Ask for the shape of the challenge.

A build with no points where it matters hits walls it can neither talk nor shoot past. Hardcore mode adds logistics, and the Deathclaws north of Goodsprings teach direction before the game does.

Reflex mode quietly saves every blown infiltration. Turn it off and the enemy adapts to whatever you did last mission, which is where the game gets interesting.

A fishing game with an inventory puzzle and a night timer. Panic is the mechanic, and the punishment for giving in to it is deliberately mild.

Depth and darkness rather than combat. It is careful never to tell you where to go, which is either the appeal or the wall depending on the player.

Nothing fails quickly. A road laid in the first hour becomes unfixable in the twentieth, and that delay is the only real difficulty in it.

Two games in one box. The campaign is forgiving and will hand you wins on assists; the licence golds and the online time trials are a precision game with a tenth of a second between grades.

Reversing a trailer into a bay is the skill ceiling and the fatigue timer is the only pressure. Damage costs money rather than progress.

Two games glued together, and the management half is where a run is actually lost — a starving flock undoes a perfectly good dungeon.

Deity is an economy handicap rather than a smarter opponent, so the skill is knowing which of forty systems can be safely ignored this particular game.

Level gating does the work encounter design would: a mercenary four levels above you is unkillable, and the game’s answer is more hours rather than a better plan.