And you’re right, people like to make “progress”, so that’s probably why those trophies and achievements were created. Even if they are meaningless, I guess it makes people feel like they are doing something.

Most action games have even come to rely on some sort of means to show progress through added weapons/abilities/skills that break down into just how much of the game have you completed. The new Tomb Raider is riddled with useless checklists and notifications that break immersion.

I cannot think of a game that has a truly organic sort of progress system without some sort of menu or skill-tree to mark player progress. But I don’t think that is inherently wrong for game design. It all depends on the function of these systems. Most RPGs are based on the sort of hard math/chance systems of pen and paper games, so it makes sense to have player progress correlate to a “leveling-up” system.

That being said, I would be very interested in playing an adventure game that had no menus, graphs, skill-trees, etc. Something like Journey or Shadow of the Colossus, but with a system where character development is organically affected by player progress and in-game actions.

I think Sleeping Dogs has an interesting leveling up system because it’s multifaceted (though, actually, Skyrim is kind of the same way, now that I think about it). Like, depending on the missions you do, you can level up different aspects of your “persona,” things relating to your undercover work, fighting skills, and so on.

Leveling up in Bioshoick sounds a bit like leveling up in GTA V where the emphasis throughout remains on the story. As you progress, leveling up is represented by more things opening up in the game. It’s organic and I like it. Dishonored and Red Dead Redemption were kind of like that too.