Only a few years a go the FPS had reached a lull. The traditional corridor structure was blamed for stifling the genre and so, in response, many FPS’s were put into development that featured outside environments. However, this was a move that missed the point. It wasn’t that the outsides of corridors needed to be rendered, that limitation on old FPS’s was purely one of technology, it was that gameplay needed to evolve and thus move forwards. After all, merely rendering the outsides had been mastered in the excellent FPS: Operation Flashpoint.
The coming Operation Flashpoint 2 may have what I crave.
Many FPS’s were put into development that not only had open spaces, but more open stories as well. Stories that told much more epic tales. Personally, I feel that Half Life 2 is the current pinnacle of this epic style; the Singleplayer story-mode FPS, in that it manages to represent a large sense of space but at the same time is the most epic story telling. But there are other notable FPS games, especially from The Golden Year:2007. Such games as
Stalker,
QuakeWars,
Arma-Armed Assault,
Oblivion (a First Person Slasher)
Crysis.
So where now?
I feel it is moving beyond telling the story from one point of view. I am predicting that the next generation is going to be all about multiplayer co-op FPS’s.
Imagine Phantasy Star Online (Dreamcast)…
3rd Person offline Multiplayer was perfected in PSO.
…but as a FPS. Imagine COD4 single player but every character was controlled by a real player. Imagine FPS RPG’s, such as Fallout 3, but as a co-op FPS!
Imagine multiplayer Oblivion! (Yes please!)
Gears of War points the way. There a singleplayer story is shared by two people who need to work together to achieve the denouement.
“Cover me!”, the shout of a GOW Coop session.
Let’s take another angle on this.
What of MMO’s? Haven’t MMO’s answered this question? Isn’t what I describe in Starwars Galaxies before they borked it? The storyline was very strong and you could get a Bounty Hunter Mission to hunt a PC Jedi character, which was generated only once he had been spotted by a NPC. This hunt was the most fun in the entire game as you tracked him down and then approached for the final battle. It was only ruined when people found ways around the mechanics (basically dropping a PC house and hiding inside).
Thus story driving gameplay over multiplayer.
No. Thus far no MMO has successfully integrated the twitch gaming of an FPS. But, it is coming. Coming is the combination of what is good in MMO’s; the team play, the individuality, the massive choices; together with the twitch-gaming high of shooting things; but for once playing with your friends through a story not just in an endless deathmatch.
Quakewars is heading in this direction with the mission structure and classes built into the game. Becoming more story driven. Becoming more class dependent.
Consider my real life. There, I play with my friends alongside me (in airsoft).
Three Darkangels relax after storming the OpFor Base.
This real life coop mode is what we actively look for in games for our online lives and the lack of storyline in traditional multiplayer FPS’s is what is missing. What I really want is the necessity of two people (or more) playing together to complete an objective. How cool would the Oblivion-realm tower-assaults be if there was 10 of you hacking in and up the stairs?
Well, my question is answered in Lineage II, which has exactly that. It’s just missing the FPS twitch.
Castle Assaults are amazing in Lineage II.
But, that’s my point; many games have elements of what I want but none have managed to join up the genres. Thus I predict that the next step in FPS’s, RPG’s and MMO’s is the genres slowly converging. Look at the evidence: even the basic online FPS (COD4) has RPG elements now and the latest MMO (Tabula Rasa) has FPS elements.
COD 4 RPG elements - create a class (beta version).
What I foresee is the dividing line between story-laden single player epics, like Half Life 2, disappearing all together and becoming twitch-capable multiplayer-coop.
Only then will the great gaming moments of MMO’s, the amazing immediacy of FPS’s and my offline/online worlds converge.
I can’t wait, see you in 2008!
Basho
Basho & Cesca are traveling with:
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January 4th, 2008 at 11:19 am
An old MMO named Planetside had a version of what youre seeking. The story was not so much epic, as ongoing. However, its old now, the engine out of date and the player base minimal (this may have something to do with it boeng owned by sony…) Maybe this will be a taste of things to come?