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

[Space Spoons]

Well, I realize this is probably small comfort in the face of the potential death of one's favorite genre, but the old arena shooters aren't going anywhere. Developers might not be making arena shooters anymore, but nor are they setting out to destroy the old ones- you can still boot up Unreal Tournament and get your fix.

If you play on the PC, that is. Tough break if you're console exclusive, though I understand Halo 3 still has a reasonably active community.

 

[FrozenCones]

I really miss the old UT days. I loved that mode where you had nothing but the shock rifle and insta gib enabled.

 

[fulano]

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.

Have you seen the options menu, already? I mean, Reach had mad customization in the game--not sure if there was one for disabling the primitive loadouts (not much of an online player so I didn't look for it), but it could be conceivable that 343 were to be interested in allowing the "Arena" functionality through some check marks in the menu. I mean, Bungie threw the kitchen sink and then some to the customization of the games in Reach, so maybe they could go ahead and turn it back to the old school.

So far we just can't say until the game is out?

 

[skywolfblue]

Well, Halo was never really much like UT or Quake anyway. Halo had slow moving characters and only 2 guns at a time, UT had super-athletes on steroids and 10 weapons at a time.

I kinda liked some of the pseudo-class options in Reach, so I'm not really bothered that Halo 4 is taking the idea farther.

That said, I'd love for a new Unreal Tournament game!

 

[Soviet Heavy]

I'm having too much fun with Tribes Ascend and looking forward to Planetside 2 too much to call the Arena shooter dead.

 

[Okulossos]

Ok, first of all CS is the game that defined or invented tactical shooters and calling it "fast paced" may be a bit exaggerated. Second calling Halo an arena shooter works, but I would not place it there. it is far too slow and the way weapons are handled is not very arena-like.
But all in all the arena shooter is far from dead there are tons of projects around the internet that vary in size but are alive and well off - and then there are Quake Live and UT3 which have quite a big community. Actually to be precise even Quake 1 is still alive an kicking... if you have the skill.

The problem arena shooters have is that they are not ideal for mainstream anymore because they require skill and practice and that won't fit with the current generation of gamers who doesn't want to fiddle around with anything, who just wants to press a button and get some kills. That is why crosshairs now fill the screen, weapons won't require you to aim and movement is extremely limited. So yes, arena shooters are not mainstream anymore but when we take a look at the time they where popular we can see that the same type of gamers that played those shooters back then is still playing them today only that they where a majority back then and are a minority today. Most arena shooter fans have either stuck with their game or spread out over some of the fantastic freeware and open source games out there such as Nexiuz (from which you can get an updated, propriatory version on steam), its open source followup Xonotic, Warsow, red eclipse... and the list goes one and on.
If you want a new fresh arenashooter I suggest you go download Xonotic. It has a small but very healthy and active and growing community and you will often find someone to play with online. It's based on the darkplaces engine (Yes, thats quake 1) and looks quite good. You can google it. If you just want a bigger community you should either check out Quake Live or UT 3. And yes, serious sam 3 BFE also has multiplayer.
The good part about most arena shooters not being mainstream is, that the community is extreme nice and helpful. While playing starcraft you will find a lot of trolling and flaming, you will not encounter anything like that in Quake world, Xonotic or the likes. People here are just fun to play with (although I saw a strange Admin in Nexuiz once you really killed my day, but that was one of countless games and I don't really play Nexuiz).
In My oppinion you cannot take halo as the game that decides weather arenashooter live or die. Halo never really was part of that genre, it was more some strange game somewhere between arcade and arena tending a bit more towards arcade I guess.

So no, just because Halo 4 will be even less of a arena shooter then the other halos that does not mean that arena shooters are dead. It just means that even less trolls will know they exist and that is a good thing!

TL;DR:
Calling arena shooters dead is far fetched and not doing them justice. they just moved from mainstream to underground and that helped a lot to build a better community.

 

[Daemonate]

Um, to anyone calling CS a 'tactical shooter', have you ever actually played a tactical shooter?

Like, say Rogue Spear or similar? Where you spend several minutes checking corners and creeping to a door before using your heartbeat sensor for a few seconds before carefully opening the door? Where you get shot and die immediately?

Not, say, bunny hopping round a corner, taking 89 damage and pinning three guys in the head with your mad AK Skilzz?

 

[electric method]

Well hopefully 343i can maintain the core elements of halo gameplay in the mp space. It's a supreme irony, I saw an interview with Frank O'Connor and he was talking about adding in the perks and load outs and what not. He mentioned that it was due to the popularity of it and also wanting to capture some of the CoD players and getting them interested in Halo 4. To me this is absolute bovine scatology.

It's like 343i hasn't learned the lessons of all the other CoD clones that paid with their lives to learn; you don't beat Call of Duty by trying to be Call of Duty. Period. It's exactly the same situation that has occured in the MMO market; everyone chasing the big dog WoW. It didn't work there and, so far, hasn't worked in the fps market either.

Arena shooters have gone the way of the wind because of the current trends towards instant gratification, appeasement of the largest market demographic etc. What it means for most of us is that we get the same homogonized, souless drek.

 

[sanquin]

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.

You must have only played 'casual' CS then. Terrain, movement, coordination, feints and pincers are very important once you get to a higher level. As simple terrain knowledge, speed and precision won't win you matches any more by then. Sure rounds are relatively short, but that's because bullets are relatively realistic in damage and there is no health regen and no respawn. (one bullet and you can be dead) And temporary rewards for doing well? You have to build up cash and manage it properly to buy weapons. (Buy that deagle now, or wait and be able to buy that galil next round even if my side loses?)

Now the new CS sub-modes; Gungame. THAT is arcade style. But that's only a sub-mode to play in. If anything I'd switch GoW with CS. in GoW you fight 'hordes' of enemies, the combat is action packed and fast paced, bullets do unrealistic damage, and I have yet to see real need for tactics in that game.

 

[Paragon Fury]

1: GoW is "tactical" game because thats the biggest influence left in it; the original GoW would've been an arena shooter, but after the 2nd game where they gave you the option to change your spawn weapons, it had to hand in it's arena shooter card and there fore is designated "tactical" because its the only other category it fits in.

2: CS is not tactical by any measure - certainly when compared to other ACTUAL tactical games, like (old) Ghost Recons, Rainbow Six, etc.

3: Campaigns the non-competitive MP don't matter for the game's rating; though they tend to follow the same suit, obviously there are big variations among play modes. This rating regards only the competitive MP side.

4: Anyone still in doubt of Halo leaving the arena shooter arena need only to look at the detailed loadouts video IGN did with 343i a couple of weeks ago. Halo hasn't so much "left" the arena shooter building so much as it has stomped out, flipped us the bird, and left something smelly in the corner.

Halo 4 literally straight ripped things like perks from MW1 and MW2 - it only changed the names on some of them.

5: Arena shooters are "dead" in that I doubt we'll ever see another AAA, officially endorsed professional-developer made arena shooter again. The kind that has a big fan-fare and everyone goes nuts for, and you count on having thousands, if not tens of thousands of people to play with for a couple for months or years.

6: Class-based shooters aren't unsuccessful......its just that everything except WoW when compared to CoD is unsuccessful, and why no one bothers to try anything different. If the track record holds, Black OPs II will make more money in its first year than games like TF2 and BF3 will in their entire lives.

7: 343i should've been intimately familiar with what happens when you try to copy the leader for success; after all.......how many titles were killed by Halo because they tried to copy Halo during it's ten-year reign as king?

 

[Crises^]

1: GoW is "tactical" game because thats the biggest influence left in it; the original GoW would've been an arena shooter, but after the 2nd game where they gave you the option to change your spawn weapons, it had to hand in it's arena shooter card and there fore is designated "tactical" because its the only other category it fits in.

2: CS is not tactical by any measure - certainly when compared to other ACTUAL tactical games, like (old) Ghost Recons, Rainbow Six, etc.

3: Campaigns the non-competitive MP don't matter for the game's rating; though they tend to follow the same suit, obviously there are big variations among play modes. This rating regards only the competitive MP side.

4: Anyone still in doubt of Halo leaving the arena shooter arena need only to look at the detailed loadouts video IGN did with 343i a couple of weeks ago. Halo hasn't so much "left" the arena shooter building so much as it has stomped out, flipped us the bird, and left something smelly in the corner.

Halo 4 literally straight ripped things like perks from MW1 and MW2 - it only changed the names on some of them.

5: Arena shooters are "dead" in that I doubt we'll ever see another AAA, officially endorsed professional-developer made arena shooter again. The kind that has a big fan-fare and everyone goes nuts for, and you count on having thousands, if not tens of thousands of people to play with for a couple for months or years.

6: Class-based shooters aren't unsuccessful......its just that everything except WoW when compared to CoD is unsuccessful, and why no one bothers to try anything different. If the track record holds, Black OPs II will make more money in its first year than games like TF2 and BF3 will in their entire lives.

7: 343i should've been intimately familiar with what happens when you try to copy the leader for success; after all.......how many titles were killed by Halo because they tried to copy Halo during it's ten-year reign as king?

GOW of no where near tactical.

Now CS is both casual and tactical on the public side its a run and gun casual game in competitive its extremely tactical to the extent the higher class teams actually have play books like the NFL, once you get to a certain skill level in cs aim takes a back seat to game sense and tactics.

for instance a team with good tactics and a good caller will beat a team with better aim and mediocre tactics.

Also money management is a huge part of cs, you don't just spawn with your favorite weapon set each round.

 

[Syzygy23]

What about Planetside 2? What would you classify that as?

I mean, the sheer amount of boners people are having over P2's release kinda gives me hope that it's not just a CoD clone with a sci fi skin and 1 huge map.

 

[Paragon Fury]

What about Planetside 2? What would you classify that as?

I mean, the sheer amount of boners people are having over P2's release kinda gives me hope that it's not just a CoD clone with a sci fi skin and 1 huge map.

Its obviously not a tactical or arena shooter, nor a realistic one.

Since it doesn't really have any defined classes or roles to fill.....its an arcade shooter. By process of elimination.

And GoW is a tactical shooter, regardless if people don't want it to be. Its automatically disqualified from being an arena shooter by customizable spawn weapons, it has no classes, its not a realistic shooter, leaving only Arcade and Tactical. And when you put it between the two groups, it most closely resembles tactical shooters, so thats' where it goes.

Nor is CS a tactical shooter, no matter which way you cut it. It may involve tactics, but it sets itself definitely apart from the tactical shooter genre by it's pace, the way its objectives are set up, the way it plays, the way player spawning and weapon loadouts are handled and general design of gameplay. Think of it this way; the current Call of Duty games, the king of the Arcade shooters, spawned from the CS model (even the basic gameplay design between the two is highly similar) - you don't get an arcade shooter from a tactical shooter. Its too big a leap to make.

 

[Crises^]

I don't understand how you can think GoW is a tactical shooter and cs not,

Cs has objective you either defend or destroy that objective through use of tactics teamwork and skill. Teams practice there tactics in cs, we re-work them have play books even study what to do if the other team reacts one way to a tactic or another. Tactics are so in bedded in the cs community that if you played a random mix with people you don't know they would understand straight away what b split, a split, rush, b fake and other level entry tactics.

Hell people instantly know to call where there holding the position or pushing it in random mixes.

Also I see you mention pace for cs it is true the movement speed may be faster but the play style is all about holding choke points and using flash bangs smokes and the angles to your advantage.

Now Call of Duty - the time zone may be the same but they're two completely different games.
Call of Duty is a game designed for easy to pick up run and gun its has kill perks and other ridiculous things in it that make it a frenzy of action non stop where as cs has a very steep learning curve and you don't just run and gun or you will die.

Now I have played GoW 1 & 2 and to me that was a run and gun action game but i also didn't play enough of it or any matches to judge it properly so I won't argue on that front.

 

[Xariat]

Calling GoW tatical but saying that cs is not tactical strikes me as odd, there are many different games inside cs and I dare say that at least one form of it can take the title of tactical.

Now I haven't actually played GoW, only seen brief gameplay clips so the following might not count for shit, but to my eye it looked a lot more arcade-like than it was tactical.

 

[electric method]

That's because GoW is, at heart, an arena shooter. Power weps etc are on map pick ups, the starting weapons are mostly the same across the board. The choice to spawn with a Lancer, Retro Lancer or Hammerburst are really player preference choices and all are balanced against each other really.