power creep
See also: power-creep and powercreep
English
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]power creep (usually uncountable, plural power creeps)
- (collectible games, video games, roleplaying games) The situation where successive updates or expansions to a game introduce more powerful units or abilities, leaving the older ones underpowered.
- 1992 May 8, Donald A Bachman <donald@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu>, “Re: SRUN: MAges, what to do? (Was Cyberware &...)”, in rec.games.frp[1] (Usenet), via Google Groups, archived from the original on 25 March 2026:
- It does seem that over time the base damage a starting characted[sic] can do has inflated, but a good GM can usual put an end to the munchkin power creep.
- 2025 November, Phil Savage, “Ticket to Grind”, in PC Gamer[2], number 414, via EBSCOhost, →ISSN, pages 74, 77:
- And that’s to say nothing of the sweeping round of nerfs seemingly deployed to mitigate the potential power creep of players investing as heavily as possible into a meta build’s target stats.
- 2026 March 25, Jay Sarma, “All Legend changes in Apex Legends Season 28 Split 2”, in Sportskeeda[3], Mumbai, Maharashtra: Nazara Technologies, →OCLC, archived from the original on 25 March 2026:
- Different Legends have seen a power creep in the past few seasons. However, there are some who have been left behind in the meta race, and as the seasons progress, their pick rates have seemingly declined over time.
Alternative forms
[edit]Related terms
[edit]Verb
[edit]power creep (third-person singular simple present power creeps, present participle power creeping, simple past and past participle power crept or power creeped)
- (transitive, collectible games, video games, roleplaying games) To affect by power creep.
- 2023 October 6, Akash Paul, “Is Honkai Star Rail power creeping units too fast?”, in Sportskeeda[4], Mumbai, Maharashtra: Nazara Technologies, →OCLC, archived from the original on 25 March 2026:
- The power creep is more prominent in the DPS segment, as almost every future unit is designed to overshadow the existing characters. For instance, Dan Heng Imbibitor Lunae has power crept almost every DPS in the game with his fluid gameplay and massive damage output with both F2P and frugal builds.
- 2023 October 19, Sammy Barker, “EA Sports FC 24 Review (PS5)”, in Push Square[5], London: Gamer Network, archived from the original on 19 October 2023:
- Ultimate Team is actually a lot more flexible overall this year, stripping away the irritating Position Change cards and introducing Evolutions, which allow you to still eke value out of a crappier player that’s already been power crept by the game’s meta.
- 2023 December 11, Paul Tassi, “The Power Crept ‘Destiny 2’ Weapon You Must Craft In Season Of The Wish”, in Forbes[6], Jersey City, N.J., archived from the original on 12 December 2023
- 2024 March 8, Timothy Zaccagnino, “Power Creep in MTG – What is it and How Does it Happen?”, in Draftsim[7], archived from the original on 25 December 2024:
- Perhaps you’re running a Commander deck or playing a Cube that has a need for redundant copies of similar effects, so the cards that got power crept aren’t completely dead, but as far as new releases go, it’d be pretty puzzling to ever see Altar's Reap again when we know Village Rites and Deadly Dispute exist.
- 2024 September 9, Tim Clark, “[Destiny 2 is abandoning big annual expansions and linear campaigns in favour of more frequent releases that are 'mysterious, weird, and not afraid to try new things'] Hot take: Tim Clark”, in PC Gamer[8], Bath, Somerset: Future plc, archived from the original on 9 September 2024:
- Sure enough, the text also teases the return of the weapon in an upcoming dungeon. Honestly, we're so power crept these days it will probably need a buff to see play.
- 2024 November 6, Sanmay Chakrabarti, “Honkai Star Rail: 5 Power Creeped Characters Who Need a Serious Buff in Amphoreus”, in Akshay Singh Gangwar, Anmol Sachdeva, editors, Beebom[9], New Delhi: Beebom Media, archived from the original on 6 November 2024
- 2025 January 15, Asad Kashif, “Genshin Impact: 7 Best Characters For An Overload Team”, in TheGamer[10], Montreal, Que.: Valnet, archived from the original on 16 January 2025:
- Arlecchino follows Fontaine's trend of releasing characters that can keep up with and rival established top tiers without entirely power creeping them.
- 2025 March 28, Sanmay Chakrabarti, “HSR Confirms It Will Buff Old Characters in Response to Powercreep Complaints”, in Akshay Singh Gangwar, Anmol Sachdeva, editors, Beebom[11], New Delhi: Beebom Media, archived from the original on 28 March 2025:
- The HSR community has been upset with the recent power creeping of their old favorite characters, which has brought this change.
- 2025 September 2, Austin Wood, “A new Destiny 2 event is giving players bugged 8-year-old loot from content so deleted that Bungie literally could not come up with it to show in court”, in GamesRadar+[12], London: Future plc, archived from the original on 17 September 2025:
- Players began reporting ancient, decrepit, repeatedly power crept loot shortly after Heavy Metal went live this afternoon.
- 2026 March 3, Jamie Hore, “Marathon confirms its wipes aren't optional and lays out ambitious plans for first two seasons”, in PCGamesN[13], Bath, Somerset: NetworkN, archived from the original on 3 March 2026:
- New content is great, but one of the biggest snags of any extraction shooter is account wiping. Dedicated players of course love it - it keeps things fresh, gives you something to chase for each season, and prevents endless power creeping and loot hoarding.