Level (video games): History and Key Facts

In video games, a level (also referred to as a map, mission, stage, course, zone, area, or round, depending on context) is any virtual space available to the player character during the course of completion of an objective. Video game levels generally have progressively increasing difficulty to appeal to players with different skill levels. Each level may present new concepts and challenges to keep a player's interest high to keep playing. In action games, a level is typically crowded with various hostile non-player characters (NPCs), known as "mobs" or "grunts", who actively attack the players; and the end of a level is usually defended by a particularly strong enemy, known as a "boss", whom the player must defeat in order to advance to a next level.

In games with linear progression, such as Green Hill Zone from the Sonic the Hedgehog series, levels can represent portions of a larger world where the players have to finish one area before moving onto another. Games may also feature interconnected levels, representing different locations. Although the challenge in a game is often to defeat some sort of character, levels are sometimes designed with a movement challenge, such as a jumping puzzle, a form of obstacle course. Players must judge the distance between platforms or ledges and safely jump between them to reach the next area. These puzzles can slow down the players' momentum; the first Half-Life's penultimate chapter, "Interloper", featured multiple moving platforms high in the air with enemies firing at the player from all sides.

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