Word.ws English Dictionary

power creep

power creep noun: the situation where successive updates or expansions to a game introduce more powerful units or abilities, leaving the older ones underpowered.

Noun

power creep (usually uncountable, plural power creeps)

  1. (usually, collectible games, roleplaying games) The situation where successive updates or expansions to a game introduce more powerful units or abilities, leaving the older ones underpowered.
    • It does seem that over time the base damage a starting characted^([sic]) can do has inflated, but a good GM can usual put an end to the munchkin power creep.1992 May 8, Donald A Bachman <donald@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu>, “Re: SRUN: MAges, what to do? (Was Cyberware &...)”, in rec.games.frp (Usenet), via Google Groups, archived from the original on 25 Mar...
    • And that’s to say nothing of the sweeping round of nerfs seemingly deployed to mitigate the potential power creep of players investing as heavily as possible into a meta build’s target stats.2025 November, Phil Savage, “Ticket to Grind”, in PC Gamer, number 414, via EBSCOhost, →ISSN, pages 74, 77

Verb

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

  1. (transitive, collectible games, roleplaying games) To affect by power creep.
    • The power creep is more prominent in the DPS segment, as almost every future unit is designed to overshadow the existing characters. For instance, Dan Heng Imbibitor Lunae has power crept almost every DPS in the game with his fluid gameplay and massive damage output with both F2P and frugal builds.2023 October 6, Akash Paul, “Is Honkai Star Rail power creeping units too fast?”, in Sportskeeda, Mumbai, Maharashtra: Nazara Technologies, →OCLC, archived from the original on 25 Mar 2026
    • Ultimate Team is actually a lot more flexible overall this year, stripping away the irritating Position Change cards and introducing Evolutions, which allow you to still eke value out of a crappier player that’s already been power crept by the game’s meta.2023 October 19, Sammy Barker, “EA Sports FC 24 Review (PS5)”, in Push Square, London: Gamer Network, archived from the original on 19 Oct 2023

Examples of power creep in a sentence

  • Different Legends have seen a power creep in the past few seasons.2026 March 25, Jay Sarma, “All Legend changes in Apex Legends Season 28 Split 2”, in Sportskeeda, Mumbai, Maharashtra: Nazara Technologies...
  • Arlecchino follows Fontaine's trend of releasing characters that can keep up with and rival established top tiers without entirely power creeping them.2025 January 15, Asad Kashif, “Genshin Impact: 7 Best Characters For An Overload Team”, in TheGamer, Montreal, Que.: Valnet, archived from...
  • The HSR community has been upset with the recent power creeping of their old favorite characters, which has brought this change.2025 March 28, Sanmay Chakrabarti, “HSR Confirms It Will Buff Old Characters in Response to Powercreep Complaints”, in Akshay Singh...
  • Dedicated players of course love it - it keeps things fresh, gives you something to chase for each season, and prevents endless power creeping and loot hoarding.2026 March 3, Jamie Hore, “Marathon confirms its wipes aren't optional and lays out ambitious plans for first two seasons”, in PCGamesN...

Forms of power creep

Noun
pluralpower creeps
alternative formpowercreep
Verb
third-person singular presentpower creeps
present participlepower creeping
past participlepower crept
pastpower crept
past participlepower creeped
pastpower creeped
alternative formpower-creep

Questions about power creep

What does power creep mean?
Power creep means the situation where successive updates or expansions to a game introduce more powerful units or abilities, leaving the older ones underpowered.
How do you use power creep in a sentence?
Different Legends have seen a power creep in the past few seasons.
What part of speech is power creep?
Power creep can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of power creep?
The plural of power creep is power creeps.

Words near power creep in the dictionary

  1. power cords
  2. power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely
  3. Power County
  4. power couple
  5. power couples
  6. power creep
  7. power creeped
  8. power creeping
  9. power creeps
  10. power crept
  11. power cut

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: power creep (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-power creep.wav.

Cite this entry: “power creep.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/power_creep. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.