Adding character advancement to a game may increase a player’s investment within a game. For instance, the typical FPS has 10-20 hours of gameplay while a standard RPG has 40-60 hours of gameplay. By adding character advancement to a game designed in the FPS genre, that game can increase a player’s investment and could add gameplay hours without adding the development hours required to create additional levels. This is due to the idea that if a standard level requires 15-30 hours to create, it may take only 2-6 more hours to create a level with the added advancement. Additionally if the designer were to add the advancement using methods aside from pure story, they could also cut down on voice over and localization time. Given that ratio it is clear that time is better spent improving a level rather than creating new levels entirely. This thesis examines character advancement in various FPS games, including those that have directly copied the RPG style of advancement, to determine the effect of the advancement increasing the player’s enjoyment and investment within the game.