The horseshoe of first person shooter design

The first persion shooter (FPS) genre is one that has gone through a long journey since its inception, being changed and revolutionised time and time again. Games like Wolfenstein and Doom, while not the first in the genre, kickstarted it in a significant way with a lot of the staples that have persisted to this day starting with these early games.

These classic FPS games were characterised with a mix of brutal difficulty and intense, fast-paced combat across numerous tightly designed arenas as you progressively grab more weapons to use against newer and tougher enemies as they get introduced to the roster. Add into the mix convoluted secrets that reward thorough exploraiton with health, armour, ammo, and sometimes weapons that don't show up again until later in the game, and you've got the formula of so many retro shooters: Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, Shadow Warrior, the numerous versions of Doom and Doom II and many, many others.

Id Software then once again proliferated on this with Quake, using a new engine that allowed for real-time 3D rendering. On top of this, Quake expanded on the multiplayer aspect of Doom by making online matchmaking much more accessible, this in turn popularising online multiplayer and competitive play in FPS games. Meanwhile a small company just starting out took the Quake engine and modified it into their own and made a game that saw some success, that game being Half-Life.

Jokes aside, Half-Life brought along another advancement in the FPS genre, in fact some might argue that it revolutionised it by providing the player completely uninterrupted control of protagonist Gordon Freeman, telling the story through his eyes without need for traditional cutscenes, yet still placing emphasis on a strong narrative and a more believable FPS experience, being without powerups or certain other fantasy elements that had become staples in previous games from the genre. Half-Life's legacy really cannot be understated, since it influenced FPS game design in the decades following, for better or for worse.

The change was by no means immediate, however the shift to realistic games with a higher importance placed on narrative is one that still sticks to the genre to this day. The intense arena-style combat challenges where stopping meant death were eventually considered too old-fashioned, and started to get replaced by the Call of Dutys and the Halos that prioritised waiting behind cover and steady progression over relentless aggression. It's probably possible to play them that way, but it certainly isn't encouraged by the gameplay, which gradually became slower and less arcade-like with gameplay changes and a focus on big spectacle setpieces over solid moment-to-moment gameplay.

Call of Duty is very much one of the worst offenders, with its limited sprint and slow movement creating less interesting combat scenarios otherwise, with most of the spectacle left to scripted sequences that can be fun, but aren't a whole lot more and only ever last so long until you're right back into the standard gameplay. A lot of what I remember from Call of Duty campaigns are parts where I didn't have regular control over my character: the vehicle sections, the breaches, the thing they do in seemingly every game where everything's blurry and you're crawling while struggling to breathe. It's all servicable, but not much more than that.

The majority of FPS games fell into these and similar trappings, having the focus put on spectacles that looked good but didn't give the player much control over them. There have been outliers over the years, for example 2013's Shadow Warrior reboot was certainly more geared towards its classic FPS roots over modern FPS tropes, being as fast-paced as the originals by prioritising movement and good aim.

No, it wasn't until 2016's DOOM that the merits of the retro FPS were once again realised by the wider gaming community. After Id went through a period of releasing games that, while reviewing well, just didn't have the same charm as their classic hits, DOOM was seen as a return to form for the company as it was all the blindingly fast and brutal gameplay that made the originals so well-loved. The Doom Slayer was fast and mobile, the enemies posed a threat to anything standing still, the game introduced glory kills that were quick, punchy, and gory, rewarding players with health which in turn encouraged aggressive play if you wanted to stay alive, especially on higher difficulties.

Not only was DOOM a fantastic game in its own right, it also encouraged many others to revisit the classic FPS way of making games. So many games with retro inspirations have released in the past few years: Dusk, Ion Fury, Amid Evil, Immortal Redneck, Ultrakill, all of these games being fantastically fun callbacks to the shooters of old, and each being distinct in how they interpret those shooters into their own modern takes, whether they take the advanced movement options of Quake-era arena shooters, add in roguelike elements, or let you jump off walls and add a style meter, each one is so full of love for those retro FPS's and in injecting that into their games they fill them with the kind of fun and pure adrenaline that was almost entirely lost to the genre for so long.

As with anything, it's all down to personal preference, but to me it's no contest as to which I prefer. Retro-style shooters are so much more exhilerating than their modern counterparts, not having to rely on a cinematic or scripted sequence for memorable moments, but just being so insanely memorable through the strength of their gameplay alone. I'll take exciting combat, tightly designed levels, and varied boss encounters over anything less any day of the week.

Although really I'm just hoping for another TimeSplitters game. Please.