Designing ability system for a real-time action game

Abstract

Action games with a combat system often contain abilities for the purpose of increasing gameplay variety and/or as a part of character progression. This task might prove challenging, as there are a lot of requirements to such a system, since it is an essential part of gameplay and should be able to accommodate a wide variety of abilities, added at the stage of initial development as well as in the content updates which might come further in the game’s lifecycle.