Falling off the map in a first-person shooter used to be a real annoyance. Insta-suicide, it was. One point off your total kills, your kill-death ratio soured just that bit more.
But with the evolution of movement in games, falling off the map is less of a problem and more of an opportunity. Like in Call of Duty: Black Ops 3.
I suppose in a way everyone should be thanking Mirror’s Edge, although in a more modern context it’s probably Titanfall that we need to thank for getting wallrunning in a first-person shooter downpat. But now that it’s part and parcel of many fast-paced video games, it’s also changed the way we look at falling off the map.
Falling into the abyss, you see, used to be a one-way drop into five seconds of downtime. But as this GIF from Black Ops 3 shows, modern movement systems means going off the edge of the map can actually be a really clever way to move around.
The player above looks like they have a perk to improve the recharge time of their booster, although I imagine most Call of Duty players would be rocking that by now as a matter of course.
But the fun part is how it shows how something that has been a staple of map design is now something that can be used as a tool. It’s only just one incidence of how things have changed in first-person shooters over the years, but it’s a beautiful illustration all the same.
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