Quick definition:The main single-player story mode of a game, made up of a linked series of missions or levels, or a set of such missions played in order.
Meaning
A campaign is a structured story experience, usually played alone or with a few friends. It presents missions in a planned order, with scenes, characters and gradual increases in difficulty, and it ends with a conclusion. Players often track progress through chapters, acts or numbered missions.
In strategy games, a campaign may be a chain of battles in which success affects later ones, such as keeping surviving units. In shooters, it often means the story levels, as opposed to online matches. Tabletop role-playing groups use the word for a long-running adventure played over many sessions.
Length varies widely, from a few hours to dozens. Campaigns may offer difficulty settings, cooperative play, secrets and alternative endings, and they give new players a guided introduction to the rules and tools before they try competitive modes. Some can be replayed on harder settings for extra rewards.
Origin:Campaign comes from military language, where it means a series of operations aimed at a goal. Strategy and war games used it for linked battles played in order, and the term spread to other genres for any structured sequence of missions. In tabletop role-playing, it also means a long adventure run by a game master.
Example:Over a long weekend, Ravi works through the campaign of a space strategy game. Each mission has a briefing, new units and tougher enemies, and his choices carry over to later scenes. After twelve hours, he reaches the final battle and sees the credits roll, then turns to the online mode.
Did you know?In many shooters, the campaign is separate from multiplayer, and some players never touch it. Whether a game needs a campaign at all is a recurring debate, since developing one can be costly and some popular titles succeed without it. 