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[hooijdonk17]

Yes, but a lot of people are missing what started the Arena genre had nothing to do with the things arena shooters are trying to do these days. I was there during the QuakeWorld days, and nobody cared that the weapons or maps weren't balanced. It was all about the movement, how amazingly cool it looked and how absolutely badass it made you feel. The original Unreal Tournament understood this, and capitalized on all these aspects. I really feel the Arena genre started to lose steam as soon as Quake 3 and UT 2003 hit, and things started moving in directions that I (and most twitch shooter players) did not really care much for.. Just my 2c, of course.

EDIT: I really don't see why id (they still have the rights to it, right?) don't do a Quake 1 or especially Quake 2 (now that it has had the RTX attention) remake and just bring back the exact same multiplayer with updated graphics..

 

[AlteredForms]

Unreal Tournament has been missing in action for some time now, Quake Champions didn't turn out as expected for the franchise. Halo seems to be the only one in the game.

 

[Corgi1985]

Is there a single goddam game with a population that isn't a team based hero shooter with a shit art style?

 

[Unk Adams]

Is there a single goddam game with a population that isn't a team based hero shooter with a shit art style?

That's sadly the norm now. Anything that actually looks cool is mocked as being "edgy" and instead we get the ugly trash that is common today. Every single one of those team based games look horrific and play even worse. Gaming was far better when it was considered a basement dwelling hobby. I'd take Unreal, Quake, etc. over what's popular today.

 

[VN1X]

Is there a single goddam game with a population that isn't a team based hero shooter with a shit art style?

Quake Champions still going just fine. Doesn't have monster numbers but you can get into a match in seconds.

Let me know if you want to team up or 1v1 if that's your thing.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Lizards after seeing the rise of man...

"Are we ever going to see one of us become the apex predator again? Man sucks. Look at him building his internet and rocket ships. Reptiles for life!"

 

[brian0057]

Arena shooters peaked with Quake III: Arena.
Everything has been downhill ever since.

 

[Radioskugga]

I miss playing Unreal Tournament on 10 person LAN. That was really fun.

 

[OverHeat]

Quake 3 Arena…those where the days

 

[Corgi1985]

Even just finding a game with weapon pickups and basic deathmatch is like sticking your dick in a cheerio. I might have liked apex if it wasn't for having to team up with some nerd

 

[Anki]

Now i fish somone makes arena shooter with fast movement of doom eternal

 

[Bombolone]

Loved me some Quake and UT back in the day.
Game companies want player retention ($$$). I don't see this mass of gamers adopting something that will mostly just frustrate them.
With smaller team count games there is more pressure to perform (and the feeling of losing, failing, is heavier)

Battle royales you can run around and get loot, a few kills without really investing any skill into it. There are 20+ teams so who cares if you lose, you weren't going to win (#1) anyways right?
With a two team matchup. You lose, because you didn't perform. Warzone eclipses classic COD game types.
Its kind of telling that the 'social media' generation latched onto BRs. They are basically big social lobbies (worlds) where you run around, chat with friends, shoot the shit, show off your skins. (nothing wrong with that at all)

I just started playing Apex Legends at Season 9. I'm enjoying it. The movement and flow of it is something I want to getting better at.
But gottdamn do I miss some Unreal Tourney. I need a shooter that doesn't have 'heroes with abilities'. Just a map with weapon spawns.
I loled when I read that Bungie is getting into the hero shooter space... cuz why not.

I think Arena shooters will stay niche, but hopefully a studio with some money behind it, creates one in the next few years.

 

[Murdoch]

Knockout city is the best arena shooter I've played in years. It's good clean fun.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Knockout city is the best arena shooter I've played in years. It's good clean fun.

This.

If you say you love arena shooters but ignore Knockout City, you are a fraud. It shares much of it's DNA with Quake/UT.

 

[Bragr]

Man, the new Doom games were supposed to be the second coming for Arena Shooter multiplayer, but they fucked up their online parts too hard.

 

[Alexios]

Man, the new Doom games were supposed to be the second coming for Arena Shooter multiplayer, but they fucked up their online parts too hard.

Didn't seem like that was the plan, felt like they didn't wanna fuck with Quake Champions, first with not making it so great but a bonus mode before that game hits, then with the sequel focusing on the monster stuff to doomify instead of arenafy it further. Anyway, this is good & in ongoing dev.

Grapple Tournament - Update 12: New map - Rig - Early Access - Steam News

Play the alpha version of Rig and tell us about your experience!

store.steampowered.com

 

[Knightime_X]

They STILL have yet to make a cod as fun as modern warfare 2.
Unreal Tournament 3 was the last good UT game.

Everyone wants op weapons in small maps.

Fuck all of this nerfed pussy bullshit.
I want to die 14 times a second and rage quit when my ass can't take another pounding from the mass fuckery to be had.

Those days were the BEST!!!
Sadly they make shit games now because too many babies picked up the controller.

 

[Alexios]

Unreal Tournament 3 was the last good UT game.

I mean, it was the last UT game >_>

I think UT2004 was better, just saying

Shame Shootmania (presumably) didn't take off, they had a good idea.

 

[ozz ex machina]

Diabotical is very good for what it is. But the afps community is so elite they just self sabotage any new game by arguing over tiny mechanical issues and never being happy.

It's sadly a dead genre. Ever to be on the fringes due to the high skill ceiling and brutal nature.

QC is fun for what it is too. It's weird though because for all the shit people give fortnite, it is a mechanically demanding game (building mainly). So i try to remain hopeful a banging afps can somehow mobilise a fraction of that audience and take off. But it's not looking likely.

 

[Krappadizzle]

They STILL have yet to make a cod as fun as modern warfare 2.
Unreal Tournament 3 was the last good UT game.

Everyone wants op weapons in small maps.

Fuck all of this nerfed pussy bullshit.
I want to die 14 times a second and rage quit when my ass can't take another pounding from the mass fuckery to be had.

Those days were the BEST!!!
Sadly they make shit games now because too many babies picked up the controller.

I remember getting to my last unit back when I was in the military and the guys asked me if I played Halo 3. I told them I was pretty good and just dominated ALL of them pretty much across every mode and level. I was ALWAYS trying to play rockets only because it helped level the playing field and made it more fun in my opinion but they would always give me shit for suggesting it. They just didn't understand Halo's emphasis on power weapons/map control and power weapon respawn timers and I had them down pretty good so I'd always win. Got so sick of hearing them rage all the time, but when they finally acquiesced to all Rocket matches we'd all start having fun because they could easily get kills on me and then that's all we played eventually.

 

[Phase]

I remember getting to my last unit back when I was in the military and the guys asked me if I played Halo 3. I told them I was pretty good and just dominated ALL of them pretty much across every mode and level. I was ALWAYS trying to play rockets only because it helped level the playing field and made it more fun in my opinion but they would always give me shit for suggesting it. They just didn't understand Halo's emphasis on power weapons/map control and power weapon respawn timers and I had them down pretty good so I'd always win. Got so sick of hearing them rage all the time, but when they finally acquiesced to all Rocket matches we'd all start having fun because they could easily get kills on me and then that's all we played eventually.

Power weapons to fight over just makes such a dynamic experience for a mp shooter. It changes everything about the mindset of the game. What is important at any given moment changes based on situation and information you have to stay aware of.

"Did that player grab the snipe and go long? Shit we gotta start making a push for positioning so we can grab rocks when they come up." There becomes an ebb and flow to the games that aren't present in shooters of today. A meta game within the game. This is where the real fun is within arena shooters, and it's what I've been missing the most with current fps.

 

[JeremyEtcetera]

But it's an xbox game. Putting the words arena shooter and joystick in the same sentence is just silly.

Just look at the difference in movement.
A proper arena shooter

And a console "arena" shooter


They can't even compare.

This is one of the reasons why the last genre resurgence failed. Arena shooter fans are too picky and stubborn to have anything new or different added to their genre. Shunning the console audience instead of embracing them for doing things their own way is the wrong play. And on top of that you guys laughed Cliffy B out of the building and shit on Quake Champions.

There should be an Arena shooter take on BR right now, but every dev out there right now is too scared to try.

The more Arena shooter fans stubbornly fight against change, the longer the genre stays dead and the less and less relevant it becomes.

 

[AutumnLeaves]

This is one of the reasons why the last genre resurgence failed. Arena shooter fans are too picky and stubborn to have anything new or different added to their genre. Shunning the console audience instead of embracing them for doing things their own way is the wrong play. And on top of that you guys laughed Cliffy B out of the building and shit on Quake Champions.

There should be an Arena shooter take on BR right now, but every dev out there right now is too scared to try.

The more Arena shooter fans stubbornly fight against change, the longer the genre stays dead and the less and less relevant it becomes.

He's just explaining the difference between Halo and UT. No one is being "picky" or "stubborn." No one is shunning the console audience. There has been a lot added to the genre; UT and its progression is an example of that. No one is fighting anything.

 

[JeremyEtcetera]

He's just explaining the difference between Halo and UT. No one is being "picky" or "stubborn." No one is shunning the console audience. There has been a lot added to the genre; UT and its progression is an example of that. No one is fighting anything.

Just to clarify what he said in his post, minus the videos:

But it's an xbox game. Putting the words arena shooter and joystick in the same sentence is just silly.

Just look at the difference in movement.

A proper arena shooter

And a console "arena" shooter

They can't even compare.

If I could sum these quotes up in a gif, it would be something close to this:

 

[EverydayBeast]

You're not trading open world for arena shooting small maps that ain't happening.

 

[Corgi1985]

Unreal championship was fun just make that again

 

[AeonGaidenRaiden]

Id love for them to return but it aint happening. EPIC stopped development on UT, let fans create shit but this will never get going and is dying a slow death. Quake Champions had the hype, then they released early access version and nobody even talks about the game for over a year. They are dead.

 

[Krappadizzle]

This is one of the reasons why the last genre resurgence failed. Arena shooter fans are too picky and stubborn to have anything new or different added to their genre. Shunning the console audience instead of embracing them for doing things their own way is the wrong play. And on top of that you guys laughed Cliffy B out of the building and shit on Quake Champions.

There should be an Arena shooter take on BR right now, but every dev out there right now is too scared to try.

The more Arena shooter fans stubbornly fight against change, the longer the genre stays dead and the less and less relevant it becomes.

I think this is a fair criticism. To me an Arena shooter is fast-paced, twitch-ass combat. Which just doesn't translate very well to controllers. Now I'd say that if most modern shooters were to embrace gyro-aiming/touch-pad aiming(Steam controller) or even just gyro-aiming(Dualsense/Switch-Pro controllers) they could reasonably make games that are fast-paced twitch arena shooters.

We are just sadly seeing variations of the standards that CoD has set and publishers are constantly chasing that Cod/Fortnite money that they won't stray too far from the formula, or at least not in a meaningful way on consoles.

I LOVED Halo and would consider myself a big fan overall of the series, but it's a very slow-paced shooter compared to what we've seen in the arena shooter market. I look forward to seeing how Halo Infinite may evolve the formula as it needs to do something drastic to stand out in the over-crowded swath of shooters we have if it want's to survive.

It's why we only get World of Warcraft clones for MMO's. It's too tempting to try and chase the numbers/money than it is to innovate and lead.

 

[lh032]

i miss unreal tournament, EPIC should give it a shot again.

 

[01011001]

Battle Royale games are essentially arena shooters... at least most of them.

Apex Legends technically speaking isn't one since you have character classes

 

[JeremyEtcetera]

Battle Royale games are essentially arena shooters... at least most of them.

Apex Legends technically speaking isn't one since you have character classes

I can't agree with this. In most BR games you get one life and then it's back to a loading screen for the next match. One of the key fun aspects of arena shooters is the ability to respawn back into the map and have another go at things to help you improve. Also the map layouts could be argued about as well.

 

[Spearheadz]

Holy shit do I miss Unreal Tournament. GOAT.

 

[cormack12]

I've been playing battlefront II lately and I think this most closely resembles the arena experience to me. Ideally though the progression would be cut and it would just be weapon pickups for the traditionalists.

 

[01011001]

I can't agree with this. In most BR games you get one life and then it's back to a loading screen for the next match. One of the key fun aspects of arena shooters is the ability to respawn back into the map and have another go at things to help you improve. Also the map layouts could be argued about as well.

well the only essentials for it to he an arena shooter is that every spawns in with the same loadout and you pick up any additional equipment and weapon off the ground.

of course Battle Royale games are a special kind of arena shooter.

Ubisoft's (had to google the name again) Hyper Scape even tried to copy the game feel of old school arena shooters.

 

[01011001]

I've been playing battlefront II lately and I think this most closely resembles the arena experience to me. Ideally though the progression would be cut and it would just be weapon pickups for the traditionalists.

weapon pickups are not an optional feature for area shooters, it's literally what makes them arena shooters.

if you don't spawn with exactly the same loadout as everyone else, it's not an arena shooter.
if there are no weapon/armor/health/powerup pickups and reasons to traverse the map to gain an advantage, it's not an areana shooter.

 

[Twinguistics]

I know I'm a pretty broken record at this point but ...

... VR.

There's a lot of arena shooters on vr and it really suits this genre. If one is going to make it big, it'll be a decently funded VR game and probably on the quest 3.

 

[ShinraMiddleMananger]

Isn't CoD in itself technically an arena style shooter? It seems to be doing fine.

It seems the defining characteristic of arena shooter is the power weapons spawning on map. In cod you choose your loadout but even so their are objective bests - metas ( game within the game) that outshine others. If goldeneye released as is today, people would rage bitch about the rcp90 spawn next to the BA on the second floor of the facility. Gaming is lambchops singing the song that never ends.

 

[Phase]

It seems the defining characteristic of arena shooter is the power weapons spawning on map.

That, and everyone starting as equals with the exact same equipment.

 

[ShinraMiddleMananger]

That, and everyone starting as equals with the exact same equipment.

So from here we can agree cod is NOT an arena shooter as was the assertion of the person I quoted.

 

[Corgi1985]

i did try knockout city but the artstyle is so fucking bad it made me jealous of the blind

 

[namekuseijin]

No. I think BR has spoiled everyone with gigantic maps.

still a boring gigantic arena for pew-pew-pew

 

[Fare thee well]

Trends tend to go in long broadsweeping waves. Arena shooters and mmorpgs are examples of things that developers don't feel like risking atm. I remember rts games taking a super dive in presence for about 5-10 years, but you can find a lot of them in development or available now.

 

[VAVA Mk2]

Classic Halo (1-3) allows the player to run, aim, shoot, jump etc all at the same time without preventing the player from doing any of the above. It's basically the definition of Arena shooter.

Halo Reach began to change that slightly with the addition of Sprint/Armor Lock etc... Halo 4 and 5 kept pushing the pendulum moving away from Arena status but it still fits.

Classic Halo is an Arena shooter however.

I played about 2 hours of Halo 3 today in MCC and still enjoy it after 14 years. Here is hoping Infinite plays similar with some new features and sandbox items and player expression.