Where should shooters go this gen (next gen)?

I was listening to the most recent bombcast and I thought this was a really good question that offered a variety of different ways it could be answered.

I personally agree with Brad and Jeff, and the whole crew that they can't keep doing the same thing and add minor bells and whistles.

I like the idea of a more overworld approach to shooters. If they want to stick with the military shooter it would be awesome to actually be able to experience the downtime between matches on base camps as soldiers or whatever class you want to be. Then in another mode you could be the commander and decide where the soldiers go and orchestrate different tactical moves and objectives that the soldiers on the ground would play through. Some commander on the other team could then order (offer) his troops to attack your soldiers and there would be all sorts of different sorts of objectives at your disposal. It'd be cool if there was some Eve Online type of stuff in there like secret attacks and espionage.

What do you guys think?

In the trash? I don't have any idea, and if I did, I sure wouldn't share it here; I'd go make a game with that idea and rake in the cash.

In all seriousness, I am so tired of shooters after this generation that I can hardly play the ones I do want to experience (such as Metro: Last Light, which I can't make any headway in). It's a serious problem.

When I watch some films or documentaries, I want realistic stuff. Other times I want super *fun* stuff - jump high, powerful laser guns...

I like the polish that scripted games have, but like the vast open worlds of games like ARMA 2.

I guess I'll know it when I see. I just don't want to be bored or frustrated.

Away from the military boner fantasies?

I've gotten pretty tired of them myself. There's a dearth of originality and inspiration in the whole genre. Games like Half-Life and Crysis really grabbed me, but it's been a long time since a shooter has intrigued me like that.

The military setting doesn't interest me at all. It's been beaten to crap and death. Something like Bioshock Infinite definitely doesn't suffer from a setting issue, but it still kind of bored me. I liked experiencing the set pieces, but once I got to the actual gameplay, it felt like a slog to me. It didn't seem to match what was going on, which took me out of the game a bit and just made me want to get on to the next story point.

I'd like to see developers find a way to blend the loud, frenetic gameplay in a shooter with a living, breathing world and make it come across less like pop-up targets at a shooting gallery. That would be a good start I guess.

I've gotten pretty tired of them myself. There's a dearth of originality and inspiration in the whole genre. Games like Half-Life and Crysis really grabbed me, but it's been a long time since a shooter has intrigued me like that.

The military setting doesn't interest me at all. It's been beaten to crap and death. Something like Bioshock Infinite definitely doesn't suffer from a setting issue, but it still kind of bored me. I liked experiencing the set pieces, but once I got to the actual gameplay, it felt like a slog to me. It didn't seem to match what was going on, which took me out of the game a bit and just made me want to get on to the next story point.

I'd like to see developers find a way to blend the loud, frenetic gameplay in a shooter with a living, breathing world and make it come across less like pop-up targets at a shooting gallery. That would be a good start I guess.

More shock and violence. Super Nanking 64.

I've gotten pretty tired of them myself. There's a dearth of originality and inspiration in the whole genre. Games like Half-Life and Crysis really grabbed me, but it's been a long time since a shooter has intrigued me like that.

The military setting doesn't interest me at all. It's been beaten to crap and death. Something like Bioshock Infinite definitely doesn't suffer from a setting issue, but it still kind of bored me. I liked experiencing the set pieces, but once I got to the actual gameplay, it felt like a slog to me. It didn't seem to match what was going on, which took me out of the game a bit and just made me want to get on to the next story point.

I'd like to see developers find a way to blend the loud, frenetic gameplay in a shooter with a living, breathing world and make it come across less like pop-up targets at a shooting gallery. That would be a good start I guess.

More shock and violence. Super Nanking 64.

more stuff like Far Cry 3 where I can run around an open world shooting stuff. If you're going to keep releasing the same shoot em up games over and over it least cut some of the linear drag out of them. I mean whens the boat mission where I scuba dive? The mission where I get killed in first person? The one where we jump off something and use parachutes? If it's going to be this stuff over and over at least give me the choice on how I tackle the objective instead of scripting every big moment into a Michael Bay dude-bro event.

Shooters need to have interesting stuff around them. Fun worlds, characters, rpg elements/rewards and things of the like. I have no interest in what most shooters offer these days and any multiplayer outside of co-oping with a friend holds zero appeal to me. A game that's all about the shooting is boring. I need to have other things to do in the game besides that like in Far Cry 3.

It really is an interesting question. For me the best shooters are ones that combine great combat with a great story or setting. Games like Half Life, Bioshock, Metro, Spec Ops: The Line, and so forth. As far as combat goes, I still think the best shooter AI I've ever seen was in FEAR. Fighting those guys felt like fighting real soldiers. It was amazing stuff for the time and honestly I haven't seen anything better since. Halo's combat puzzles are also some of the best combat situations around. I really hope Bungie can do great things with Destiny. I feel like if anyone can get us out of this FPS rut it is them. The other two bets I'd place would be on Respawn or Valve. Also, I thought Rage had some really interesting ideas so I'm interested in what id comes up with for Doom 4.

Personally, I've been bored of guns. So many modern military guns are just too similar, and slight distinctions like faster fire-rate while sacrificing accuracy are really overused. I find I can spend more time playing a shooter like Halo than I can CoD because there are bigger differences between the weapons and how you use them. Also, traversal and the things you can do as a player are big factors in me enjoying your game and playing it regularly. So, in my perfect world of great video games, if next gen shooter devs were to employ these ideas in some cool, revolutionary ways, I would be pretty psyched!

Personally, I've been bored of guns. So many modern military guns are just too similar, and slight distinctions like faster fire-rate while sacrificing accuracy are really overused. I find I can spend more time playing a shooter like Halo than I can CoD because there are bigger differences between the weapons and how you use them. Also, traversal and the things you can do as a player are big factors in me enjoying your game and playing it regularly. So, in my perfect world of great video games, if next gen shooter devs were to employ these ideas in some cool, revolutionary ways, I would be pretty psyched!

The explosion-filled modern military iron-sight shooting gallery has run its course. I'm fine with Call of Duty existing and I'm fine with Battlefield existing, but developers need to branch out and do other things; tone, style, and even basic gameplay. Spec Ops: The Line did a fantastic job of doing something different; even though it was a modern military shooter, its focus wasn't in telling a tail of brainless bombast. If more shooters in the coming years had more brains and less Michael Baytardation, that would be fantastic.

I think that's a pretty good answer. Even the story part of the game isn't that important as long as it has interesting and unique systems and a fleshed out / deep world.

@raven10: Man, Doom 4 could be incredible...

i think you'ill see shooters branch out and blur the lines and cross genres and adopt more mmo and rpg traits.

i think borderlands 2, destiny, and spec ops the line are good examples of where shooters will possibly be going.

It is sad that I had more fun in Borderlands 2 which is very broken compared to much more serious shooters like Halo or Black Ops 2. The key is that Borderlands 2 isn't like any other FPS (except for Borderlands) which is enough to keep it fresh.

I did enjoy Bioshock Infinite but the shooting was not the reason I enjoyed it where I have commented before on what the problems are with the combat.

More first person [verb]ing, less shooting.

There are already games like Natural Selection 2 which offer the sort of gameplay features that you are after. Then there are upcoming games like Arma 3 (which is currently in Alpha) and Red Orchestra 2/Rising Storm (in Beta), both of which offer more of a realistic military shooter/commander approach than CoD or even Battlefield. However, as things stand, all of these games are only on PC. I'm just not sure that any console/cross platform developers (which I assume you are talking about) will be prepared to take the risk of shaking up their cash cow formula. Things may change, but VERY slowly, and only if those types of shooters are a financial success.

I think if you have an idea for an improvement for a game, and you can make it now, make it now. Don't wait for next gen.

Serious military shooters have never been my thing. I prefer goofy, cartoony shooters. Just don't make a knockoff of TF2 or Borderlands.

i dont know man but like was said on the show, the big franchises have absolutely no reason to change their formulas or take any risks at all so i certainly don't expect any kind of meaningful change from titles that have something to lose ie: basically any AAA shooter.

Changing the tone and concept goes a long way. Maybe not pure innovation but some sliver of uniqueness. Just look at Far Cry 3 and Blood Dragon. They were both FPS but I think they added enough things to keep them interesting.

Make encounters more dramatic. Add some holster option for Pete's sake. Something. Anything.

There are lots of things they can do with FPS (think Arma, Day Z, Planetside) to break from the norm. The question is whether they can make it sell.

There are great shooters out there that break the "same old" mold. The crew just chooses to ignore them (except Patrick and Vinny) and instead only pay attention to the latest AAA production. The latest example is CoJ: Gunslinger, which in my opinion is a strong contender for best shooter of this generation.

It's their fault really and it speaks volumes that Jeff waits for the next CoD to do something fresh. That's all he wants to play really and that is why he is part of the problem.

Introducing people to realistic shooting, for a start.

It would probably blow people's minds that bullets actually have weight, and that sights need to be zeroed for accuracy.

Agreed. Bioshock Infinite made a great first impression and the production values make for the occasional "wow"-moment, but in the end I didn't enjoy playing it as much as I thought I would. It became downright tedious towards the end (especially in Emporia).

Incidentally, I played Spec-Ops The Line two weeks before BI came out and I enjoyed it a great deal more than the latter game - to the point where I played through it over and over again; beat the hardest difficulty, collected all intelligence items (which are actually meaningful in this game and luckily they're not a chore to find... there are like two per level) and I only stopped playing it when I reached 1000GS. But now I want to go back and play it again. This game is a severely underappreciated gem.

Gunslinger blew me away in a different way. The picturesque quality of the level design was something I already admired in the first two (especially the second) CoJ games. This aspect is back and even better in Gunslinger but it also offers the most fun combat/shooting gameplay I've ever laid my hands on. Even without any skills unlocked, it puts COD and any other FPS of this gen to shame - and it becomes even better as you unlock more abilities throughout the course of the game. Lastly, the narration is really ingenious. Never before did I feel so entertained while roaming through levels and shooting everything up. I don't want to spoil things so I'll stop here with my explanations.

So, just like many others I got bored of COD, Gears & Co. But Spec-Ops and Gunslinger brought the shooter fun back for me. You should try these two games. They really deserve more attention.

@ajamafalous: Since you're looking for old-school fun, let me recommend it to you as well: Gunslinger.

Less killing. Seriously, more exploration, more puzzles, more RPG elements, more stealth, more story and more hugs.

I have never enjoyed military shooters. Ever.

I want old-school shooters (Doom, Duke, Quake, UT, etc.) to make a comeback, because they've always been my favorite. It's why I played a thousand hours of TF2.

i never understand when people say they are sick of shooters. surely these people only have themselves to blame for only playing shooters. its like me complaining that im sick of chicken... because i only eat chicken.

sick off shooters... play something else

Shooters need to get back to being fun.

I have had more fun playing Brutal DOOM than with any shooter over the last year. The only shooter that has come close was Syndicate.

A lot of shooters these days feel sterile. There's no oomph to the shotgun blast or frantic gunplay. I'm not one to disparage regeneration health or cover based shooters but the "stop and pop" craze has gone on long enough. We need shooters to bring back some of that core twitch goodness and not be so reliant on amazing graphics or the setting to differentiate between games.

That's how I feel about it anyway.

Get away from the set-piece heavy military-ish shooters. Far Cry 3 was so damn refreshing because it didn't rely on making you look at cool things. Cool stuff just happened, and often it was the player causing it.

Also, modern shooters severely underestimate the power of a good shotgun. I rarely come across a game where the shotgun is as fun to fire as it was in Doom. Doom, people! BOOM CLICK CLICK, enemy turns into goop, it isn't hard to master! Guns in general often feel weak or tinny.

Games like CoD will probably get more RPG elements with some light moral decision making for added value on top of the continued success of their multiplayer.

First person walkers like Amnesia, Dear Esther will keep getting better, more interesting, and be better games for experimental mechanics.

And there will be a shitload more (and higher quality) F2P shooters. At some point I imagine they will figure out how to fix Warface (since it runs like crap right now) and something like Survivium looks really interesting. I secretly hope that Valve ports TF2 to the PS4.

Overall I think developers see this as the way to go when they run out of innovative ideas, give it away for free and bleed the last dollars from gamers but charging pittances for cosmetic upgrades and perks.

@oldirtybearon: Play CoJ: Gunslinger.

I agree that there is room for a more traditional FPS approach. I get why they did it, but the reduction from carrying ~8 weapons to carrying ~2, and ditto for enemy types puts serious limitations on how varied the gameplay can be. The principle behind that design wasn't more guns for the sake of having more guns, it was to give you different tools for different jobs, which gave you something to think about beyond just aiming.

I'm also getting kinda tired of 'Throw XP at it' as a cure-all for boring game design. It has its place, but it is too often used as a crutch by lazy developers to make games compelling when they lack the ability to make them genuinely fun or narratively involving. I played through Far Cry 3 recently and I don't think at any point did I decide to do something, or play a certain way, because it seemed like it would be fun to do. I felt compelled to stealth the outposts because they were (completely arbitrarily) worth 3x more XP that way. I felt compelled to go 'hunt' animals, not because it was a remotely fun or challenging thing to do, but because the unlock screen said I had to. The narrative wasn't strong enough to make me care about the ... blue team? ... but I went around and stealthed all of the outposts for them anyway, because if you put symbols on a map then I have to go around and clear them as efficiently as possible.