In recent months, I’ve noticed that the shooter genre is starting to eat its own tail. Developers try their best to come up with something new, and in the end, in most cases, their game does not stand out in detail (or does it ineptly) compared to other representatives of this category.
I was especially encouraged to focus on this topic by the recent information about Helldivers 2 or the new installment of Call of Duty – although I must admit that the entry has been following me since this year’s edition of PlayStation Showcase, in which a large part of Sony’s first-party teams have just presented shooter games .
Cutlet after cutlet
Starting from the beginning, exactly in the first week of July, trusted insiders associated with Activision Blizzard were to confirm that this year’s Call of Duty (to be subtitled Black Ops) will not offer any major novelties, and the gameplay will resemble the previous part of IP to such an extent that you can safely call CoD from 2023 simply in the world of Modern Warfare II 2.0. It sounds as if Treyarch (creators of the new CoD-) simply copied the resources prepared by Infinity Ward (creators of MWII from 2022) to their drives.
I must admit that this information does not make me optimistic, because the gunplay from MWII was quite different from MW from 2019, where Infinity Ward focused especially on realism. In the continuation of the Task Force 141 story, there was a greater emphasis on the “typical smash”, which is already too much on the market. Where is the problem? You don’t have to look far. The publisher Activision Blizzard is pushing for the annual premiere of the next CoD, so there is simply no time for major changes, and it seems that the developers themselves do not want to go out of line, since the mass of recipients will buy their shooter anyway – regardless of the fact that changes it will be like medicine.
And here on the “white horse” come titles promoted by Sony, such as Helldivers 2, Fairgame$ or Marathon. In the first position, together with your team, we will perform various missions shrouded in the mystery of intergalactic war. Emphasis will be placed on combining with sets of equipment or gadgets, but my interest was cut short by the latest gameplay (seen below), which shows that Helldivers 2 can at most be something similar to the native Outriders. The game on the materials is nothing special, just another shooter, the omission of which will not prevent us from getting to know the unforgettable experience.
In the case of Fairgame$ or Marathon, we know even less than with Helldivers 2. However, the descriptions of the games on paper indicate that the first project, supervised by Jade Raymond, will be a mix of Watch Dogs with PayDay, because the game will focus on PvPvE fun and robberies at least banks. More cartoony graphics, however, do not allow you to believe that the creators will focus on realism and fun for an adult audience, and more an idyll reminiscent of CoD combined with Fortnite.
Marathon is a third-person extraction shooter that resembles Escape from Tarkov. In addition to fighting other players, we will take care of systems such as oxygen levels, but the very core of the gameplay is to focus on choosing a mission, equipment, entering a server, collecting loot or fighting, and then evacuating and spending the points earned on better equipment. Honestly? It also sounds like another generic shooter considering it won’t have a single player campaign.
There are of course more such examples. Recent releases such as Redfall or Overwatch 2 can be recalled here – both of these games did not achieve any major successes. And I’m not bringing them back either. Exoprimal from Capcom. The title with dinosaurs in the lead role looks more like a mobile title than something serious, and it’s a pity that a Japanese producer who now has such a good streak of releasing highly rated productions offers his community such a “monster”.
Shooters need a strong kick
Perhaps I’ve spent too much time in shooters in recent years. I finished the last CoDs with a smile on my face at the highest level of experience, I spent a lot of time in multiplayer, and recently I’m also playing well on Battlefield 2042 servers. However, when I read about the next shooters coming to the market, I feel that they will be incredibly generic , and these entire systems (in other words: loudly announced news), which the developers will feed us until the day of release, will turn out to be only an element of gameplay or even an optional function. A book example of such a situation is the de facto destruction of buildings or huge tornadoes / sandstorms on maps in Battlefield 2042 – things that either don’t exist at all or look so bland that no one bothers with them.
In fact, there is currently no announced project in the genre of typical shooters that I would wait for with my tongue hanging out. A ray of hope hangs over ARC Raiders created by Embark Studios (former BF developers), but I have a feeling that due to the lack of a sufficient budget it will not be a rival for the biggest franchises and in many places it will simply fail. I’m also curious about the new Battlefield, which is supposed to go back to the roots of the series and provide at least an intriguing story campaign, but it’s too early to open champagne here. Apart from these positions, the genre of shooters personally cannot interest me at the moment.
2023-07-15 07:00:52
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