Where do FPS games go from here?

[Kieran210]

Hi.

This is my first ever post, so, please make allowances. Secondly, it's nice to finally find a group of eruite, well informed games players, who actually discuss things!

On with the question I'd like to pose: Where do FPS games go from here?

FPS gaming is really rather stylised, and I think that each generation of FPS games are headed up an evolutionary dead end. If you compared Doom II to Crysis, what would you see?

Almost unbelievable graphics improvements. Physics engines. Improved AI. All of this are impressive technical achievements, and all improve the genre. However, what you see as different is merely the details, and the actual fundemental issues of the genre are still there.

Zero interactivity with the environment. Crysis, the most up to date shooter around, still has the same problem Doom did. Look around the environment, see it, enjoy the visuals and then....blow it up. That's all you can do, the only way to interact. You can't touch or hold anything, you can't pick anything up and put it down softly, you can't knock a friendly NPC out of the way of a bullet. FPS gaming is possibly the most immersive form of gaming, but it still lacks that basic tenet of an experience. The player is not a person in the game world, just a floating gun with eyes. They are the most limited of the games characters, when they should be the most enabled (pressing the 'E' key at the correct moment isn't what I mean.)

Awful, awful stories. The next FPS game that says to me 'you are the elite member of a secret military...' or 'you are the only survivor of...' is going straight out of my window. Please, something more thought through than that. HL2 + episodes are my favorites because they attempt to do something different, epic almost. I still have moments where I get annoyed, however.

And finally, why do most FPS gamers want to be on their own? Most NPC characters (with exceptions) are normally there to aid you, or die to prove the situation is serious. There is never any engagement beyond the help me/warn me by dying relationship. Nothing like a real relationship that builds up between people.

So, is FPS gaming getting too cultured into just refining the details, or am I being overly harsh (or dreaming too much about what could be achieved) about the genre?

Cheers.

K

 

[LordLocke]

To be fair, there's plenty of innovation in the FPS genre out there. For every Crysis, there's a Deus Ex. The problem is that, unlike a lot of genres, nothing 'new' in FPS games ever manages to become standard- Doom's impact on the genre can still be felt, usually because it's the base where EVERY new FPS game starts. And many don't strive to go too far from the origin point.

The biggest changes that have to come to the genre involve the environment- for most FPS titles, it's simple a fancy way of redesigning the maze, reskinning the minotaur, and changing the win condition from escape to killing the beastie, or finding Daedalus' lab and planting an explosive before you go. A few FPS titles have dabbled with the environment as an obsticle on it's own, from making it destructible (Red Faction) or making it harder to navigate then 'WSAD, shoot stuff' (Metroid Prime, Half-Life 2) but even these titles stop before going into territory too unknown. Save one.

If you still hear us talking about Portal 20 years for now, it might be as the Mario 64 or Soul Calibur of FPS titles- one which takes old familiar concepts and uses them to blow the doors wide open in what can be done in a tired old genre. The Portal gun showed new ways for the FPS genre to operate with it's environment- turning the world itself into the hazard which you must then use your toy to navigate. It's ideas like this that'll be what shapes the future of the genre, not shinier graphics or guns that fire differently but ultimately lead to the same end result of chunky bits showering the ground.

 

[jimmythenoob]

im too tierd to go into massive detail right now (but ill try tomorrow), take a look at far cry 2 and some of its new ideas (like if you get hit somewhere it you have to treat that type of wound in a specific way and in its location) I know its not groundbreaking but its a small step forward in more player interactivity with games. (my friends and I have been saying you should be able to do that in games since deus ex came to us.)

 

[GrowlersAtSea]

First Person Shooters are one of the most popular (if not the most popular) genres in video games, but I agree that their gameplay refinement over the years has been less than spectacular.

As it stands, many FPS games are really glorified tech demos. This is not all bad, since as such they help push the envelope further as developers strive for the elusive photo-realistic visuals that have been long talked about. AI, sounds, physics, visuals, all often are given new benchmarks to the industry by the FPS genre, but at it's heart, the gameplay, hasn't changed nearly as much as the aesthetics.

Interactivity that is contextual has appeared to a limited degree (doors, enemies, grenades, obstacles), but really I think the problem with the level of interaction you're talking about is the just how you would even control it, if it were technically feasible. At present a mouse and keyboard is the most common and generally the most efficient way to play an FPS game; it's fairly ergonomic, the mouse allows quick accurate aiming and you have access to a fair number of keys and buttons (even without a fancy mouse or anything). Doing a quick count, my fingers have quick access to about 20 buttons and keys. Without context keys (press X at this time or whatever) it would be incredibly difficult to have nuances of interactivity with this type of control, there just isn't enough, really. Even if it were coded, I don't see how to put it all there, even with a current FPS game I'm using all of the keys around the standard W, S, A and D keys for vital things, grenades, leaning, "use" keys, running, crouching, going prone, etc. they all take up room.

You are right that the stories of most FPS games are insanely generic. But that is true, sadly, for many video games. How many RPG's are you the lone survivor of your village or your family seeking answers or retribution? How many adventure games are you driven by a kidnapping or theft to seek out the perpetrators? Video games in general have very mediocre plotlines, it's rare for any to stray from very established lines.

I don't think as many FPS gamers want to be on their own as you might think. The success of the Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon games, as well as other Tactical Shooters shows that many gamers like to be in teams. The Call of Duty series has also features a lot of friendly NPC's that give support, although many wind up dead, you're rarely alone in these games. I personally much prefer these games to one-man-army type affairs, where my one Commando can bring an entire nation-state to it's knees.

Where are they going from here?

I think many will continue to be essentially tech demos, where you can see the latest in physics, particle effects, lighting, textures, AI and all of the things video games have been working towards for the last couple decades. The success of some games recent games that stay very true to the established pillars of the genre though are not encouraging, but some shooters will mix things up somewhat, mostly in small steps, but over time the genre will evolve. It might just take technology for slow down a bit and for the gameplay to expand, but who knows.

It's a good genre, and has a great deal of potential both in how it allows players to experience and be pulled into a game world. Just wait and see, I suppose.

 

[Arbre]

I'm afraid you lot are asking for "innovations" that are such profound modifications, we wouldn't be playing FPSes anymore, but some very crossbreeded stuff.

First Person Shooter. It's not surprising that I'm supposed to mainly shoot and blow stuff up.
From that point, I don't understand why we should see more revolutionary stuff.
We still get new stuff. Late, the discovery that not all zones can be played with the same gravity vectors.
Or Quake Wars, which really pushed the enveloppe in terms of asymetrical gameplay, which is quite hard to get right. But as far as I'm concerned, the Splash guys did it.

Now, I'm a super crack soldier or a survivor?
Well, I'd rather say you have to be a tad special in order to go through legions of enemies and still keep suspension of disbelief going on.

Some minor novelties don't become standards? Well, possibly all the better. Funny thing to say, but if letting the genre evolve slowly, gets us more games with the same mechanics, but combined in different ways, and presented with different settings, and maybe one or two minor new gimmicks, I'm fine. It could even end being better, rather than piling up the newness, and ending with plenty of games in ten years being dissed because they don't include all possible options, this game's physics and ultra realistic stuff, that game's interactive this, movable that, etc.
It also helps the variety, in a kind of way. The more there are elements that can be mixed up, but not all at the same time, the more you get variety.

Imagine a hundred different forms. You have to pick several of them at random, and drop them in a bag. Now, let's see what you obtain. If you limit yourself to combinations of ten forms only, your bags will be often different from each other.
Now, you can use 99 forms out of 100, and you'll end with a superbag, with plenty of forms inside, which will possibly be super cool (assuming there's just not too much stuff mixed up), but you will also end with dramatically less possible combinations.

I don't see problems with genres not moving super fast, really. Sometimes, a random FPS that gets a 7 out of 10 is still fair and enjoyable.

 

[shadow skill]

As far as the control interfaces go the only reason gamerd are using seemingly every key on the keyboard is because the developers were either too stupid or too lazy to make a proper game mechanic. Things like lean keys and "use" keys are perfect examples of this. Ask yourself what is the point of a specific button for grenades when you can almost never shoot your gun and throw a grenade at the same time? It's a waste of a key really since you already have a fire button; you are better off just switching to your grenade class of weapons and using the same button for shooting to throw the grenade.

Samething goes for the "use" and "lean" keys I mentioned earlier, you already have keys for left and right strafe; with a real cover mechanic like GRAW just make the cover system context sensitive and have the player character lean while in cover mode. For the "use" key just copy what Id did with Quake 4 and Doom 3.

But hell we can't even get weapons like this [http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldiertech_XM-26,,00.html] to appear in games more often. So it is no suprise that FPS tend to suffer from "key spam."

 

[Saskwach]

I couldn't say myself where FPSes might go except a pretty broad one: AI. Really, the most engaging FPS games are the ones that dump you into a room with a smart enemy that even, dare I say it, has a personality of some sort that distinguishes it from other eneemy types.
Yes I'm wrong and simple but I felt like talking.

 

[brewbeard]

While I prefer the squad-based systems in more modern FPS games, I can't help but wholly despise bad combat AI and its impact upon said squads. If my allies are going to constantly get themselves killed and be replaced with more guys later on who are wholly unresponsive to the fact that everyone who teams up with me ends up in a stew of their own viscera, there'd better be a reason for it. I'd have to say Half-life 2's Follow Freeman bits are probably the best examples of this kind of gun-toting lemming behavior.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. almost gets it right, with its escorts taking cover and popping off a few shots while still being killable, but all the escorts in *that* game are scripted, running to the same cover every time at the same speed regardless of whether or not you're actually following them, resulting in them getting themselves into heaps of trouble that you, as the player, can't do anything about. That becomes frustrating to the point of building ridiculous structures out of whatever's available to prevent them from advancing while you take care of the bad guys.

All in all, I can't really think of any fps or even third person games that really nail down the whole squad-based thing. Of course, enemies suffer from the same kinds of complications, but you generally don't notice it as much because you're trying to kill them, and anything they do that gets them killed without being overtly moronic is a boon so far as the player is concerned.

That said, boss monsters really tend way too much to the -cheap gameplay mechanic exploitation to artificially increase difficulty- system, but I think that's suffered by games in almost every genre out there.

 

[JamesW]

First, you're assuming there is a need for them to change the direction they've been evolving in. Tennis hasn't fundamentally changed in a couple hundred years either yet people still seem to be enjoying it. If that's the case, what's the problem?

Nobody's paying £40 to play a game of tennis.

 

[dan_the_manatee]

Plenty people pay £40 and up for tennis rackets.

On topic though, I think we have seen some innovation in the FPS genre over the years. We've seen moves towards open-world or sandbox style gameplay (FarCry, Crysis, MOH: Airborne) and there is increasing criticism of those that adhere solely to the corridor-shooter format, that's been with us since the days of Doom. However, there is an issue of technology here - we still expect to see top end graphics from the FPS, but it's difficult to do that over an open world without sacrificing framerate, AI, physics etc (look at how hungry Crysis is). Elder Scrolls Oblivion might well have shown us we can have a beautiful open world, but it didn't have the speed of an Unreal Tournament or the on screen action of a Halo 3. If we want advances in terms of moving away from linearity, we're going to have to buy better machines or take a step back in graphics.

Physics is another issue: Half Life 2 showed us that it can be done, and can add a lot to the game, but in msot FPS it's still an afterthought. It seems the physics engine is limited to grenade jumping and boncing corpses. This is probably a gross underestimate of what's going on under the hood though. Halo 3 clearly had some good physics (note in multiplayer that gravity can be tweaked, that objects on slopes slide away, that someitems float in water etc) but it wasn't a major element of the gameplay. The question in that case is do we want it to be? Games like Portal are essentially a physics engine (or similar) novelty, and an overabundance of wooden see saws weighted down with bricks isn't really why most people pick up an FPS.

As for environmental interaction... what's the leader in that one? Crysis looks pretty good in those respects to me. As with the physics, the environmental interaction that's vital to an FPS is damage; most other interaction is either an addendum to the core gameplay mechanic, or forced puzzle solving, and so it's questionable whether the genre would benefit from having it as a standard feature, rather than an idiosyncracy in one or two games.

The future probably lies in advancing AI, but with online multiplayer becoming accessible to those without PCs now, AI's always going to suffer some harsh competition. Maybe they should just write better stories then...

 

[JamesW]

Plenty people pay £40 and up for tennis rackets.

...that they can use forever.

People pay £200+ for a console and £40-50 for games to play on them. I don't think it's too much for them to expect something different for this £40 than they got for their previous £40.

As for FPS games - as others have pointed out, you can't do too much to the basic model before you stop making a first person shooter and end up with an RPG/adventure/FPS hybrid like Deus Ex or System Shock. Even Portal is more of a clever 3D puzzle game than an FPS. On the other hand, adding minor changes to the usual gameplay elements can leave designers open to being accused of trying to create a watered-down RPG for the console market; cf. some complaints about Bioshock's weapons upgrade/photo-upgrade/gene tonic elements.

There're also the limitations inherent in the FPS model. Since the player can't see their avatar, it's very hard for them to precisely gauge their position in relation to everything else; additionally, first-person viewpoints provide a less comprehensive view of the game world (third-person views provide at least 180 degree horizontal vision, compared to the 90-ish that an FPS brings). This makes sneaking games* like MGS and Assassin's Creed, and parkour games like Crackdown and, er, Assassin's Creed, much more intuitive to play in a third-person mode.

As for why FPS games tend to eschew team-play, it's probably because it's awfully difficult to keep tabs on your team members from a first-person perspective rather than a slightly pulled-back third person perspective. Thus, designers making team games are likely to go third-person. Additionally, a lot of FPS games seem to go the horror route (horror games ARE more tense when you're looking out through the hero's eyes, after all), which by its very nature discourages people to go tromping about in groups.

Also, if games like Half Life 2 and the Halo series are anything to go by, it's impossible to write an FPS engine without giving all player allies the intelligence of damaged chickens.




*yes, yes - Thief. But I'd argue that third-person perspectives are still more practical in such games.

 

[the_carrot]

Sandbox designs are sort of what I'm hoping for, at least in the (relatively) short term.

 

[mrblackett]

I'm amazed no-one has tried to expand on the Metroid Prime formula (except for Nintendo with the sequels, obviously). It's easily one of the best, most consistent series of the past five or so years and all it's really done is add extremely rudimentary RPG elements and some platforming.

The problem with the FPS is that no-one is trying to change the game mechanics. Take the impressive visuals away from Crysis. Do you you really have anything that was impossible five years ago? Not really. As long as developers continue this graphical cock comparison in favour of doing something interesting, the FPS will eventually end up a niche market.

the_carrot's idea intrigues me. An FPS crossed with GTA could be very interesting but easily destroyed by a poor developer. I remember when Doom came out I thought how amazing it was to be able to view the action from the first person. It was so immersive even when it was just corridors. I'm bored of corridors now and want something a bit bigger and less linear. I'd be happy if they gave GTA 4 a first person perspective option.

 

[Copter400]

Well some of those things you listed would be a good start. Being able to interact with the enviroment in a non-destructive mannner would be nice. And the stories truly do suck, but we're already fixing that with the recently released Bioshock. Who would expect a shooter to be set in the 60's, in an underwater city populated with howling crazies who feed on the genetic material in little girls?

And maybe some more instances where you're the bad guy. Even better, no bad or good, just grey.

 

[JamesW]

Maybe "Grey" should be the sequel to Black.

 

[mrblackett]

Maybe "Grey" should be the sequel to Black.

There should be no sequel to Black. Let Grey be what it wants to be.

 

[QuantumPope]

I'm amazed no-one has tried to expand on the Metroid Prime formula (except for Nintendo with the sequels, obviously). It's easily one of the best, most consistent series of the past five or so years and all it's really done is add extremely rudimentary RPG elements and some platforming.

Just wanted to touch on this. Metroid Prime, though being an excellent game, doesn't truly excel in all the ways it wanted to. For instance, story, please don't say that the story is excellent and amazing. It's the same ol' "OH TEH NOES all my equipment is gone because of some generic problem." I am personally sick of that and wish they could think of something more original (prequel maybe). The platforming also is meager at best. It sort of turned into a Ratchet and Clank sort of game, changing itself from platforming to shooting. As for the RPG elements it does them as well as any modern game I've seen do. (Though nothing takes the cake but Deus Ex).

Sandbox designs are sort of what I'm hoping for, at least in the (relatively) short term.

A sandbox game would be great but it really doesn't fit the FPS genre. I couldn't think of any linking concept except for you being some sort of assassin, ala Hitman style and going around doing missions. It'd be great but it's hard to see an FPS game like that.

As for what I want in the future of FPS gaming is a greater storyline base. CoD4 really raised the bar I think on this level with a storyline you actually had to follow to understand. It's the prefect blend of known history and fiction fit to a mature storyline(even though it was a little farfetched).

 

[raankh]

In my opinion,

What I'd like to see is someone who actually manages to make a fun, playable FP game with close-quarters combat in it, even unarmed perhaps. To date, all I've tried feel more like trying to run someone over with a car than actually fighting (Elder Scrolls, Dark Messiah etc etc).

To satisfy me in that regard the movement patterns would have to stop feeling like you're floating, albeit slightly wavering. Inclusion of a body, limits to how you can turn your head, perhaps some kind of focus stealing when you bump into something or perhaps even reflexes (you cast a glance towards abrupt sounds etc).

Also, in particular, a control scheme where you can move in one direction but look in another. And more options than Run, Walk, Crouch; maybe using an analog controller. For unarmed to work, you'd have to be able to take quick steps, weave your torso, move your legs, adjust your guard etc and all that would have to be visible as more than just floating camera movements.

I've been trying some designs on this on my own, but I'm not satisfied with them. I'm hoping some talented game developer out there will fare better.