power-creep

A form of power creep — The situation where successive updates or expansions to a game introduce more powerful units or abilities, leaving the older ones underpowered.

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Meanings

verbpower-creep (third-person singular simple present power-creeps, present participle power-creeping, simple past and past participle power-crept or power-creeped)

present singular third person power-creeps · participle present power-creeping · participle past power-crept · past power-crept · participle past power-creeped · past power-creeped

  1. alternativeAlternative form of power creep.

    So I've been thinking about how The Final Shape guns are going to earn a slot in my loadout without power-creeping the game to oblivion.

    2024 May 28, Austin Wood, “Destiny 2's lead gun guy answers our biggest questions about The Final Shape: new weapon mods, the next raid DPS meta, and just "a small amount of power creep"”, in GamesRadar+, London: Future plc, archived from the original on 28 May 2024
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    Similarly, a character ban system might be warranted when there are a boatload of power-creeped Agents running around that can throw out mollies that are also smokes and flashbangs and spike pits and dragons.

    2021 May 3, Connor McNeil, “Great Features in Valorant and Some That Would Make It Better”, in EsportsTalk, Las Vegas, Nev., archived from the original on 09 May 2021

    While other units with identical characteristics have fallen out of the meta, HoYoverse announced they will be budding the old power-crept characters so they can be just as effective as the new 5-stars.

    2025 February 18, Argha Halder, “Is Mydei worth pulling in Honkai Star Rail 3.1?”, in Sportskeeda, Mumbai, Maharashtra: Nazara Technologies, →OCLC, archived from the original on 18 Feb 2025

    Let me explain: Darktide's new Hive Scum class is rather good. Or at least, it was rather good. It's still pretty good, but in the preview build I played (before Fatshark understandably nerfed its ranged capabilities) it was hands-down the best ranged class in the game, power-creeping Veterans so hard that Creed was likely spinning in his grave, or whatever mint-condition packaging Trazyn put him in.

    2025 November 28, Sean Martin, “Darktide's new Hive Scum class can transform into a nigh-on immortal John Wick with infinite bullets—it's no wonder Fatshark's nerfed it before release”, in PC Gamer, Bath, Somerset: Future plc, archived from the original on 04 Dec 2025
Cite this entry
APA

power-creep. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/power-creep

MLA

“power-creep.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/power-creep. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “power-creep,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/power-creep.

Source: power-creep on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.