Monday, February 16, 2009

Videogame Glossary : Beachhead

A beachhead is usually the first save point in a videogame, or the first place that a gamer can stop, catch their breath, heal, bank, restock, and/or relax.

In many modern games, there are introductory cinema cut scenes at the very beginning, often followed by immediate action and gameplay before the first opportunity to save the game is reached. Hence, establishing the beachhead is normally the main goal of the first gameplay session, to prevent having to repeat tasks like character creation, viewing the opening cut scenes, and replaying through the tutorial sections of the game.

Some games also have an autosave feature that may engage after the opening cut scenes or levels, and the player is usually notified of this with an onscreen message. A beachhead (and even the urgency of getting to one) is something that varies greatly from game to game depending on the design.

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