a core loop to become richer over time is when the loop has a very high skill ceiling the player can move through in a semi-controlled way. For multiplayer games, this means good matchmaking, but for other games this is layered in via optional challenges/achievments/bonus goals etc.
The stated goal of the game (aka reaching the ending) may or may not be along this path.
The stated goal of the game (aka reaching the ending) may or may not be along this path.
Games actively train a player's "skill". I define the player's skill as the player's ability to use the mechanics in the game to meet the challenge the game is presenting.
The way to make a game more replayable, then, boils down to 3 things:
1) Make the game more challenging. This forces the player to change their approach to problems (because their old solution no longer works)
Multi-agent games do this by having a variety of opponents.
Single-player games do this by ramping up the difficulty, generally by making the execution requirements tighter. More complexity, or less leeway for mistakes.
Leaderboard-type games do this by using a "best score" as the goal. (e.g. Rhythm games, racing games, etc.)
2) Adding and/or removing mechanics that force the player to change their approach to problems. Again, this is either because the old solution doesn't work, or you must use the new mechanic in the solution.
3) Add randomness, mimicking either of the above. (e.g. Roguelikes/lites, deckbuilders, etc.)
There's also the possibility of extending play-ability by "creating new content". I think this isn't really "re"playability, since the generated content hasn't been "played" before, but procedurally-generated content and sandbox games have this sort of code-generated-novelty-as-replayability.
The way to make a game more replayable, then, boils down to 3 things:
1) Make the game more challenging. This forces the player to change their approach to problems (because their old solution no longer works)
Multi-agent games do this by having a variety of opponents.
Single-player games do this by ramping up the difficulty, generally by making the execution requirements tighter. More complexity, or less leeway for mistakes.
Leaderboard-type games do this by using a "best score" as the goal. (e.g. Rhythm games, racing games, etc.)
2) Adding and/or removing mechanics that force the player to change their approach to problems. Again, this is either because the old solution doesn't work, or you must use the new mechanic in the solution.
3) Add randomness, mimicking either of the above. (e.g. Roguelikes/lites, deckbuilders, etc.)
There's also the possibility of extending play-ability by "creating new content". I think this isn't really "re"playability, since the generated content hasn't been "played" before, but procedurally-generated content and sandbox games have this sort of code-generated-novelty-as-replayability.
3) Add randomness, mimicking either of the above. (e.g. Roguelikes/lites, deckbuilders, etc.)
Not sure that the randomness in roguelikes is just mimicking the challenge. Nethack is a canonical example of randomness adding to depth. The game is insanely random, but the mechanics are unbelievably deep and diverse, and if you are skilled, you can always avoid death in a myriad of creative ways unavailable for a newbie.
The downside of such a design is its combinatorial complexity, which is also apparent in Nethack, as it also allows plenty of "abusive" behavior. In contrast, DCSS devs aggressively cut features from the game to "streamline" it (aka simplify it enough to make the task of preventing abuses of mechanics easier)
This can be applied to anything skill-based that contain randomness or incomplete information, down to battle royale FPS games - the skill is in to use the knowledge and game sense against whatever the RNG (or a game situation) throws at you to get predictable results.
Not sure that the randomness in roguelikes is just mimicking the challenge. Nethack is a canonical example of randomness adding to depth. The game is insanely random, but the mechanics are unbelievably deep and diverse, and if you are skilled, you can always avoid death in a myriad of creative ways unavailable for a newbie.
The downside of such a design is its combinatorial complexity, which is also apparent in Nethack, as it also allows plenty of "abusive" behavior. In contrast, DCSS devs aggressively cut features from the game to "streamline" it (aka simplify it enough to make the task of preventing abuses of mechanics easier)
This can be applied to anything skill-based that contain randomness or incomplete information, down to battle royale FPS games - the skill is in to use the knowledge and game sense against whatever the RNG (or a game situation) throws at you to get predictable results.
Got baited by the headline into thinking this would be an article about determenism and implementation of 'replay' functionality but this is interesting as well.
I personally like to think the most 'replayable' games are the ones that have deep emergent gameplay.
Eg. interactions between many different mechanics that when combined create unique/challenging/entertaining situations without being programmatically forced to occur.
Unfortunately capturing this is notoriously hard and (from my experiences) primarily out in multiplayer games since humans are generally unpredictable and tend to find interesting edge-cases in game mechanics.
I personally like to think the most 'replayable' games are the ones that have deep emergent gameplay.
Eg. interactions between many different mechanics that when combined create unique/challenging/entertaining situations without being programmatically forced to occur.
Unfortunately capturing this is notoriously hard and (from my experiences) primarily out in multiplayer games since humans are generally unpredictable and tend to find interesting edge-cases in game mechanics.
This is a good analysis. I think there is a high level perspective that abstracts most of those points. For this context, games fall into two main categories or a combination of both: the ones created with a designed solution, and the ones created without a solution that the players have to discover and/or solve.
A game is "solved" when the player has accomplished the main goals of the game, which usually means having gone through the main experience it's offering. A highly replayable game is one that was not designed with the solution out of the box. These games are usually "sandbox" games, and the designers created systems and tools for the player to use, but they did not design the specific experiences the player will go through.
Sanbox games have emergent gameplay. In contrast, games that are designed with a solution in mind, don't have as much replayable value. Games that are story driven, like the The Last of Us, or Resident Evil, have less replay value than Factorio or GTA which are sandbox games. Many games are in between, having elements of both.
A game is "solved" when the player has accomplished the main goals of the game, which usually means having gone through the main experience it's offering. A highly replayable game is one that was not designed with the solution out of the box. These games are usually "sandbox" games, and the designers created systems and tools for the player to use, but they did not design the specific experiences the player will go through.
Sanbox games have emergent gameplay. In contrast, games that are designed with a solution in mind, don't have as much replayable value. Games that are story driven, like the The Last of Us, or Resident Evil, have less replay value than Factorio or GTA which are sandbox games. Many games are in between, having elements of both.
Funny, the game I replayed the most was 'Hack', a Rogue-like.
I can't quite put my finger on why it was so addictive, but I think it was the randomness - discovering which potions were which, which scrolls were which, and of course hoping for a merchant with a massive shop full of goods to pillage kept me playing.
The difficulty was quite high too, forcing quite a few replays before getting that Amulet of Yendor
I can't quite put my finger on why it was so addictive, but I think it was the randomness - discovering which potions were which, which scrolls were which, and of course hoping for a merchant with a massive shop full of goods to pillage kept me playing.
The difficulty was quite high too, forcing quite a few replays before getting that Amulet of Yendor
Has anyone been working on using AI for content generation for games? Seems like a very promising space. Like you have a "traditional" game but some part that would traditionally be hand-crafted or boringly procedurally generated would instead be provided by DALL-E/GPT/...
The quickest way to kill replay ability in games: cut scenes that you can not skip.
If the player has seen the scene once, there should always be the option to skip it.
If the player has seen the scene once, there should always be the option to skip it.
(2018)
This usually occurs because the game systems themselves are trivial (often a set of independent features stuffed behind the same UI, but A has no influence on B), because one or a few of the systems are overwhelmingly influential (e.g. melee mechanics don’t matter if guns are trivially superior for all scenarios), or because the game itself doesn’t incentivize the player to actually exploit those systems to any real degree (e.g. the game is too easy or the levels don’t introduce enough new constraints, so the first solution found applies globally; often fixed by player-induced artificial challenges like no X runs).
Multiplayer however cheats this because even trivial systems can become a huge exploration space when incentivized by direct competition (analysis and understanding is pushed to the limit; e.g. sm64 requires a certain level of understanding to play effectively, but speed runners and TAS take that understanding to the nth degree) and the players themselves bring metagaming as an additional system worth exploring (eg any competitive multiplayer)
It’s also confounded by multiplayer games that are less “played” and more used as a social space — replacing the shopping mall — like many mmo’s, Minecraft, etc. You’re not replaying so much as visiting and killing time between social interactions (so even highly repetitive actions often suffice).
The content variation is largely necessary to give reason and space to explore the game systems under novel constraints.