Rubber Banding

A handicapping technique, common in racing games, that dynamically adjusts the speed or performance of leading and trailing players to keep them close together. Traditional rubber banding operates by boosting the trailing player or hampering the leader in ways that are not representative of normal gameplay (for example, an artificially lowered top speed for the lead car). From an accessibility perspective, rubber banding can enable mixed-ability play but has been critiqued for producing predictable outcomes, reducing player agency, and distorting the authentic feel of the game for both parties.