Equipment durability
Weapons, tools, and armor degrade with use and eventually break, requiring repair or replacement. Durability creates a consumption economy around gear: equipment becomes a resource to manage rather than a permanent acquisition, driving crafting, repair loops, and inventory rotation. Breath of the Wild uses breakable weapons to keep the player constantly experimenting with new tools; survival games use it to sustain the crafting loop. Designers use durability to prevent a single best weapon from trivializing the game, to give gathering and crafting ongoing purpose, and to inject resource tension. Key decisions: degradation rate, repairability (repairable gear is a sink; unrepairable gear is a consumable), whether breakage is total loss or reduced effectiveness, and repair-material economy. Pitfall: durability is among the most divisive mechanics — too aggressive and it feels like the game punishing you for playing (BotW's early-game weapon anxiety); the design must make swapping gear feel like variety, not like being nickel-and-dimed.
- Dev effort: Small
- Timing: Real-time or turn-based
- Common in: survival, action-adventure