Very few things in games have stayed as consistent as the act of pausing. Barring a few exceptions, practically every single-player title out there can be paused for times when gamers need a little break.
Doing so typically stops the game completely, allowing players to pick up right where they left off. However, Sony’s newly filed ‘Soft Pause’ patent highlights a different approach to this phenomenon, where a game doesn’t necessarily need to be stopped completely.
Filed last month, the Soft Pause patent aims to address the binary nature of pausing games. As Sony points out, this system would keep a game running in the background when initiated, but with adjustments that can differ from game to game.
In essence, the patent describes a universal system of uninterrupted game pausing that can be tailored to different games for various situations. For instance, the patent discusses the possibility of slowing down the gameplay when pausing or reducing gameplay noise.
More complex implementations of the patent can even alter the game’s difficulty to make enemies slower and deal less damage in this state. Moreover, Sony discusses the possibility of this system taking control of the players’ character during the pause state using machine learning.
This could come in handy when under attack in a game, giving the AI model the ability to move the player out of harm’s way. As shown in the above image, Direction Assist in the soft pause state could automatically lead players toward enemies or friends when distracted by an activity like responding to a message.
In other cases, the impact of auto-steering in a racing game could be increased, or the system could simply increase the players’ health and attributes. As for what would trigger the soft pause, Sony describes various trigger events, such as the player pressing a specific button or receiving a message from another player.
Where this system would truly shine would be in a game like FromSoftware’s Elden Ring. Since these titles don’t feature pausing at all, Sony’s Soft Pause could effectively bypass this limitation through a third-party system. Depending on how the patent is implemented, it could even serve as a workaround to pausing in multiplayer games, preventing things like players being kicked for being AFK due to the AI taking control.
This is the latest in a long line of interesting patents filed by Sony that could show up as features of future hardware or games. Most recently, the gaming giant filed patents for cloud-based game development, automatic haptics, and more.
