What happened to Arena Shooters?

What ever happened to arena shooters? We delve into the rich history of this beloved gaming subgenre, how its survived over the years, and what arena shooters look like in 2022.

[Vanfernal]

Battle royales happened.

[Mr_Writer85]

I'd look at COD before BR.

Locking weapons and perks behind a level system.

[BenRC01]

Cod killed them. Tbh when cod came along, especially mw2, its was a game changer. Adding rpg elements and scorestreaks rather than just a scoreboard was very cool at the time.

[Mr_Writer85]

@ben

I have and always will dislike COD, they made it about time spent rather than skill.

If you're better than me in at level 1 it's down to skill. But if you don't play and only get to level 3 and I get to (just say 300) chances are my guns and perks etc I will kill you more than you kill me.

Overwatch is a good example of a game that does require skill. I have 800+ hours on that game, but some players in that game are unreal.

And you know it's down to skill as you have pretty much the same characters etc.

[isarai]

Also any new ones will instantly get compared to Overwatch. Which sucks cause i miss old school arcade shooters with cool characters to choose from.

[fr0sty]

I miss Unreal Tournament 2004's ultra fast paced action... nothing since has really come close to capturing it. Going on sprees never felt more satisfying. A modern day version of that would be amazing.

[DigitalDaniel]

Halo says "Hi".
Arena shooters are not dead.

[ChubbyBlade]

Infinites player base is dropping like flies because of a lack of content.

[Sonyslave3]

Key word lack of content not because it a arena shooter .

And it doing just fine on Xbox

[Mr_Writer85]

"lack of content"

Maybe if gamers didn't have the attention span of a small child.

The game hasn't even been out long. And they need new maps and weapons already?

No wonder games as a service is a thing.

[ChubbyBlade]

Seems both people below me don’t know how to read.

Never said the lack of content was because it’s an arena shooter nor did I say new maps or weapons.

The game has less than 1/2 of the game modes from past titles the previous ones would launch with.

There’s very little vehicle centric options and the way they spawn in makes them appear less often.

The unlocks are abysmal compared to previous titles leaving nothing to earn or work towards for those who care about that sort of thing.

Been playing since CE in 2001. Not one of these “attention span” problem gamers you’re speaking of. The game literally lacks legacy game modes and vehicle play isn’t very good.

[spicelicka]

lmao it's barely been out for a month, it has more than enough content for release. Far more than most games these days.

[MadLad]

I'll let you know when I have a hard time finding a match.

The game is as far from dead as dead can be. Not sure why you're trying to make it out to be anything other than that.

[LucasRuinedChildhood]

@Mr_Writer85

"Maybe if gamers didn't have the attention span of a small child."
Mate, you're the one who needs to pay attention. It's missing loads of modes (although they did add a few back in), no Forge, and barely has a progression system,

"No wonder games as a service is a thing."
You're actually defending a big issue with games as a service (less content for more money) and thinking you're clever.

[Mr_cheese]

Wouldn't mind a new Unreal Tournament to go with UE5

[RaidenBlack]

^^ this + competing with it, a new Quake to go with future idTech 8

[LordoftheCritics]

Devs stopped innovating on them.

Overwatch is the last innovation that has some of that vibe.

[PapaBop]

Agreed, you can tell Kaplan and co loved playing shooters back in the arena golden days and Overwatch is a much better game because of it. Still my go to shooter and only other shooters I've put this much time in are Quake 3 and CS.

[ChasterMies]

Is there an audience for arena shooters? Back in the early 90s, that’s all we had. But even by the late 90s, the most popular online shooters were team based, objective games like Counterstike and Team Fortress. Even at Halo’s peak, the most populated playlist was Big Team Battle. What happened to arena shooters? Time and innovation.

[ChubbyBlade]

Did you not see how popular infinite is? There is an audience for it. The problem is they need a lot of content which 343 I’s dropping the ball on hard.

[isarai]

Infinite and iiverwatch say hi, also TF2 and counterstrike is still very active

[Einhander1971]

They are boring like most of the online rubbish people play nowadays.

[spicelicka]

Halo carrying the torch.

[MadLad]

Everybody just wanted to copy CoD; so it then moved to the indie scene, with Halo being the only real exception in the AAA space.

[ITPython]

At this point, standard arena shooters (like Halo Infinite) are incredibly boring and dull. COD at least added leveling and light RPG elements to keep people engaged and working towards a goal. And since weapon/player leveling is also beneficial in Warzone, it is still practical to play the standard multiplayer from time to time. But without a BR, even COD's arena shooting gets really repetitive and becomes pointless.

Arena shooters need to go away and BR's need to evolve into something even better that satisfies not only the online-only competitive crowd, but also those who prefer single player gameplay.