Bullet Sponge: What does it mean to be a bullet sponge?

The term “bullet sponge” in video games refers to when a player must use a high number of bullets or attacks on an enemy or person in a match to defeat them. Bullet sponges often have a good defense or a huge pool of health to the point where the fight feels drawn out and boring for players. Players usually use this term in a derogatory way to express their dislike about how games use increased health pools to increase difficulty rather than making the enemies more intelligent or challenging. 

Even Though most people use bullet sponges with a negative connotation, some games choose to have that as a design choice deliberately. In the case of various character-based games like Dota 2, League of Legends, or Overwatch 2, players consider or call specific characters tanks because of their ability to take lots of damage and be the front-line defense of the team. 

Are bullet sponge mechanics always a bad experience for players?

It depends on how each game tackles these mechanics. For example, some games can have bullet sponges in the title to enhance difficulty and force players to strategize better. In games like Overwatch, multiple people should focus on the tank to defeat them rather than trying to fight them alone. 

On the other hand, some titles use bullet sponges to increase the difficulty, which often feels lazy artificially. The biggest offender of this type of difficulty increment is the company Bethesda ^[1] because they usually increase an enemy’s HP so much that it forces players to hide in a corner and peek out to chip away their health while not increasing the opponent’s AI. So the fight becomes a game of slowly reducing the enemy’s health from afar and hiding until they’re defeated.

References

1. [1] "Official Bethesda website". bethesda.net. Retrieved July 26, 2024