Just another bland, brown shooter, right? I’ve always been a fan of shooters — and it’s not like they’re unsung heroes by any means — but there’s this misconception out there that they’re all the same carbon copies of one another.
The misconception reasons that all shooters are boring military shooters with the same characters and roughly the same stories with parallel conflicts and lacklustre performances and… it goes on. Basically: shooters suck, right?
I can’t argue with a lot of the points people make against shooters. Sure, a lot of them play fairly identically to one another. A lot follow the same, rote guidelines. The tried and true methods. The boring methods.
But after E3 I had a startling thought: I’m actually excited for a Call of Duty game again. It’s been years since that last happened! And it’s not the only shooter I can point to and show the nonbelievers that maybe there’s some life left in that genre yet.
Guns might be tired in theory, but they can still be fun. And Call of Duty is just one reason I’m excited to be a shooter player again.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
Futuristic military first-person shooter with lots of new gadgets
Though a shooter with a solid story is obviously ideal — as players of the recent Wolfenstein will attest to — I personally don’t need much more than new guns and new gadgets that actually prove to change the way I play in order to enjoy it. Advanced Warfare seems to hit that note.
In addition to the standard frag, flash, EMP, grenade options, the one in Advanced Warfare lets you cycle through a few new, unique options. You can set the grenade to “target”, which will scan the area and highlight enemies in red. You can throw out “smart” grenades which will target enemies, the grenade flying up into the air and hovering before shooting across and into an enemy’s location to explode there.
And we might just get a better story this time around, too. The development of this Call of Duty is being led by Sledgehammer Games, who were involved in the first Dead Space and Modern Warfare 3. They have been working on the game for three years now. We’re already seeing futuristic, Matrix-like elements like an energy class rifle, swarms of enemy drones, footmen dressed up in mechsuits, and your own exoskeleton that, like in the Crysis series, will give you extra strength, a boost jump, the ability to use grapple lines, magnetic gloves and cloaking. But perhaps best of all, in a move not unlike Titanfall, Advanced Warfare seems to be playing around with ideas of player movement. You can double jump to glide with boosters in the air. You can use that booster to jump down long distances for a soft landing. And you can side-strafe, jump up in the air, and then side-strafe mid-air.
Rainbow Six Siege
Team-based tactical first-person shooter
Rainbow Six is back! And I couldn’t be more excited. Rainbow Six was a series I used to play incessantly with my older brothers. And it’s one whose next chapter I can see playing in the same way: basically, over and over for far longer than I have free time.
I played a few rounds of what you all undoubtedly saw at E3.
That included playing on the side of both the Rainbows leading the assault on the single house map that was revealed at E3, as well as the enemies that counter that attack. I got a weird impression that the Rainbows usually win at this game, but I can’t be sure until I sink a significant amount of time into that game first. But in almost every round I’ve personally witnessed, the enemies weren’t able to hold out long enough before the Rainbows shot them all dead.
Regardless, tactical player-versus-player shooting is what Rainbow Six has always been good at executing. Our first few rounds were an embarrassing display of amateur moves — my teammate actually killed me with friendly fire early in one round, and I spent the rest of my time switching camera angles to tell them where enemies were coming from. But I look at the gameplay trailer and I recall the live demonstrations we were shown and I can tell that mastery of the game’s tools — the shield, the lean, spotting weaknesses in the building’s facade and shooting enemies through those points, tossing up grenades through newly-created holes between floors — will go a long way.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection
Sci-fi first-person shooter that takes place on alien planets
Maybe this isn’t a wholly popular opinion, but there isn’t much out there quite like Halo multiplayer. Yes, even Halo 4. Everything in the game — the maps, the weapons, the specials — were always ten times more useful once you fully mastered their nature, and they were always features that opened themselves up to you once you messed around with them more than a few times. The campaigns and characters were memorable, too.
The HD collection is the perfect opportunity to revisit favoured multiplayer modes and singleplayer missions. But it’s a good introduction to gamers who never had the chance to play the Halo games in their prime, too. Everybody wins.
Far Cry 4
Open-world first-person shooter with a focus on stealth (and elephants)
Did you know that you can ride elephants in this game? Far Cry has always been a personal favourite — and well-loved here at Kotaku — but that was even before the elephants.
We might not have seen a ton from Far Cry 4 yet, but from what we have seen — the elephants, leaping between cars, the elephant-assisted murders, co-op, the elephants… — it looks like it will be a lot of fun.
Destiny
Shared-world first-person shooter with RPG elements
This one’s a controversial one. Destiny so far has a history of bad showings, but I don’t necessarily think that had to do with the game but rather more to do with marketing decisions.
And while certain details of how this game will play out are still up in the air, the alpha was a good slice of player-versus-player, mission and aesthetic introductions that I came away from feeling good about.
Evolve
Team-based multiplayer shooter
It’s like the Left 4 Dead 3 you know we’ll never get. Each team is composed of four classes that need to work together to take down the one big boss-like enemy, controlled by a fifth player. I always appreciated Left 4 Dead for forcing teamwork on players, and Evolve seems to be hitting that same note.
You can read more about how I feel about this one.
No Man’s Sky
Exploration-based first-person shooter with space combat and I probably other stuff
Here’s a “first-person shooter” that’s trying to do something entirely different, and it’s certainly a whole lot more than just an FPS. There’s exploration. There’s space battle. There’s all of space.
I’ve written about this one at length, suffice it to say that this game’s definitely one that can’t be ascribed to the alleged downward spiral of the first-person shooter. And it’s certainly not brown.
Shooters might have a reputation for being unoriginal, and maybe that reputation is warranted. But I’m somehow seeing a lot of titles slated for this year and next that I can still find myself getting excited about.
Or maybe I’m just too much of a shooter player at heart.
Comments
11 responses to “The Next Seven Shooters I’m Excited About”
I got the chance to play Evolve at Sydney Supanova and It was pretty damn good. I played as a medic and my friend played as the trapper. Each class has their own responsibilities and perks. Each encounter with the monster was really intense and both monster and hunter seem to have equal ground in combat. The only thing that worried me is the potential for mass trolling. My friend playing as the trapper, had an ability that would erect a massive energy bubble that would trap everyone, hunter and monster alike, inside this bubble. My friend decided to pop this bubble at the wrong time more than once, trapping the entire team and letting the monster escape. other than that Evolve is brilliant.
Oh that would suck. Some of my favourite multiplayer experiences have been with the Left 4 Dead games, when everybody’s working in a team. Those games have the potential for trolling, but nothing quite as bad as trapping all your teammates in a bubble.
Doom?
Sadly nothing announced but beta only. Even the beta date is not out yet I think?
Call of Duty: Nope. I played MW and liked it. MW2 was ok. MW3 was crap. Not giving them any more money, I already proved PT Barnum right.
Rainbow Six: Yes, yes and yes again.
Halo: Eh…
Far Cry 4: Got bored of 2, loved 3, will try 4.
Destiny: I don’t own a console, but would conceptually be interested if it comes to PC.
Evolve: Looks interesting.
No Man’s Sky: YES.
I agree with COD. its so so dead to me. But halo, i know, its just old games redone blah blah blah but i agree with the writer. They are the best multiplayer shooters around. Not only that, revisiting the games i played over 10 years ago will be super fun for me personally.
I remember going to an incubus concert (forgive me) in 2002. When me and a mate headed home after midnight he picking up this new console called the xbox with a copy of halo. I had no idea what i was about to experience….. i guess you could say that school was missed for the next few days.
Sorry, i got lost in my memories for a moment…..
I was actually on the testing team for the first Halo. I just really don’t have a great deal of love for multiplayer shooters anymore, I much prefer a good campaign. The problem is that I never replay a campaign unless it’s AMAZING and I’ve been through those games a bit too much.
That’s cool as. Yeah great campaigns are the best.
Yeah I have been suckered into COD. I used to like it, I did. I loved COD 4 and WAW. MW2 was enjoyable for enough time. Despite the shitty match making. I actually quite liked Black Ops and had fun with Black ops 2.
But MW3 and Ghosts were complete wastes of money for me. MP for both of them was pure garbage. I will only consider Treyarch CODs at this stage. I will wait for the reviews of Advanced. It looks good, it does. But so did Ghosts.
I look at No Man’s Sky and I see this bright colourful thing that bears little resemblance to the brown gloomy shooters we’ve had almost the entire PS3/360 Generation.
Also Spaceships. So I’m definitely in.
Wow what a surprising list…
I hope Rainbow Six Siege is like Raven Shield. Not that interested in No Man Sky when we have Star Citizen.