Arenas

Open locations in game worlds that naturally or by design become battlegrounds.

In games where combat occurs, the characteristics of gameplay locations can heavily influence how this can be done. Arenas are open areas which draws players into conflicts there, either because they contain goal points or resources or because players have willingly placed themselves within them to challenge others.

Examples

While maybe not a big surprise given it's name, Quake III Arena contains many maps with Arenas, e.g. arena gate, dredwerks, and the forgotten place. Many of central access routes and goal points in Team Fortress 2 maps are also Arenas, e.g. the areas attackers need to take in Dustbowl. Other First-Person Shooters that have Arenas include the Halo and the Unreal Tournament series. Given the open maps in America's Army and the Battlefield series, the games do not have clear Arenas but combat in these games are often located to specific areas anyway.

The Elder Scrolls series have explicit Arenas where players can earn money by fighting monsters or non-player characters in duels. This is also possible in the thorn in Fallout: New Vegas.

Using the pattern

For Arenas to be perceivable as interesting structures in games, there needs to be other gameplay areas available as well (Chess and Go can be said to have Arenas that consist of the entire boards but trying to use the pattern in this way offers little in the way of design options or for understanding the resulting gameplay).

Relations

Multiplayer Games Teams Team Combos

Combat

Goal Points

Can Instantiate

Sniper Locations, Strategic Locations

Can Modulate

Game Worlds, Levels

Can Be Modulated By

Flanking Routes, Sniper Locations, Strongholds

History

New pattern created in this wiki. However, it was first introduced using another template by Hullett and Whitehead, and a more detailed description in this template is available.

Acknowledgements

Kennart Hullett, Jim Whitehead