End of An Era: The Death of the Arena Shooter?

[Paragon Fury]

So today, after seeing that Halo 4 has abandoned all pretense of being an arena shooter and has gone full-scale CoD clone arcade shooter, I came to a saddening thought; we might be looking at the end of an era here.

Because this may mark the death of the last Arena Shooter series, coinciding with the death or MIA of the tactical shooter genre.

Now I suppose this requires a clarification of sorts. When you think about competitive multiplayer shooters, they can all roughly be fitted into 1 of 5 categories. Those categories are:

Class-Based - Battlefield, Team Fortress, Left 4 Dead etc.

Arena - Old Halo (Pre-Reach), Unreal Tournament, Quake etc.

Tactical - Old Ghost Recon (Pre-Future Soldier), Rainbow Six, Gears of War etc.

Arcade - Call of Duty, Counterstrike, Section 8, Blacklight etc.

Realistic/Simulation - ArmA, Operation Flashpoint, America's Army etc.

However recently, two of these categories have pretty much died; tactical shooters are MIA, and the last viable Arena Shooter just left the building. We haven't seen a real tactical shooter in years - the new Ghost Recon is by any measure a class based game, and all the other games that could've gone there are dead (Gears 3) or have been MIA for a long time (Rainbow Six).

This creates two problems; lack of variety for gamers who like shooters....and lack of competition to innovate and make their respective branch of the genre better. Back before World at War, the shooter genre had three main competitors all trying to be the best - Class-Based, Arena and Tactical, with Arena clearly on top. (Realistic shooters never really entered into the picture, since they didn't really want to compete in the first place since they were driven by a purpose, rather than profit most of the time.)

But now Tactical and Arena are basically dead, and the only real contender left is Arcade Shooters - who are so far ahead of class-based shooters in terms of popularity and sales that it might as well be a one horse race. Gamers are basically stuck with one flavor of shooter to play now if they want to know more than 1000 people are playing the game at any one time......and the games themselves face no outside pressure to improve; they're only motivation is to beat CoD at their own game by being as CoD-like as possible without completely copying them.

This is a sad, sad time. Where there used to be a plethora of choices...now there basically two. One even, if you go by popularity.

I mean seriously. God damn it developers. Get off your asses and make some new games! EPIC, we need another Unreal Tournament! Ubisoft, we need a new classic Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon! DICE.......you just need to make Battlefield 2143. We need another Goldeneye! (Claasic arena style like the N64, not the arcade version like on the Wii and 360)

 

[Korten12]

Well Halo 4 is sort of a Arena Shooter, it's become more a Hybrid of Arena and Class/Arcade. Since you still can't spawn with power weapons and you need to find them on the map.

But I can sort of see what you're saying... Wasn't there that Arena Shooter Nexuis or something like that released on steam recently?

 

[Darmy647]

Admittedly, one of the reasons me and a friend actually played duke nukem forever was for its death match...oh the guilt..

 

[Paragon Fury]

Well Halo 4 is sort of a Arena Shooter, it's become more a Hybrid of Arena and Class/Arcade. Since you still can't spawn with power weapons and you need to find them on the map.

But I can sort of see what you're saying... Wasn't there that Arena Shooter Nexuis or something like that released on steam recently?

No.

Halo 4 has completely abandoned the idea of being an Arena shooter.

Because the basic principle of the arena shooter isn't the power weapons - thought that is a core part - it's that EVERY SINGLE PLAYER, REGARDLESS OF PLAYTIME OR EXPERIENCE STARTS EVERY GAME EXACTLY THE SAME AS EVERYONE ELSE.

In an actual Arena Shooter, everyone spawns with the same weapon. The same grenades. The same inherent abilities. You may acquire others from the map or other players, but every you respawn or a new game starts, everyone starts at the same exact place.

Halo 4 does not do this.

 

[Shadowstar38]

XD haha. You called Gears a tactical shooter. That is priceless.

Back on topic.

Rainbow 6 is coming back if Ubisoft can ever manage to get it off the ground. The class based examples you mentioned are equally as popular, unless TF2 is more of a niche than I thought. And You've got boarderlands out there, which is...I dont know what to call that. But it blows most arcadey COD clones out of the water.

I agree with you that it's getting old though. These are the same problems the industry has been facing for years now and there's not much getting done about it. The hard data says COD is making money, so developers refuse to listen to actual gamers and chase COD all day thinking it will make them successful.

The only advice I could give would be stop buying COD so developers would thing it's going out of style. But I sure as hell know it's going to make another 3 mil come next month.

 

[Paragon Fury]

XD haha. You called Gears a tactical shooter. That is priceless.

Back on topic.

Rainbow 6 is coming back if Ubisoft can ever manage to get it off the ground. The class based examples you mentioned are equally as popular, unless TF2 is more of a niche than I thought. And You've got boarderlands out there, which is...I dont know what to call that. But it blows most arcadey COD clones out of the water.

I agree with you that it's getting old though. These are the same problems the industry has been facing for years now and there's not much getting done about it. The hard data says COD is making money, so developers refuse to listen to actual gamers and chase COD all day thinking it will make them successful.

The only advice I could give would be stop buying COD so developers would thing it's going out of style. But I sure as hell know it's going to make another 3 mil come next month.

The core of Gears is a Tactical Shooter - it was what even inspired Cliffy B. to steer the studio from just making Arena Shooters. It borrowed a few ideas from arena shooters - like spawning power weapons - to try and change some "issues" they thought tactical shooters have (IE: Too much camping).

And Borderlands isn't a competitive MP shooter. Its a Co-Op Dungeon Grind Loot Fest. Its basically Diablo with guns instead of swords and magic.

 

[Korten12]

Well Halo 4 is sort of a Arena Shooter, it's become more a Hybrid of Arena and Class/Arcade. Since you still can't spawn with power weapons and you need to find them on the map.

But I can sort of see what you're saying... Wasn't there that Arena Shooter Nexuis or something like that released on steam recently?

No.

Halo 4 has completely abandoned the idea of being an Arena shooter.

Because the basic principle of the arena shooter isn't the power weapons - thought that is a core part - it's that EVERY SINGLE PLAYER, REGARDLESS OF PLAYTIME OR EXPERIENCE STARTS EVERY GAME EXACTLY THE SAME AS EVERYONE ELSE.

In an actual Arena Shooter, everyone spawns with the same weapon. The same grenades. The same inherent abilities. You may acquire others from the map or other players, but every you respawn or a new game starts, everyone starts at the same exact place.

Halo 4 does not do this.

That's why I said a hybrid, meaning it's not just that. It's an Arena shooter in the sense that you can't spawn with power weapons, AND that you can still pick up weapons on the map. It has an aspect of arena shooter, but I didn't say it WAS an arena shooter, it's a hybrid, partial Arena, Class, and Arcade leaning a bit more towards Arcade though then Class.

 

[CoffeeBoy]

I won't pretend to understand the differences between these types, but I was going to suggest Tribes:Ascend, until you clarified...

In an actual Arena Shooter, everyone spawns with the same weapon. The same grenades. The same inherent abilities. You may acquire others from the map or other players, but every you respawn or a new game starts, everyone starts at the same exact place.

I don't know much about the upcoming Rise of the Triad reboot, but maybe that holds some promise for you.

If not, then captcha offers this: happy trails

 

[felbot]

well theres always serious sam 3, if thats any comfort, although that is mainly single player and co op and not competetive.

shame really, i like these a lot more than the million cod clones we have.

 

[TrevHead]

Yeah Serious Sam 3 and there's Painkiller remake that's out on PC soon, i'm not sure what MP content it will have but the devs say they are working to get it set up in the competative pro scene

 

[L0dest0ne]

Now what will I do with all of my quake 3 skills??? I was awesome at that game back in the day.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well SS3 had an arena shooter part to it however it was awful, clearly a last minute job, but frankly the meat of the game is SP.

There are still some kicking around, Nexuiz was pretty recent and there is ShootMania coming, there was also a new open source addition to the ranks, nothing to really break the ice here but some attempts are made.
It would be nice to see another UT but I doubt Epic would make a good job of it with mister Casual Brownness at the helm.
I see far more potential for indie devs that can break molds and try some crazy new stuff, sadly they are at the moment busy with CoD clones.

 

[DazZ.]

I heard Serious Sam 2s multiplayer is going to be released free to play on Steam at some point.
Not sure where or when though.

But yeah, a really good popular arena shooter would be great, Quake Lives payment model irritates me.
There are a load of open source arena shooters though, Warsow & Xonotic for two.

 

[sanquin]

Kind of off topic, but:
Counterstrike an arcade shooter? Lol. It's a tactical shooter. in fact, tactics and aiming skill are the only two things that really matter in CS.

 

[Paragon Fury]

Kind of off topic, but:
Counterstrike an arcade shooter? Lol. It's a tactical shooter. in fact, tactics and aiming skill are the only two things that really matter in CS.

No its not really. Its WAAAY too fast paced to be a tactical shooter. That'd be like saying Ghost Recon is a realistic shooter.

CS is also what spawned the current king of arcade shooters, Call of Duty, since the part of the design behind the current CoD MP was to do a CS-like MP but modified to be more open and casual-friendly. (Because lets be honest, CS is about as casual friendly as open-heart surgery is to a 4 year old)

 

[Squilookle]

I always just saw arena shooters dying with XIII and UT2004. The last good arena games that had bots. The whole genre has been dead to me for years already.

 

[MJpoland]

Yeah, Arena shooters are long dead unfortunately. Unreal Tournament 3 was probably last, failed attempt on reviving this genre. There are no signs of UT4 ever coming out so I guess we won't see a really good arena shooter for a long time.

 

[Gatx]

It seems like more multiplayer modes are adopting an MMO kind of persistence whether it be through skills, weapons, appearance, etc. because those things are tangible results of more playtime rather than just being better than other people and has more mass appeal. If that's the current trend then there's probably just not a demand for arena shooters where everyone starts a match on the same footing.

 

[Kopikatsu]

It seems like more multiplayer modes are adopting an MMO kind of persistence whether it be through skills, weapons, appearance, etc. because those things are tangible results of more playtime rather than just being better than other people and has more mass appeal. If that's the current trend then there's probably just not a demand for arena shooters where everyone starts a match on the same footing.

The reason for that is to keep people invested in the game long enough for the DLC to be released (Skinner box method)

Works tho'.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Kind of off topic, but:
Counterstrike an arcade shooter? Lol. It's a tactical shooter. in fact, tactics and aiming skill are the only two things that really matter in CS.

Counter strike is brief and round based, offers temporary rewards for doing well, is structured such that "wining" a map requires multiple successes, and only pays passing attention to realism and instead favors balance. There are three fundamental skills the game requires in order to excel - map knowledge (in other words, where you are, where bad guys likely are, and where the thing(s) is/are that you need to protect/destroy/escort), input speed (how quickly can you apply inputs to achieve a reaction) and input precision (the ability to input commands to achieve the correct reaction). Not listed: tactics. Beyond the slim amount offered by choice of weapon (more a player preference than tactical choice as literally any weapon is viable on any map though some are obviously favored over others) you've got grenades, the effect of which is based entirely on map knowledge and luck. The fact that a certain quantity of HE grenades get thrown at the door on Aztec demonstrates that the choice to do so is not a tactical one based upon evolving game conditions but rather one based on map knowledge - it is fairly likely that enemies will be present in the vicinity of that door in the first 20 seconds or so of a round.

In order to qualify as a tactical shooter, a game must possess some possibility of emergent gameplay - something that is all but impossible in the dressed up corridors of Counter Strike. Moreover, the game must be constructed such that individual player ability can be regularly bested by superior use of things like terrain, movement, coordination, feints, pincers and so forth. Counterstrike simply does not qualify in any of these regards - there are too few routes of motion, too few options for attack, too few qualifiers of success and far too much value placed upon individual skill for tactics to be of any real use.