The Renaissance of the Original First Person Shooter: A Reflection

While the year sucked in almost every other way, the FPS fan has had the most to look forward to in a very long time. Here's both a look back and a peek forward.

 by LG18 on  Nov 30, 2020

Skilled. Defiant. Apathetic. These three words are both apt descriptors for the DOOM Slayer—a legendary, shotgun-toting super soldier—and the DOOM fan: an individual whose proclivity for high-speed, twitch-reflex FPS action has gone mostly unfulfilled for the best part of fifteen years.

But this year, with the ultimate mascot for the genre's origins, an emblem of solidarity for a disenfranchised fan base, Id and Bethesda managed to bring enthusiasts of the original first-person shooter back into the fold.

Simultaneously came the Realms Deep digital showcase -- the ultimate proof that the genre is once again bursting with vigor and creativity. Let's delve into how we got here.


In the wake of Quake

Id Software released the original DOOM in 1993. It was revolutionary in more ways than one, but that's a topic for another time. In order to grasp the appeal for the new DOOM games, one first has to understand the impact of Id’s other smash hit: Quake. Released in 1995, Quake was DOOM's faultless template reinvigorated by the third dimension. It was a Lovecraftian horror house of twisted ghouls and gritty geometry -- a haunting amalgamation of science fiction, the occult, and cosmic horror. But as oppressive as the game's themes and environments were, its gameplay couldn't have felt more freeing. An unrestricted 3D environment allowed for unprecedentedly fluid movement as well as tight, free-aim gunplay. From now on, FPS fans had to master verticality and 3D strafing if they wanted to stay alive.

There were other landmark titles, of course. In 1997, Rare’s Goldeneye 007 did a lot to make the FPS not-crap on consoles. In 1998, Half-Life showed us how fun the story of a mute scientist befallen to a particularly bad day at work can be. All three of these games were hard — a core feature of their appeal. You needed to know your enemy inside out and to understand the utility of each weapon like the back of your hand; it was essential to be at one with your controls -- for feats of keyboard and mouse athleticism to be second nature.

Owing to a finite health bar, these games also instilled the tensity of choice. Do you enter that empty, far-too-silent room in hope of there being the box of ammo you desperately need? Do you fire the BFG now, knowing you only have one shot, or do you hunker down with the mini-gun and hope for the best?

Quake 1 gameplay

Quake: The first game to popularise the 3D first-person shooter | Image credit

When the 2000s rolled around, things changed. DOOM 3 and Half-Life 2 were pioneers of the old ways, but they were also the last of their kind. In helping to popularise the modern Immersive Sim, first-person open-world games, and other breeds of shooter, FPS innovations of the '90s had been adopted and adapted by other genres and styles.

It was obvious where the money was by 2007. Following the success of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, every developer wanted a slice of the action, and the modern military shooter took center stage for the foreseeable future.

A similar thing happened in the late '90s with Wolfenstein 3D and the original DOOM. Unparalleled popularity led to an ungodly number of clones, and the majority were not very good. 

That said, Super Noahs Ark 3D—a pacifistic shooter involving everyone's favorite antediluvian patriarch and his quest to shoot food at hungry animals—was a damn sight more interesting than most of the Call of Duty copy-cats. Cod 4 was a great game, but it facilitated the trend of muddy puddle aesthetics — as well as popularising storylines and gameplay mechanics that were about as deep as one. Whether it was Homefront, Battlefield, Medal of Honour, and the like, each modern shooter shared an affinity for regenerating health and cover-based shooting galleries. Gone was the essentialized arsenal of the past; absent were the gladiatorial arenas that necessitated raw skill. 

Not every FPS of the 2000s and 2010s was a dud, however. Some of the modern Halo games went down well, and the poignant narrative of Spec Ops: The Line was a clever subversion of the modern military trope. Titles like F.E.A.R did a good job at blending horror with a bullet-time gameplay hook, and the catharsis of Bullet Storm was a welcome change of tone. Generally, though, there was a distinct lack of the 'badassery’ that defined the FPS in the early days.

Medal of Honour: Warfighter gameplay

Medal of Honour: Warfighter: as brown as they come | Image credit


Doomed to fail

In the same year Cod 4 released, John Carmack (the brain behind DOOM and Quake’s revolutionary tech) announced DOOM 4 at Quake Con. Both the game’s setup and the story surrounding its development were dishearteningly familiar. Our protagonist was a resistance fighter/soldier battling for Earth’s freedom in a washed-out looking delapidated city, and the developers were funneling the franchise into becoming a Call of Duty replica. According to the development team of the time, the project came to be known as “Call of DOOM'' on account of its uncanny combat and scripted vehicle sequences. The leaked trailer even had your archetypal eyepatched veteran.

Eye patch guy

Orator of the history of the war, at odds philosophically with the player, and bravely sacrificed at the end of the story  at least, that's how it usually goes down | Image credit

Problems of misdirection and mismanagement became publicly known a few years following DOOM 4’s announcement, but most people expected it at this point. Even Id, the grandfather of the FPS, failed to reinvigorate the genre with Rage or the 2009 Wolfenstein reboot.

Development eventually ground to a halt, and Bethesda (who partnered with Id a couple of years earlier) called for the game to be totally redesigned in 2011. No one really predicted that to pan out any better. When Bethesda and Id released Wolfenstein: The New Order, though, fans mixed in a little hope with their metric ton of skepticism about the new DOOM.

Rather spectacularly, The New Order took the shooter back to its roots: no reloading, no regenerating health, no chest-high walls — just a pocket full of shells and enemies as far as the eye could see. 

But it was Bethesda’s 2015 E3 showcase that really rocked the boat. The auditorium rang with a chorus of cheers for every shotgun pump, chainsaw rev, and brutal demon dismemberment exhibited in the new DOOM’s gameplay reveal. Safe to say, it was a smash success. 

Not unlike the Slayer himself, the genre had slept for years. What was once a game that was suffocated by outdated trends had returned with a prophetic two fingers to the industry, and there couldn’t have been a stronger metaphor for the renaissance of the FPS than the latest DOOM Marine — a character who echoed the fan’s disdain for superfluous dialogue by literally smashing it to pieces. The glory kill system pushed you into the fight to keep your health up rather than have the player cower behind cover. Every weapon had individuality and its own upgrade path, and each enemy necessitated the learning of a separate strategy. 

Doom 2016 gameplay

Doom (2016) | Image credit


DOOM Eternal: Serious about non-seriousness

If DOOM 2016 started it, this year's DOOM Eternal cemented it. Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus released to a similarly warm critical reception in 2018, but it was Eternal that represented the true evolution of the genre. It immortalized the high-speed, high-octane arena gameplay of its predecessors, and it reveled in its own metanarrative. It managed to strike a perfect balance of new and old through a deep understanding of the genre's heritage.

DOOM’s return paved the way for other long-forgotten names to come out of the woodwork. 3D Realms bounced back from the disaster that was Duke Nukem: Forever and started to make games using the Build Engine again — the 2D engine that powered many ‘90s classics such as Blood and Shadow Warrior. Their 2019 Cyberpunk shooter Ion Fury proved very successful with fans, and a few months ago they held their first digital event in the form of Realms Deep. The event showcased the very best of what’s been christened the ‘Boomer Shooter’.

The name may resemble the rather tedious trend for the memeification of absolutely everything, but I guess it rolls off the tongue better than ‘old school FPS’. Regardless, this new-old genre is absolutely deserving of its own title. Where DOOM and Wolfenstein showed the world that the demand for these games isn’t dead, the independent scene epitomizes the sentiment. Dusk is a superbly twisted romp through mind-bending, labyrinthine nightmares. Amid Evil mixes the classic gameplay of titles like Hexen with the graphical fidelity established by ray tracing technology and the Unreal Engine. Then there’s Ultra Killa merging of Quake and DOOM with the graceful style of Devil May Cry. There are so many more, and these titles show greater ingenuity and creativity than virtually every shooter to come out of the AAA space in the last decade. What's more, what we'd consider modern FPS have mostly moved online with the rise of Battle Royal and hero shooters. This leaves the single-player space open for fresh ideas.

In regard to events like Realms Deep, It's great to see people's passion re-enlivened like this. Sure, there was always the guy on Reddit ranting about the good old days, but to actually hear devs and fans excitedly discuss this stuff on their own platform is nice to see.

The impermanent state of the video game industry is one of the most exciting things about it; we never quite know what surprises are around the corner. No one thought we’d ever get Shenmue 3 or a new Half-Life title, and similarly, no one expected a modern DOOM title to be any good -- yet here we are, and with a new frontire ahead of it.

Linden Garcia
Editor, NoobFeed

Realms Deep news room

The merriment of Realms Deep 2020 | Image source

 

Linden Garcia

Subscriber, NoobFeed

Latest Articles

No Data.