Halo: Combat Evolved forever changed gaming when it launched alongside the original Xbox, proving PC quality first-person shooters could make their way to home consoles. Other popular examples of the genre existed before then on the N64 and PlayStation, like Goldeneye and Medal of Honor, but Halo established and perfected the dual-analog control format.
Since then, first-person shooters have been a genre, though they have changed and evolved in many ways. While the core gameplay remains in tact, other aspects of the genre were either impossible back in 2001 or ridiculous ideas no one would ever think to implement in a first-person shooter.
10 Focus On Online Multiplayer
Many forget the debut entry in the franchise lacked online multiplayer. Shortly after Xbox Live Launched, online multiplayer started to become more popular and a bigger focus for developers. By the time the PS3 and Xbox 360 rolled around, many games even prioritized it over the single-player campaigns. While many quality single-player stories still exist in FPS games, a large chunk of fans completely ignore them, going straight for the multiplayer suite.
9 RPG Elements
While certain PC FPS games included RPG elements before Halo, like System Shock 2 and Deus Ex, they were largely exceptions to the rule. Starting the with the PS3 and Xbox 360 generation, more and more games started adding skill trees and other ways to upgrade a character during the course of a campaign. This extends to the multiplayer suite as well, with games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare popularizing the use of levels to unlock gear and equipment.
8 Military Shooters
While wartime shooters existed side by side with Halo, many FPS games told science fiction stories. Games like Half-Life, Doom 3, and Red Faction all dealt with either space or futuristic technology. This focus changed dramatically around 2007 with the rise in popularity of Call of Duty. Stepping into the shoes of a soldier in a war zone somewhere on earth was suddenly more appealing than traveling through space. The shift felt as dramatic as Hollywood abandoning the Wild West for space in the 1960s.
7 VR
Older gamers will recall when VR was a pipe dream; something so easy to imagine, yet impossible to believe it would ever come true. Fortunately, technology does magical things and VR gaming is a tangible reality.
It is still costly, but titles like Half-Life: Alyx and Resident Evil 7 have more than proven VR’s ability to deliver incredible gaming experiences. Hopefully the technology will be more readily accessible as the years go by.
6 Cross-Play
Console wars were hot as the sun twenty years ago. PlayStation 2 owners used sales numbers to prove dominance while Xbox fans showed how every third-party game looked better on their console to show its superiority. While Sony and Microsoft are still competitors, most games allow players to interact with each other regardless of the platform on which they are playing. Many games even let PC players jump into the mix, making for a giant community.
5 Aiming Down The Sights
Many games had an aiming button even during Halo’s time, but players did not need to use it to fire accurately. With the rise of military shooters also came the normalization of aiming down the sights every time the player shoots. Without doing this, many guns will fire with wild inaccuracy. While still a popular mechanic, more games have started shying away from it, with titles like the Doom and Wolfenstein reboots retaining a more old school feel.
4 No More PC Exclusives
Back in Halo’s day many games were still coming exclusively to the PC, taking advantage of the more powerful hardware to make exquisitely gorgeous titles console did not have a hope of running. If they did, they were often half-baked ports with numerous technical issues, like Half-Life 2 on the original Xbox. In more recent years, PC exclusive FPS games are few and far between. Those that are usually find their way to consoles eventually, or are else still in early access. One should still remember, however, that high-powered PCs still make these games look better than they do on consoles.
3 Battle Passes
With online multiplayer becoming such a popular feature in games, developers and publishers had to find ways to monetize it. Purchasable maps split the player base up too much, which is unhealthy for the community, and loot boxes are too controversial, so the Battle Pass was introduced to split the difference. They provide bonus goodies for a price and an incentive to keep playing, since players still have to level up through ranks to unlock the new items.
2 Battle Royale
Similar to VR, it was difficult to see giant matches where a hundred players duke it out as a possibility twenty years ago. However, now almost every franchise and genre has its own version of a battle royale.
While early battle royales like Fortnite and PUBG were not first-person shooters, Apex Legends and Warzone proved the genre was a perfect fit for the large-scale battles.
1 Free-To-Play
Imagine telling people in 2001 just how many big-budget games would be completely free to enjoy in the future. It would seem too good to be true. To be fair, it is in some respects. Some games find sneaky ways to encourage players to purchase goodies through microtransactions, while others are a little fairer. It is hard to blame all of them. These are free games after all, and they need some way to make money. It only becomes a problem when it feels exploitative to those vulnerable to gambling or impulse purchases.
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