With Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare releasing just last week, the highly publicized release of Destiny back in September, and the popularity of Titanfall on the Xbox One, it seems nearly all shooters — especially first-person shooters — are following similar blue-prints to success.
Two generations ago it was Medal of Honor and Call of Duty leading the World War II trend, but now a fast-paced shooter with imaginative environments that also offers a great multiplayer to boot are becoming the hallmarks of the best games on the new generation.
The release of Titanfall brought a very quick and dynamic approach to traversal while also executing the core elements of a typical FPS. Though the game lacked a truly immersive story, the gameplay was — and still is — spectacular. Many similar gameplay qualities are seen in the new Call of Duty and other games outside the FPS genre are attempting to take a different approach to movement in general; see Sunset Overdrive.
And while it certainly isn’t a new specific setting, more games are looking towards more abstract worlds that grant the developers greater freedom in their approach to game design. This is a definite positive for the industry and giving devs more freedom will certainly lead to some incredible worlds to explore down the road.
Titanfall has been following this track, Advanced Warfare is now taking this track, and other games to come are bringing more complex environments and exotic stories to gaming as well. Quantum Break, Infamous, Sunset Overdrive, and even a game like The Order 1886 are also taking more liberties in their development with gameplay characteristics that make them truly stand our among the rest.
More freedom, more ideas, better games.
These trends look to be lasting long enough to alter the direction of other major developers and publishers as well.
Halo 5’s release next year could look to build on this recent trend by evolving their own style of play.
Will we see wall-running and grinding for Master Chief or Agent Locke? Probably not, but perhaps a greater emphasis on the jet-pack will be incorporated into the campaign this time around to match the flow that other developers are taking.
Since Halo: Reach the series has been adding various alterations to how players can make their ways throughout the game with sprinting, jet packs, gravity lifts, and more vehicles in the multiplayer. It would make sense to see a bit more of it added into the story given this recent trend, but the overall multiplayer experience would be best to stay in tune with the likes of Halo 2 and 3.
Ensuring the multiplayer lives up to expectations is crucial and tinkering with the experience too much could lead to some less-than-happy fans. Given how crucial a solid multiplayer is now, the envisioning of a game with the aforementioned qualities along with a great multiplayer being the metaphorical cherry on top is the desire for a lot of the major developers right now — and that’s a great thing to see.