Single Player FPS Shooter is Dying ?

I don’t like where this generation of gaming is going, where the narrative-driven single-player FPS is becoming extinct, more shooters releasing without single-player modes or with short, lame half-assed campaigns. It's been a while since I've played something great like Wolfenstein: The New Order ,the game really wowed me, I’m not saying that there’s no good single-player shooter out there but when you compare their numbers to FPS online titles that come out every year , it’s nothing . Star Wars BF proved that Kids these days have a shitty taste in gaming, and thanks to them EA and Activision now have more money to make more annual shitty FPS games.

Agreed. But we do have System Shock 3 being announced, a new Deus Ex, and Doom (possibly a good story, maybe?).

But yeah, for the most part, the FPS has been suffering at the hands of developers/publishers chasing the masses and their money.

Yeah they are beginning to dwindle quite noticeably, I have a feeling the Red Faction's, Half-Life's, Halo's & Wolfenstein's of the past are never going to be seen again.

The last great single player FPS I played was Metro: Last Light. If games like Halo 5: Guardians and Black Ops 3 are a sign of what is to come, the future is not looking bright.

@Kinthalis said:

Agreed. But we do have System Shock 3 being announced, a new Deus Ex, and Doom (possibly a good story, maybe?).

But yeah, for the most part, the FPS has been suffering at the hands of developers/publishers chasing the masses and their money.

I told you dude , I'm not denying that there's good no singe player to play but it ain't as great as b4 , the single campaign started shrinking in every FPS game since 2005 and now nothing left of it .... look at COD and Battlefield ...... where's Medal of Honor ....... upfront a FPS with a single campaign less than 10 hours is fucking bullshit

They are coming back actually:

• System Shock 3
• Doom
• Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
• Shadow Warrior 2
• Inner Chains
• New Metro Game
• Open World Game from 4A (will come out after new Metro)
• Serious Sam 4 etc

Yea. Its sad.

Metroid is our savior.

FPS without a story mode is a no for me.

that I can't w8 for .... another game like S.T.A.L.K.E.R but right now I got nothing good to play except old titles

You only have to look at Halo 5 to see which direction most devs are heading in. They forced Xbox 360 quality graphics on the game so the MP would run at 60fps which was literally the only thing they were worried about. A completely half-assed story and an SP experience in which even your single player character has a multiplayer tag when he dies **** me it was just terrible.

I'm all for these amazing MP experiences as long as it doesn't mean SP is completely sacrificed or just plain ignored. I wouldn't expect much from Doom the SP has always been hilariously bad in terms of plot etc but it should at least be fun to play. I don't class Deus Ex as an FPS shooter or System Shock for that matter so yes, I agree great story-driven FPS seem to be taking a back seat.

It's the kind of thing that will probably re-emerge at some point when all the kids are finally sick to death of multiplayer shooter no. 825 and the devs need to change tact.

The good news is Machine Games are working on another title (I loved New Order too) I can't wait to see what they come up with next.

Most FPS single player isn't dead just yet, there's still Halo, the new DOOM game, Metroid, and now System Shock 3 will offer single player FPS, so there's still hope. For the most parts, I always enjoy single player FPS before I get into MP.

Classic Linear FPS Shooter , that's what I want

... no it's not

Call of Juarez Gunslinger and Metro LL were the last linear FPS I've enjoyed very much.

More of that, please. :)

Another Bad Company would be bloody cool...

wait, there's anew Metro game coming out?!

Hmm, you know what I would like, a new Stalker game. That would be sooo good.

I thought the Steam Sale already kind of confirmed Half Life 3... :P

Deus Ex ain't no shooter

I totally feel you on that one. I really enjoy classic linear FPS games :P

Well, you CAN play it pretty much like a shooter. It's one way to play Deus Ex. I prefer hardcore stealth though. ;)

Anyone who plays Deus Ex like a shooter is missing out on one of the greatest RPG and stealth experiences.

well they take away splitscreen or same screen coop fun first..NOW its time to take away story mode/single player for shooters..before long we'll have nothing..AND since I have tons of old consoles,and games that do support those things,im all good.

They never went away. Last gen we had:

• Bioshock Series
• Metro Series
• Wolfenstein Series
• Shadow Warrior
• Call of Juarez: Gunslinger

Some of the finest pieces of craftsmanship I played last gen.

No, people just want that to be the case :P

Well, you can replay it and use a different style. The RPG elements are there no matter if you use bland force or stealth though.

I don't think its completely dead, but the genre lends itself a lot to online... I'm excited for System Shock 3, I think their will always be a few awesome single player fps games kicking around. Just hoping they dont go the battlefront EA route

Well, yes, but if you're only running and gunning it and playing it as an action/shooter game, it's nothing special. Deus Ex as a shooter is pretty bland. It's good, but it misses out on how excellent it can be when it's played the way the developers obviously want you to.

We need Nintendo and Retro to make Metroid Prime 4 already.

Good riddance. The old shooter formula is tired and mindless. It needs to evolve, and not just with online multiplayer. Make more interesting stores and scenarios that involve shooting, but doesn't depend on it for 95% of the gameplay.

For instance: make situations where interactions are more sophisticated than just shooting massive waves of enemies to reach the goal. Incorporate different mechanics that involve new ways to play, where shooting is just one of many possible actions, and I don't mean simple dialog options or stealth pathways.

They need to do something new and fresh instead of the same things the fps genre has been doing since the dawn of time.

Good iD couldn't make a good story.

Modern iD? LOLno

With new FPS games it’s like one step forward and two steps back, removing health packs and make the game less challenging, filling it with a lot of stupid QTE to make it more “cinematic”, destroying the maze and call it level-design so maybe a stupid kid could finish the game faster, Mane **** the new formula …. Nothing beats Old-Scool

@Kinthalis: That is the single dumbest picture used to bash modern games ever.

The level design in those old FPSs was shit. Devs didn't know any better. They built confusing levels that lead to horrible pacing issues. They are only praised by people on the internet who want to look like they are hardcore gamers and are better than the rest of us.

The best FPSs of all time use a much more linear and less confusing level design. Half-Life 1, it's expansion, Half-Life 2, FEAR, early CoD games, Crysis, Far Cry and many others. There is a reason that those puzzle-like level designs didn't survive.

I say fudge 'em both: old and "new". It needs to be deeper and different in order to have a decent story for starters. You can't have that with waves of enemies at every turn.

The genre needs to move from forgettable and short to something entirely new and sustainable.

I like to see another Crysis ...

Couldn't have said it better, specially the old shooter formula which is no where near better than fps the last decade.

But that had regenerating health and didn't have maze-like puzzles so it had to be shit.

That's not true. There were tons of SP-only FPS games last generation and several are on their way this generation.

@Wasdie: gotta say both formula have their pros and cons , I prefer old-school but right now I'm desperate , so I take anything with a good single campaign ......

PS : Listen to this

@the_master_race: But there are those oldschool kind of games still coming out. Shadow Warrior is getting a sequel this year, a new Serious Sam game is coming, Doom is back, Unreal Tournament is back, Lawbreakers is a new arena shooter, Strafe is coming out, and I probably missed a few.

The market has just expanded and the more popular shooters are the multiplayer focused games with a short and sweet campaign. That has been the standard since the mid 2000s now as most people want a very fun single player experience then to head on over to multiplayer where they'll spend the majority of their time.

We can just ignore some of the campaigns out there too. The stuff for Battlefield was simply tacked on as a requirement of a modern, AAA shooter. DICE never should have bothered but they were obligated by the modern standards.

Eh it ranges from game to game: Doom got it right, ditto Doom 2. But that's because Romera, American Mcgee, hall, n company had a sense for rhythm at the time. Quake sucked sp wise, but that was our first warning sign that Romero wasn't the only guy on Doom, Daikatana was well daikatana. Duke Nukem 3d and even classic Shadow Warrior (at least in the early going) holds up, when they were done right, there was an expertise to that level design that an open world game doesn't quite match up to. Open World is technically impressive, but there is no ingenuity to it. Pacing a level like those levels, pacing it with the right amount of health pick ups, secrets, ammo, while giving the player not an arsenal for days right off the bat, that's fucking difficult. It takes time, it takes effort, and it's shit not all devs practiced which is why that idea died.

The idea of those levels work, giving places to explore can be a good thing, but FPS games aren't made with atmosphere in mind enough, every now and then we get a Stalker or the original Bioshock (too many people focus on the arrow, that game had more than enough spaces to explore) and Metroid Prime do exist. More straight forward linear, set piece shooters aren't a bad thing, Modern Warfare 1 is a damn good game, ditto Uncharted 2. It's just poor execution.

Linear needs more variation, linear needs peaks and valleys, linear needs a strong set of game mechanics that are enjoyable on a basic level but have room for experimentation, linear might benefit from narrative and atmosphere, which also takes time and effort, which is also shit not all devs practice lol.

Larger issues with the genre
-the nature of triple A game production
-it's just creatively dull right now

mild issue, but not necessarily a game killer
-too many gamepad shooters, the genre benefits from having an interface like the mouse and keyboard to work with

That said Shadow Warrior 2 is around the corner, Doom 4 is a thing, System Shock 3 is going to happen, and Machine Games will probably do another Wolfenstein. I'm sure we'll see a new Eastern-European FPS soon as well.

hope they can revive the SP genre , I'm looking forward to all of 'em specially Shadow Warrior and about lawbreakers and Overwatch , nope they ain't my games

They've been doing that for years with crossover games / rpg mechanics, or world builders like GTAV / Starcitizen. And there's nothing wrong with 100% shooters still coming out, you don't have to play them. And I think old school shooters vs new both have compelling reasons to play. A game like doom has more involved combat mechanics to something like COD. Enemies can have hitscan or projectile weapons so dodging shots is a major gameplay mechanic. Most modern shooters use hitscan mechanics or close to it so gameplay has been a lot more focused-on taking cover to avoid being hit.

Not to mention as nice as linear mechanics are, they do get tiresome. Run forward, murder people, run forward murder people. The alternative is mostly open world games which have tons of generic time sinks in them for the sake of their open worldliness. Which end up being run north to point A, murder people, run to point east to point b, murder people. I'd be happy to take some variety with level design from linear to open world, to more confusing maze like designs, to hub-ish worlds (like borderlands), to something like metroid style level design.

Everything has basically been done by now so having a lot more variety to choose from can keep particular elements from getting too stale.

Lol, just 'cause you couldn't manage them doesn't make them bad. And I'd take a full fledged, well design level over the on rails crapola they shit out now a days.

It's obvious not every game featuring complex levels did it well... that's not my argument, but nice strawman.

Finally something I agree on. But Shadow Warrior, Wolfenstein, (Bioshock for me) and System shock are our saviours.

Funny you should talk about strawmen and while accusing Wasdie of not being able to manage those old FPS levels, which he never said.

I can handle them just fine, they just aren't good levels. That's why nobody does them anymore. Even the arena shooters and arcade shooters moved away from them for good reason.

I like to jump back and forth between single player and multiplayer in a game. I'm hoping that this trend of games being focused on only MP will be over soon...

Don't really care. Prefer multiplayer to single player for shooters anyways. More replayability

It's disappointing because I like singleplayer games more than anything else but at the same time if developers are going to continue to put little to no effort in the singleplayer campaigns then might as well just do away with them altogether. Halo 5 was the last straw for me. Absolutely hated that campaign. Lazy, ho-hum story, terrible mission structure, lazy level design. And who knows? As good as the multiplayer is, maybe it could've been even better if all the time and money was put into that.

Hard to argue with you there...

The next DOOM is the fist FPS I've looked forward to in years. FPS just aren't fun with their half assed developed online focus. Halo Combat Evolved did it right with a dedicated campaign and multiplayer option.

I never wasted my time on these yearly multiplayer FPS clone (COD) cash on delivery titles. If I can't have fun with a game in single player then I don't want to explore it's optional portions. That's probably my biggest issue with FPS these days and then these reviewers gave those half developed trash titles AAA scores, so I am glad to see that practice changing now.