Let’s Talk About Enemy Design

Enemies are a common sight in video games. Because… like, duh. Without obstacles to overcome, most games would be really boring.

Quantifying what makes ‘good’ enemy design is a difficult task. The answer completely changes from genre to genre. They need to be built to bring out the best of that game’s unique mechanics. It’s why you’ll never jump on an enemy to kill them in a first-person shooter.

Regardless of genre, however, the core idea of what makes an interesting enemy remains the same. It doesn’t matter if you jump on them, shoot them, or blast them with magic. Great enemy design encourages the player to interact with the games core mechanics in varied and interesting ways. They’re problems, and you need to use the tools the game provides to solve them.

A basic but strong example is the Mario series. Being a platformer, the gameplay is simple. You move and jump. As such, the enemies are designed around being obstacles, not opponents. Goombas just walk at you, Koopa shells slide around at high speeds, Bullet Bills fly at you, Hammer Bros throw their hammers in an arc, Dry Bones resurrect after you stomp on them, Thwomps drop, on and on the list goes.

They’re essentially another part of the level itself. In a great Mario game, each enemy is placed in a specific place to create an obstacle on the path. Thanks to them, you need to keep moving and jumping almost at all times. Without them, Mario would just be talking a casual stroll through a series of varying hallways.

Better yet, you can use them to reach areas of the level you couldn’t on your own. You can throw Koopa shells to break bricks and open areas you otherwise couldn’t. Stealing a Lakitu’s cloud lets you fly over obstacles and reach high places. A lot of levels make you bounce off of Bullet Bills, using them as sort of moving one-use platforms. Hell, ‘Super Mario Odyssey’ made this a core mechanic with the enemy possession ability!

A recent example of fantastic enemy design can be found in ‘Helldivers II.’ Each enemy faction has a wide variety of anti-democratic insurrectionists for the soldiers of Super Earth to destroy. Look at the Terminids. You’ve got your standard Scavenger, the larger Warriors, fast and deadly Hunters, Stalkers that turn invisible, Brood Commanders that summon more bugs, the heavily armored Charger, the fat and deadly Bile Spewer, the monstrous Bile Titan, and now, the recently added flying bugs.

On their own, few of these enemies are especially dangerous. Just shoot them a lot in their weak spot until they die. You can one-vs-one a Charger fairly easily. Only you won’t be fighting them on their own. Ever. When you’ve got every single Terminid type rushing you down at the same time, killing that one Charger suddenly becomes significantly more difficult.

Don’t even get me started on the Automatons. Whereas the bugs overwhelm you with sheer numbers, the bots will crush you with overwhelming firepower. Fighting each faction feels like booting up an entirely different game!

This forces you to get creative with the game’s sandbox. Do you use your big orbital missile to kill a large group of weaker enemies, or do you save it in case a giant enemy shows up? Or do you just cut and run for the evac site before that Bile Titan can wipe your squad?

Of course, in an article about enemy design, I’d be a fool not to talk about ‘Halo.’ The variety between enemy types in these games is insane! You’ve got the tiny Grunts, Shield Jackals, Sniper Jackals, several different colorful flavors of Elite, just as many flavors of Brutes, flying bugs, ships, tanks, and more! The variety is only further increased with the variety of different weapons they’ll shoot you with!

What makes Halo enemy design completely timeless is the frankly astonishing AI. Each one reacts to just about everything you can do in an interesting way. For example: if you stick a Grunt with a plasma grenade, they’ll panic and run away screaming. Line them up right, and you could use them to blow up massive groups of enemies. Stick an Elite, however, and they’ll accept their coming death and rush towards you, eager to take you down with them.

Of course, those examples are all shooters. Games like that, your solution to just about every enemy is to… y’know, shoot them. Which is fine; both Halo and Helldivers II offer so many unique and varying tools and weapons that no two missions will ever play the same. But what about a different genre? Say, a turn-based RPG?

An RPG with good turn-based combat is essentially like a puzzle. Each enemy has a unique list of attacks and abilities that the player needs to deal with. It’s less about making the player feel badass and more about making them feel smart.

‘Undertale’ is a fantastic example. Each monster in that game has a unique attack pattern that you’ll need to dodge in the game’s bullet-hell aspect. On your turn, you can either attack to kill them, or try to find the right way to talk them down. Fighting a dog? Maybe using that stick in your inventory might turn a foe into a friend! Have you crossed paths with a depressed ghost? Maybe cheering him up can end the conflict peacefully!

One of my favorite examples is the Tonberry of ‘Final Fantasy’ fame. These cute little green gremlins can will kill you in one hit. However, they’re really slow, and they need to take time to reach you. In ‘Final Fantasy IX’, for example, you’ll have time to take several turns before they reach your party. Fighting these guys presents an interesting challenge. Do you risk fighting them for the fat XP and Gil payout, or do you pass on the risk and book it as fast as you can?

Then there are games like ‘Baldur’s Gate.’ In that game, the enemies are playing by the same rules you are. They’ll cast spells, use items, lay traps, rush you down with sheer numbers, anything you can do, so can they. Preparation and strategy are the key to success; if you try to solve every problem by bashing it with your skull, you’re not gonna get past the tutorial.

Bad enemy design is thoughtless and boring. The kind of enemy where you mindlessly mash your standard attack button until everything is dead. Even worse are enemies with mechanics that are intentionally designed to be frustrating or annoying. The ones that turn the game from a fun experience to a test in patience.

Just look at the enemies in ‘Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.’ Beyond the titular heroes, you’ll be fighting… hordes of Brainiac zombies. You’ve got normal zombies, fast zombies, super zombies, you get it. No matter what they are, they all die the same way: shoot them until they die. It’s boring to the point of being mind-numbing.

Returning to ‘Final Fantasy’, let’s discuss one of the most tedious optional bosses ever: the Adamantoise of ‘Final Fantasy XV.’ This massive turtle kaiju has the largest HP pool in the entire game, the thickest armor, and the largest hit box. If you want to kill it, you’ll need to throw yourself at it for multiple real-world hours, dodging its massive high-power attacks to stay alive. Oh, and because the game is jank, you can also just get launched so far away that the fight resets.

F U N.

Honestly, there’s too much variety between enemy designs in different genres and game concepts to put into a single article. It’s the kind of thing that ought to be in textbooks used in game design classes. I wouldn’t even be surprised if said book already exists.

And if someone would like to recommend such a book to me, I would be much obliged.

Enemies are what makes a game fun for me. Be it a regular ol’ Goomba or the biggest, most dramatic and exhilarating boss fight, I just love having an obstacle to overcome. Without one, where is the satisfaction in victory?