The Rise & Fall of Arena Shooters
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- Опубликовано: 1 июн 2024
- At one point the Arena Shooter genre was king of all FPS games. From Doom to Duke Nukem, Quake and Unreal Tournament, the genre has a long history of successful and beloved IP's. But in the last 15 years or so, it seems this genre of FPS has fallen completely out of relevance. Why?
Why did Arena Shooters rise and fall?
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___TIME STAMPS___
Introduction - 0:00
What Is an Arena Shooter? - 1:27
The Rise of Arena Shooters (Wolfenstein, Doom & Quake) - 4:55
The Dawn of Console FPS - 11:14
Valve Enters the Frey - 14:27
Combat Evolved - 18:07
The Dawn of Online Gaming - 20:30
End of an Era - 22:38
Conclusion - 31:18
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How Much Does Multiplayer Population Matter? (Raycevick) - • How Much Does Multipla...
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RIP Arena Shooters. You will not be forgotten
RIP.
F
U
RIP especially to the goat Duke Nukem
RIP
Boomer shooters will always hold a special place in my heart thanks to my dad. He introduced me to DOOM, Quake, and Battlefield 1942 in 2002 (not an arena shooter, but still). To this day, every pc I ever get has these classics installed on them. Thanks, Dad, you’re a real one.
You have a dad that everyone would want
I still play the original Doom and Quake. They're classics that are still fun.
your dad sounds cool af, those are great memories to have :)
My dad was similar. He played Quake and Halo PC with me back in the day. Also loved Zelda. Now he doesn't really play anymore.
My dad introduced me to Halo CE, Duke Nukem 3D, Battlefield 2, Guild Wars, and Painkiller: Black Edition. He'd also play the N64 with me and my brother a lot and we'd play games like Perfect Dark, Battletanx, Resident Evil 2, Donkey Kong 64, and Starfox 64 on it. I'm so glad I held on to that n64 we had, and especially all the nintendo games I had for it, since nintendo just hates emulation so much. My dad and my brother and I still play games together every week, mostly Elder Scrolls Online and Battlefield 1.
Arena shooters were so much fun because they were not really taken seriously. They were kind of like party games except you were shooting at people instead. Wish I got to experience LAN parties
Agree dude today's shooter games don't do crazy stuff like fighting demons or fighting in crazy places like a lava room or in space
Totally agree. And the arena shooters died because they focused too much on eSports and lost it's goofiness.
There was some super serious Quake servers and players, some ladders etc
Quake Live??
pretty much yeah
you aren't expected by anyone to play well, nor to win every time, you're just there to play the video game, just like everyone else
Arena shooters definitely fell off relevancy, but the boomer shooter genre is definitely going strong.
New Blood Interactive is proving that there's still a die-hard passion for it. ULTRAKILL is one of those games I'm convinced is gonna appeal to a large audience once it gets out of Early Access, assuming it isnt appealing to a lot of people already.
Not to mention all the other games not published by New Blood that exist that are also great. Cultic, Prodeus, Dread Templar, Ion Fury, etc.
They're making FPS games fun and Badass again. I mean, I never stopped playing this stuff, from Doom and Nukem 3D mods, to games made in GXdoom and EDuke32. Right now I'm dying to play the full release of Selaco, which feels like it has some Fear/Perfect Dark blood for a GZDoom game, with a presentation that felt like a more futuristic Ion Fury - which was also fucking awesome lol
I think people have the natural urge for things they like to be popular. I played and enjoyed ultrakill. But it's clearly dated game design and I guarantee it won't appeal to most people who have gotten in to shooters in the past 15 years or so. It's too fast and slippery and no matter how cute the robot fan art is, it just doesn't have mainstream appeal. The developers know who their audience is and it's clearly guys like you, my man. You're in the minority but that doesn't make the game any less awesome. Cheers dude!
@@BasicWorldbuilder At least to my understanding the original comments more so saying that the arena FPS (or its core formula) was/is making a comeback. DOOM 2016 would spark the peak of this return. ULTRAKILL (and Dusk and Amid Evil) hit this wave at its best. The comments not saying that ULTRAKILL is the most popular best game ever made but rather it's peak in popularity (and it's community today) show that the arena formula isn't dead and there's still an audience for it. DOOM 2016 proved people still like fast paced FPS games.
@@noodlebro6983 My response is really to the sentence I'm loosely quoting "im convinced ultrakill will appeal to a LARGE audience once it gets out of early access" and it simply won't. Counter-Strike has a large audience. Call of duty has a large audience. FORTNITE has a large audience. Tarkov, etc.
And remember. I'm on your side here, I like the boomer shooter and arena shooter genre . But marketing is my job in the real world, I'm not naive and I know the arena /boomer shooter genre as a whole, is niche.
Nothing wrong with that. I was simply disagreeing that it's going to appeal to a wide audience because I know it won't lol, Doom's biggest day ever couldnt get close to fortnite's worst day. And I don't even like fortnite .Those are just two data points but they show you the mountain that these type of shooters need to overcome if they want to ever be relevant again. If Doom can't do it. No one could, and that's okay if some developers want to keep making them. I'm sure people like us will keep buying them. There's nothing wrong with enjoying a niche product lol
Unreal Tournament was the first arena shooter I ever played, it's also the game that got me in to PC gaming in general. So many fond memories.
Same here, watching my dad play on Phobos and Turbine drew my imagination in like nothing else at the time
lol quake 3 came out two weeks later and this game died.
I'm so heart broken epic gave up on unreal tournament...
Quake 3 literally got me into gaming as a little kid, so the Quake series and arena shooters always had a special place in my heart
Quake 3 arena omg the memories 😢
@@yousefalbarq3271 Play quake live bro :)
Fun fact, for some reason when you hit zombies in RE4 Remake you can hear... Orb's hurting sound? I don't know why devs thought that sound would be okay for a zombie, but yeah.
Let's all revive quake champions?
@@Flesjemetwater i've not actually tried quake champions, I might give it a crack, I didn't really like the look of the gameplay footage I'd seen before but does it play like old school quake?
I remember reading about arena shooter tournaments in the 90's where the winners won cash prizes. The idea that you could win money by playing your favorite game was mind-blowing to me as a kid
I really want you to talk about Indie Games in the future. Games like Bug Fables, Pizza Tower, Celeste, ULTRAKILL, Madness: Project Nexus, etc. It would be a breath of fresh air from the AAA game news you bring personally.
Imagine if you will,
An M rated
“Republic commando 2:Order 66”
With a Starwars/Doom soundtrack, where you’re hunting down Jedi remnants, killing rebels, blowing doors open while your visor cleans the blood off your HUD. All with a metal Starwars soundtrack playing, while SEV makes remarks about how he always wondered how hard it would be to kill a Jedi.
You are now in, the Twilight zone
I'd buy that day one.
@@wairen5020 i’d preorder the hell out of it
This video is literally my childhood growing up playing video games, the amount of nostalgia I'm feeling right now is unbelievable
Obligatory "nostalgia" comment
Everyone's a Nostalgia Critic.
I wish he talked more about the new indie boomer shooter games. Games like Dusk, Ultrakill, Cultic have been some of my favourite from the past few years. The genre is not dead at all
Multiplayer isn't that alive
Im sad project warlock is not getting recommended by most comments.
@@at0mic354 and?
@@thescrambler6354 Oh it was because act man was specifically saying that it was online arena shooters that have died and this guy here was talking about these arena shooter like games so I was confused if he meant the multiplayer. But it was probably him talking about the single player which is alive to this day for example like Doom
Ultrakill isn't an arena shooter lol.
Warhammer 40k Boltgun, Dusk, Project Warlock, Prodeus, Forgive me Father, Doom Eternal, Ultrakill, Postal Baron Damaged, Shadow Warrior 3.
The genre is VERY much alive for single players experience, and arguably more so than it has been for the past 15 years.
Arena shooters refer to multiplayer shooters like Quake 3 where everyone spawns with the same weapons. Those are called boomer shooters not arena shooters
@@Legion849 Except he includes several games that have no multiplayer component in them. Dark Forces does not have a multiplayer mode. His definition of what an arena shooter even is is so nebulous and in flux.
Many people consider Doom Eternal and Ultrakill to be arena shooters, since the games so heavily and unabashedly rely on arena combat. He could easily quantify this by including multiplayer in the title but just doesn't for some reason. Arena shooters as a genre have had some of their most successful releases in the past few years. The industry leaders just shifted towards Indie Developers, but still games like Dusk and Ultrakill are fantastic. Ultrakill is probably the best shooter ever made from a mechanical standpoint.
Liers! prodeus habe now multiplayer and its perfect and even so with dusk's dusk world altho a little bit perfect for rott 2013
@@KarazolaXTy ultra kill is the best shooter of all time
Ok but we ain't talking about single players.
I have been struggling with depression for awhile now because of this damn cancer but u always manage to make me feel better
Tribes also did something that was very true to that super high skill ceiling of traditional arena shooters that was also very different. Instead of bunny hopping at an angle like a drunken coke addict, it had something I can really only describe as "skiing". You had to use your jet pack, physics of your flying around, and then sliding around on hills to build up speed to borderline fly around the map even when not using the jet pack actively.
In Tribes 2 I was a spinfusor god
VGCS Shazbot!
it's not something "you can only describe as" skiing, it's what everyone in the community called it. Learning to ski is an important part of playing Tribes
I played Tribes Ascend many years ago. Didn't really get into it. Got intimidated by high skill gameplay and never touched it again
@@thememeilator2633 i enjoyed TA back in the day. was fun until a new company bought it and ran it into the ground inside of a year
@@LordButtsauce hmm well just another thing on the checklist i need to fix when i buy it
I only recently got into mouse & keyboard FPS gaming and I downloaded Quake Champions and I gotta say, arena FPS games are something special. The fast pace, the insane movement capabilities, the emphasis on really great mechanics, it's all exactly what I want out of an FPS game. I just wish more people played them.
Ong
I personally think that console games dumbed down FPS games a lot in many ways (slowing characters down, punishing the player for even attempting to move fast/in an unintended way, reducing the arsenal of the player to only 2 weapons thus making every fight pretty much the same most of the time) but I'm not saying this because I hate consoles or because I hate console games I simply hated that every company decided to water down their games after Halo CE and CoD trying to follow the trend and trying to imitate what made these games great and now 90% of AAA FPS are like them but failing to replicate what made them so great back in the days... they're all slow and predictable now.
Modern FPS games are ultra-casual and designed around maximizing revenue.
If you've grown beyond those games there isn't much else out there to play. The only notable FPS game in the past 5 years would be Gundam Evolution and that's a hero shooter.
its more of a sport than anything else tbh.
@@kentreed2011 the entirety of gaming is a complete waterdown. MMOs go hit the hardest. literally went from the most incredible genre to a heap of trash.
I still remember the first time I played counter-strike, I was completely blown away. Still can't believe that was over 20 years ago and I still play 1.6 to this day. What a masterpiece and blessing to the first person shooter gaming community.
Dusk and Ultrakill have been pretty succesful lately and show there's still interest in the genre, all my young friends from the new generations are discovering how fun this playstyle is thanks to them ^^
Yeah but that’s cause of the single player not the multiplayer which UK doesn’t even have
@@MILDMONSTER1234 Doom was initially single player so its still ok, as long as the genre is not forgotten
@@MILDMONSTER1234 Someone, at some point, will most definitely attempt to make a multiplayer ULTRAKILL mod. Given how many times Hakita has been asked if he plans to add it into the game and said no. It may be a long while, but never underestimate the modders.
@@thelosttraveler5808 yeah but when people think of arena shooters what they basiclLy mean is multiplayer boomer shooters
neither of those are arena shooters?
I will say this right now, because Ultrakill became as popular and well received as it did. I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw more games inspired by Arena Shooters in the future.
truth
Ultrakill reminded me that I don’t hate FPS games, though I’ve completely burned out my ability to enjoy any multiplayer FPS.
Speaking of, I'd love to see the Act man cover Ultrakill. Though perhaps he'd wait until it's fully released...I'd love to see hit take on it.
It took longer to find someone shilling ultrakill than I thought it would
@@matts2080 I don't think anyone here is..."Shilling" it at the moment. If shilling means what I think it means, anyway
I've watched the video a couple of times, and I get the feeling that you don't really understand what an arena shooter is. Half the games you mentioned and showed in the video are not arena shooters, they just had multiplayer mods that happened to be afps, the fact that Half-Life had DMC (which was a mod) doesn't mean that Half-Life is an arena shooter. No one remembers Half-Life because of the dmc mod. You also rushed Quake which is basically the most important game while talking about afps, and just briefly mention Unreal Tournament. I understand trying to contextualize how other sub-genres played a role in "killing" afps, but I just don't understand how in a 33 minutes video supposedly about afps, mentions and discussion points about actual afps can be counted on the fingers of a hand. I personally also don't believe that other shooters were the cause of death for afps, i think it's just because more people got into gaming and most of them weren't and aren't willing to "get good" at games that are purely skill based. The average player just want the quick dopamine hit that getting a victory royale in Fortnite or winning a match in CoD gives, or they want to feel good in "esports competitive" games like Valorant or Apex.
Adrenaline is a bigger factor when it comes to battle royale games
@@K4inan Not at all lol, battle royale are the literal opposite of "adrenaline". There is no adrenaline in spending 10 minutes looting and ratting just to hopefully get some fights in the last minute of a match. They are just more accessible compared to other FPS because they are thought from the ground up for the new kind of public I mentioned in my original comment. AFPS feels harder to most simply because they are JUST skill based, and if you want to "rank up" you ACTUALLY have to get good. In Apex for example, until very recently all you had to do to "get good" was literally just play a lot. That said AFPS are not hard per se, all you have to do in an AFPS is to literally just hold W, jump and shoot. They just require a little more effort to be mastered because the genre came out when games were actually made to be played and not to milk money out of the players with skins and battlepasses, so the gameplay HAD to be hooking to retain players.
@@spammus1 Yeah, you have no idea what you're talking about. 🤣🤣
@@K4inan Sounds like you are projecting hard not gonna lie! You most likely never played an Arena shooter and the biggest concept of "adrenaline" you have is looting in Tomato Town.
I'm glad you made the comparison-ish to fighting games because its kinda true for both; there's a big skill gap in both genres. I used to play against bots in UT3 and had a blast. Once I jumped in VS live opponents, it became so clear that I had some learning to do; even someone on the other team asked if it was my first time.
i think its actually a kind of disingenuous take, considering how arena shooters have more complex mechanics compared to a special move in a fighting game, it doesnt even make sense
@@thatonecrazykobold1729 ? What lol. Arena shooters, like fighting games have one cheap, yet rewarding gimmick. They are DECEPTIVELY simple. It looks easy to zoom around in Quake 3, pull off combos in SSBU, but it's not. It is a truly laborious process to even get close to comfort, let alone mastery in either of these two genres. And if you think you've figured it out... Hop online, and bring some damn Kleenex.
Quake 3 Arena is simply one of the best shooters ever made. The game is pure fun. That's it. No nonsense, just pure fun.
It's painful that not many new gamers even know about how awesome it is.
"not many new gamers don't even know about how awesome it is".... what
It is awesome, but I think kids nowadays want more than just purely skill based games. I'm a teacher in real life, so I have good insight into what the kids play. Fortnite is still beyond huge, especially with younger teenagers. Of course, they play to win as well, but they also play to unlock new cosmetics, hang out with friends online or just mess around. You can't play a game like Q3 with that mindset. And honestly, some kids still get into competitive games like CS:GO. But most of them aren't. Gaming as a whole is much larger than it was when Q3 was a thing. It used to be a nerd thing. Today, it's just another hobby, just like sports.
@@chrissennfelder7249 CSGO itself is fairly dumbed down in terms of movement when compared to the old CS games. That's an attempt to appeal to casual gamers.
Played it every day just pure fun and no one cared how the others look like, they were green Tanks and splatered blood around when railed 🤣😍
@@christiansmemefactory1513 only bunny hopping got removed, thats it?
I miss these Rise and Fall video formats. Glad to see it return.
Imagine a Rise and Fall documentary video about the “Rise and Fall video format”
@@NikoPeludo And that will be the last video of that format
@@NikoPeludo what about fall and rise of rise and fall formats?
Fails to mention the revival in the indie scene
Those are boomer shooters not arena shooters
Thank you for your videos Act Man, I appreciate what you do!!!
DOOM, Duke, Shadow Warrior, Quake, Perfect Dark Zero, Golden Eye, Halo 2, Half-Life, Serious Sam. All blew my mind. Good times.
Where's Blood???
Yeah, absolutely, for some reason it is so underated. I find it as good as Duke, Quake and some others. Amazing FPS in every regard. Every person who loves these type of games should go and play it, it runs great on raze, i tried it a month ago, real smooth gameplay
Unreal Tournament?
@@bobanbobanic919 Try nblood or bloodgdx. They're great
@@gunzblazin6860 I'm here to donate yours...
Man, this gives me good trips down memory lane. My brother and I getting dropped off at my friends house before school, and spending the early morning playing Halo 2 slayer matches with him and his little sister, really has to be some of my fondest childhood memories. Thank you for revitalizing, even for just a brief moment, one of the greatest eras of gaming.
The amount of inaccuracies in this video must be a RUclips record. Congratulations you won!
The first game i ever played was Wolfenstein on PC while sitting on my mom’s lap in 1998. Watching her play Starwars, Wolfenstein, and Tomb Raider is the reason i’ve got such a deep love for classics like those games
I never was alive when Doom 1-2 released but I love them a lot having experienced them years later. Especially Doom 2016 and Eternal. RIP these amazing Arena Shooters.
Saying “never was” instead of “wasn’t” is killing me lol. Almost implies you’ve said this before and no one believed you
@@jarodandrews7425 "I wasn't alive when the game was released."
Them: "You look like you're older than me!"
"Looks can be decieving."
whaaaat?? How were you not alive during Doom 1 and 2? I was!
Just try to be alive next time bro, and you'll never skip Doom 1-2 release
@@pdpMASTERP I’m 21, turning 22 this June.
Cool to see you go In depth into this genre of shooters! Out of Curiosity, is ULTRAKILL on your radar at all? I think you might quite enjoy it.
"I do NOT have Daddy Issues! I AM PAPA'S SPECIAL FUCKING *BOY!!!!* " 😂
First thing that popped into my mind reading this lol. Sorry.
@@ThePhoenixScribe why?
@@wallacejenkins4747 you should watch maxor
@@wallacejenkins4747 Cause of Maxor
Took me a while to beat pissypiss
I wish the Unreal Tournament franchise was still producing games. I had so much fun with the first game and 2004.
Amazing games... The audio and visuals were top tier for the time.
Hey that was a lot of fun. Great vid man
I still play UT99, Quake 3 and Serious SamTFE to this day, these games will forever hold a special place in my heart.
Fuck yeah, always badass to see a fellow Serious Sam fan!
Join the Croteam gang.
Heck yea! You should hop on Xonotic and Cube 2: Sauerbraten aswell!
I'm surprised you didn't talk about Unreal Tournament 2004, I remember playing that when I was young, it was amazing, even some of its maps like Convoy that even has a TF2 port version are amazing. Great video!
Goated game
Yesssss Convoy was awesome!!
Assault mode in general was awesome :)
If you thought convoy was fun then you should have played on wacky map servers like Nachos & Beer.
OG UT2k4 demo soapnet server loiterer here. NOW U HAVE SOAP IN UR EYES
Great video! A trip down the memory lane :)
Brought me back! Fun to watch!
Its a genre that I want back in the mainstream so bad, especially the multiplayer portions. I was born far too late to see the peak of such an awesome style of game. Movement in shooters is by far my favorite aspect, so I have these games to thank for it. They're probably better off gone from the mainstream because they would have been ruined entirely by now.
We got some good callbacks like duke nukem with Ion Fury and Phantom Fury, and black mesa imo did a great job on the half life mp, and quake champions is decent.. but yeah its a genre we need back
boy would you like ultrakill
@@VEN0M415 dusk is one of my favorite singleplayer throwback shooters atm
Come to indie space, there are great boomer shooters there. Ultrakill is just better doom eternal so that's a great place to start
Have you played Turbo Overkill? Definitely deserves a spot for one of the best shooters of all time imo.
Unreal Tournament 99 was such an epic game! Fast paced arena shooting with an awesome sound track. It was my life until Halo came along..
For me UT 99 it is to this day best of best... I cant helpit its just piece of perfection as fps goes.
Amazing video Act Man!!
Awesome vid Actman! More like it please
My favorite moment in Doom 2016 was in multiplayer where my buddy dodged a rocket by hip thrusting via emote
He thrusted at just the right time for it to swerve him
It was magical
I wouldn't mind seeing an emote/dance based PvP game
@@allenqueenjust dance???
@@sebastianalarcon7986 Just dance is not PvP, cmon. Not in the same way
@@allenqueen but it is?? You dance with people and fight to see who gets the best score, PvP
@@sebastianalarcon7986 Alright, I agree. I guess what I had in mind was a map, where people run around and challenge others for a dance-off and loser get eliminated. A Dance Battle Royale, maybe. Map has items which can give you score multipliers. Haha
The era of arena shooters might be gone, but as the old saying says:
"Classics never die"
And we have some new pretty dope Arena Shooter: Doom 2016, Dusk, Doom Eternal, Prodeus are all pretty nice game!
@@markx787
Never better said bro!
@@markx787 un bro québécois :P
@@JOE_XD
Je suis du mexico mon ami
@@JOE_XD ouais haha de Québec même en plus.
Loved the video learned a lot
Felt like he talked more about games that aren’t arena shooters than arena shooters themselves. This video did not need to be 30+ minutes.
This is probably one of your best videos ever. You should do more of these history lesson types.
There are a lot of bizarrely overlapping factors to this issue that make it difficult to pin down exactly why arena shooters died out. For example, pointing out that arena shooters are heavy on the try-hard gameplay is a fair point, but then you have games like Counterstrike, League, and Starcraft that are arguably excruciating for new players to learn/compete at and yet were massively popular even after arena shooters fell out of vogue.
Arena shooters seemingly sailed into a perfect storm at a crucial juncture of gaming history where they 1) focused on multiplayer with very little attention paid to in-game lore, 2) lost out to trendy elements like the "real" gunplay of squad shooters, 3) lacked widespread community content creation after the original Doom days, 4) didn't participate in burgeoning forms of media like machinima, 5) suffered from franchise fatigue and simple not being the "new thing" anymore, 6) didn't adopt progression systems of any real variety, 7) did not have the party atmosphere that many newer games fostered, etc.
Bless the algorithm, I have never heard of “The Act Man” but this video really hit home.
I think you should mention the transition from server browser and dedicated servers to matchmaking. I think it had huge impact not only on the genre but whole industry and community around it. Modability and custom servers are a rarity right now.
One of reasons why I pretty much stopped playing multiplayer games.
@@walterscientist Same
Matchmaking is pretty bad in every single game that has used it as a main feature in my experience. I can't say for certain obviously, but I'm pretty sure actual gamers from console and PC are getting tired of the current trends. Not long till big companies catch on, hopefully. Valve might be paying attention as well. Lets be honest they get so much info from Steam based on reviews, player count, and playtime. Like of all the major companies I think they might have the best grasp of what players actually want because they have literally herded tons of PC gamers into their own ecosystem where they can straight up analyze us. It would be silly of them not to capitalize on that.
@@walterscientist same
I really got into the multiplayer of doom 2016 when it came out. I found running a loadout of super shotgun and normal pump shotgun was absolutely broken because you could shoot one, swap to other, shoot it, swap back, repeat and it would absolutely destroy people.
so like shotgun swapping in ultrakill?
@@hollow_w33n I'm sorry I don't know what is but maybe yeah?
@@hollow_w33n a souls youtuber named oroboro made a montage of it and thats how I discovered it. You can probably find it by searching oroboro doom 2016 shotgun or something and youll see exactly what I mean
@@Perrydigm97 i HIGHLY recommend giving ultrakill a try. it's technically a single-player game, but trust me.
@@hollow_w33n Ill have to look it up, Im a huge fan of single player shooters
Very cool video! You should make one for RTS games and how are people looking to revive it.
I have never played shooters, but I have fond memories of watching my brother play Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein... Watching this really sends home how big the 90s were for video games. Thank you for all your hard work Mr. Man. I really enjoy your videos, even of games I will never play.
90s. video games, movies, music and especially the young internet. its baffling how things can actually get worse decades later. today everything is just a quick buck.
New Blood is making all sorts of boomer shooter styled games, the genre may not be in the limelight but it exists and will always in some capacity. ❤
I miss Quake and Unreal Tournament 😭
There was a re-release of quake and the multiplayer was going pretty well.. havent checked it for a while so I can only hope the population didnt drip off hard.
@@VEN0M415 Quake Champions?
@@SkyTied nope the first quake, I had the original one on steam so I got the new one for free which includes a ton of settings and visual modifiers as well as includes expansions if I remember correctly.
I just got into playing Unreal for the first time lately, and after trying out Unreal Tournament for the first time with a few friends I can definitely see why. Coming mostly from Valve titles it feels like a totally new world that I hadn't discovered, yet also very familiar and so much fun in both single player and multiplayer.
@@sulphurous2656 Valve is so goddamn good
Great video, very insightful. You've certainly done your research given you weren't around for much of what you described.
Not really, I expected a Lot for act Man video, it's inconsistent as F.. Full of incorrect statements, like the other guy said
@@hvael Not even dig deeper, You just need to be an actual arena shooter fan. Arena shooters has been My favorite genre, since like i was 10 yo (I'm 23 now) And why he Even mentions games like Metal Gear Solid? Not even a shooter. Medal Of Honor? Why? And he contradicts himself a lot, and Doom 64 after Goldeneye is far From the only wrong statement. i'm really dissapointed with this video, at least he could have mentioned the indie boomer shooter scene, an try to spark more interest to his more casual audience
Used to play lan unreal tournament with my friend , introduced me to fast paced arena shooters. Then I started picking it back up it 2016 with doom and Titanfall 2 and holy crap it payed off even after all these years.
playing the OG’s (quake, duke nukem 3D, doom, jedi knight) with my dad is one of my favorite childhood memories. these games always have a spot in my heart!
Dude, I genuinely loved the Doom 2016 multiplayer. It was a blast once you learned the maps a bit. Once you figured out which demon and weapons you were the most effective with, it was a ton of fun. I forgot there were emotes though haha. I was for sure one of the few disappointed people when Eternal tried to do its own thing with multiplayer instead of good old deathmatch. I feel like deathmatch should always be on every Doom game. I mean, John Romero coined the phrase. Dropping deathmatch just feels wrong. Fingers crossed for the future though 🤞
A lot of games seem to be phasing out or just doing the bare minimum deathmatch modes, it's really sad. There are exceptions, but generally I like a simple deathmatch over anything else.
@@winlover37 Agreed. Deathmatch was certainly put on the back burner back when all the battle royale games started bringing in a ton of players. I don’t have the patience for a BR game. Deathmatch is nice because when you die, you just respawn and immediately go again. When you die in a BR, the time you spent playing is essentially wasted, and you have to start all over again. I’d rather just jump into a fast-paced game and have fun rather than playing something that is basically the definition of insanity.
I can at least applaud Id for trying something new. While I do think Battlemode is fun, it's definitely not Doom Eternal's main attraction.
I agree too. Even though 2016 had loadouts it was still otherwise an Arena multiplayer with it's health pickups, armor pickups, ammo pickups, power weapon spawns, and powerup spawns (which would include the demon spawn too). Act Man is on crack for saying that it sucked ass, its MP was fun as shit and just needed key changes going into Doom Eternal (though iD chickened out on doom eternal arena multiplayer)
@@fojisan2398 Battlemode is a fun little game mode but too barebones for an entire multiplayer.
Try the Turok N64 controls, it's a substitute for the modern 2-stick FPS controls.
Turok controls are where you move with the C buttons and look/turn/aim with the stick. Perfect Dark and GoldenEye offer a similar option you can choose in the controls if you look for it.
Remember how Perfect Dark had an option for two sticks by fucking dual wielding controllers? Just another reason why it's my favorite N64 game.
Being real, I literally just started playing Quake 1 MP today, and I realized that I was intimidated for nothing. I hopped into a server and got stomped, but just a few rounds in, I was actually starting to come out on top. It was more fun than being cussed out in Overwatch, I'll say that much.
Thats because it's just a stigma, if the games were treated like Dark Souls people would not mind learning "nuances and unexplained mechanics" as much in my opinion
@@jimmybuba2683 Exactly, something like bunny hopping is just a matter of pressing the space bar, and it's not like it's always necessary. Plus, nine times out of ten, I was able to quickly rearm myself after dying, and get back on a level playing field.
Prodeus is a gnarly little retro arena shooter. One of the best I’ve played.
I had fun playing through the campaign, I was a bit disappointed though because it felt unfinished. I see a lot of potential in Prodeus and I hope the devs put all their blood and sweat into that game because I want to play a good arena shooter that hasn't been around for 20 years
you mean that crap with a checkpoint system? looking foward to mapcore 984029384092384098
The level design in prodeus is something else. The last few levels are mind-blowing
@@frederikvandoren when was the last time you played it? It has changed now.
@SuperHns last I played was just before Christmas, it's only like 2gb no big deal so if anything has changed I might play again.
That mention of Time splitters series is golden man!!! It's underrated and underappreited in the mid-life cycle of FPS history. Thank you Act Man you trully are a man of culture.
Time splitters is a great series. Fun gameplay, and hilarious dialogue.
Timesplitters 2 is personally my favorite game of all time. The amount of characters and the unique selections , not to mention map creator, the tough af challenges, the goofiness… man, that game is legendary. The franchise albeit
Quake Champs is amazing. Still has more support than most popular fpses lol. And that’s with a solid 400 players on a great day.
Been playing and hanging with the best.
I really, really have a hard time putting into words how much I have come to enjoy your content, especially when you tackle the more meta-topics like genres or mechanics.
I'm really glad that I found you! Thank you so much for what you do!
Doom, Quake, Half-Life and Unreal Tournament WERE MY CHILDHOOD.
They will never be forgotten
Jesse we need to play DOOM
ultrakill >>>
The nostalgia I feel for arena shooters is more second hand, as I spent my formative years watching my father play those games back in the 90s, being 6 years old watching him bust up head crabs is one of the best memory from those days. Watching him have fun with FPS games was how I got into gaming myself and so I owe a lot of my love to the legacy of old school arena shooters.
I had an idea for an arena shooter once, one of the modes i thought of was something that focused on NPC enemies
(not player-like enemies, just, traditional npcs that can usually be out-maneuvered)
And the more i think about it, the more i feel that could play an important part in bringing back the arena shooter genre
A multiplayer mode focused on fighting groups of AI enemies, possibly still with an opposing player team
Because people like playing singleplayer arena shooters, i can see why, the enemies can still be threatening, but almost anyone could manage to kill a single imp in doom
I had the idea for this from playing Moba games, they often have creeps and actual players both on the same board and both on each team
Infact i feel like some of the ideas around Moba games are kinda slept on because of how genius they are
Imagine a deathmatch mode where you also have NPC cannon fodder allies and enemies that can count for like, what? A quarter of a player kill point?
It would also add more tactical strategy, defend your guys? Or kill more of the enemies'? Or just go straight for them?
Duke Nukem 3D had this mode 'deathmatch with monsters'. They didn't count for points, but did serve as hazards, and IIRC getting killed by a monster counted as a 'suicide'.
What you are describing is the main game mode in Titanfall 2 MP, mowing down fodder gives points, taking down a player mech can also feel very much PvE alike despite the mechs being controlled by a player
@@SoulBL4D3and it was really fun too! And humiliating getting kicked to death by a grunt occasionally.
I'm going to show this to my dad, I been reviving my old consoles (ps3 and gamecube) for us to relive the unreal tournament and turok days. And he asked me why did they stop making unreal tournament. You gave me a answer I can give him. Thank you.
I'll always go back and play the first Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 Arena. I will always cherish their gameplay for what they are.
Doom Eternal is the greatest gaming experience I had in a very, very long time, it brought me back to my childhood and I'm grateful to Id for sticking to their guns and giving us one of the greatest games ever.
True
Yup it jumped right into my top 10 best games ever....attempting ANOTHER ultra nightmare run atm
100% , i think it might be my favorite game ever tbh, just due to it's incredible combat loop. It is also probably one of the only solo games i ever played that matched a multiplayer's intensity. Playing master levels on nightmare, quickswapping and comboing your way through all these demons is absolutely unmatchable. Sadly, i think the combat isn't really applicable to a multiplayer mode..
@@rooxg Tbh, I have never really care for multiplayer in games, so if the multiplayer in a game is subpar o great I really couldn't care less, good chance I'll never touch it. I understand that multi is really, really important for many or most people, but for me personally, I come from the age of goldeneye and halo split-screen deathmatches, if I'm not in the same room with my friends shitposting and bullying each other, is not worth it and I don't care about online communities, if I'm going to play with my friends, I would rather go to a friends house, play some boardgames and have the peer to peer interaction irl imho.
The soundtrack for Doom is simply the greatest video game ost I’ve ever listened to. The shear metal and power you feel out of it gets you pumped every time and my god Doomguy looks like a beast.
Love the video man. Editing, storytelling, narration. Great job
❤Unreal Tournament my beloved ❤
UT99 will always have a place in my heart, it's not only the best arena shooter ever conceived (imo) but it's also one of my favourite games in existence. From its maps, music, and weapons, you can tell there is much love poured into it. It's a shame that Fortnite's huge success massacred any idea of finishing UT's remake, however I do enjoy Fortnite now that zero construction is a thing, and since it brings so much joy into today's players, maybe those kids will be nostalgic about it in the future, talking about how most games in 2045 "just don't get it".
You did an amazing retrospective; good job my man.
I agree, and you didnt even mention MODS for UT99, god. Epic game. All of these modern shooters OWE their existance to UT99
Thank for the trip down memory lane, it's nice to indulge in some childhood nostalgia and happy memories early gaming brought me. Anyone who grew up in those times - you should know we lived in an era that can never be recaptured or restored, and can never be surpassed but only rivaled. We lived in the golden era of gaming - a cultural zeitgeist as gaming entered mainstream.
Amen to that!
Amen brother!
I wouldn't say that honestly. Back then i hated a lot of the games listed in the video and or didn't know them since i was born in 2000. Doom was cool but i never played the multiplayer, same for quake, i like quake but that multiplayer looks hair-pullingly frustrating to learn. Halo is cool but it isn't a hardcore arena shooter like the others even though i still see it like that. I never heard of Unreal, played Tribes Ascend on pc a couple times but no matter what all these games ended the same for me. Getting stomped by people who were better then me and never having fun because of it. And if someone says just get better at the game, i tried that for 8 years and it got me nowhere.
@@thememeilator2633 if you were born in late 80s or early 90s you’d say this otherwise. You definitely missed out on the golden era since you were too young unfortunately. The internet itself was just much different too which also affected the way we online gamed
@@donnieb390 well i dunno. My first game i ever played was Majora's mask on the N64. I grew up on nintendo games mostly and got into shooters around when i was 13 on the PS3. Games like Crisis 2. Plus you should know that my generation cares more about winning then actually having fun in these kind of games, thats why we fell out of them mostly. Our mentality was essentially "win to be better and be better to win" and a LOT of us fell out of the challenge because of it. I have my own recounting of the time from my perspective if you wanna read it.
Edit: i should clarify that nowadays i am not like that when it comes to shooters and gaming as a whole. I love almost every game i play truly and i'm far from the toxic ball of angst and emotions i use to be.
I still say it to this day, no matter how complex modern games have become in terms of their competitive aspect, none have ever trumped the spectacle of skill in arena shooters.
The skill level in competitive unreal tournament matches was so unbelievably insane that you'd think all of them were using aimbot. You had to be skilled not only in aiming and shooting, but have perfect spatial awareness and reflexes.
Watching someone pull split-second tricks to frag multiple people around the map while 90s jungle drum and bass is blasting in the background is just something id like to see again.
I absolutely loved Doom 2016's PvP multiplayer and it not being included in Eternal is pretty much the reason I started playing Halo again. I was completely done with FPS games before Doom 2016.
Civvie 11: "You wot m8?"
Unreal tournament was super cool because it wasn’t very difficult so you could play with friends who aren’t gamers, your s/o or even your parents. It was like the Mario kart of classic arena shooters.
And Epic just Thanos snapped it out of existence - pulled all of the Unreal games from storefronts (even the single player ones) and shut down the servers so you can never play them again. I honestly despise the direction Epic took as a company once Fortnite blew up.
@@qu1253 they want to be Valve , develop engines and a distribution platform , god help us let's hope they don't try to make a console next... Edit; Valve would never delete legacy titles.
U-U-U-UTRAK-KKKK-KK-K-I-IL-ILLL-LL-L
Unreal Tournament had bots to develop to your skill lvl. I liked that a lot, good feature.
@@qu1253 Not true! You can still play UT 1999 online with the Unreal Tournament Community Patch! :D It also adds resolution settings for modern monitors. You just have to get the game itself from...somewhere...since you can't buy it anymore, if you catch my drift.
Arena shooters will always be one of my favorite genres and I’m happy that there are still some servers available even though the trend dried up.
Loved the video! It felt informative the whole way through, damn and it's weird to see so much about an era of gaming I completely missed!
There is one more thing which killed these games. I used to be a modder for the unreal series, a dedicated one, I ran my own servers and it kept me attached to to playing these games online for quite some time. What eventually led to me dropping online DM and such was the rise of the MMORPG type, this is where my friends went and where I eventually followed. After all, why would I spent my own time and my own money on something no one is going to see? I could attract other players but it just wasn’t the same, they were my friends and they were gone. It felt it almost like I did when I was growing out of hanging around the streets and didn’t want to let it go, but what choice is there when there is so much better out there. One thing which did keep me occasionally coming back to the game UT2004 was a clever invention, a mod called UT2004 RPG by a player known only as Mystral. This allowed the Invasion game mode to continue to this day in some servers, however, neglect and lack of interest has seen a decline of players joining these in recent years. Basically that mod allowed progression in a world which could be modded to have a bit of strategy, as CS, HL2, Halo and the likes. However, it simply couldn’t keep up.
Saying a genre is dead because it does not appeal to the masses is one thing. However, there are many die hard communities keeping the AFPS alive. I can still get games nightly in various games and many Discords are dedicated to organizing game nights. So yes, dead in a sense that a developer may not take on a new AFPS, but the old school games we love are very much alive because of the gamers dedicated to keeping them alive. Xonotic and Quake are great examples.
AFPS are on life support. Discord game nights don't keep the game alive, they only serve as a way to get the remaining player together before the game is eventually fully dead. QC is the closest traditional AFPS to being alive, and it still has unreasonable que times for people outside Europe. Outside of that, Halo already showed that if the genre wants to achieve any popularity, it needs to be streamlined and simplified in every way possible, to a point where it's barely even recognisable.
Coping that the games are "alive" is just a delusional way to ignore/deny that there is zero interest in these games from players and developers, despite most AFPS being shining examples of well-designed, competitive FPS with a massive amount of skill expression and depth.
28:38 here talks how many of the arena shooters is steal with many people and very much alive but not as many fractions or importance of before, and today with games like csgo.
@@TheRadioSquare cap
Yess Xonotic is super fun as well as Cube 2: Sauerbraten. Always meet the nicest people on there.
Unreal Tournament 2004 is still one of my all time favorite arena shooters. Still play it to this day!!
=) great video. i miss them arena shooters, online battles were so fun and ppl would be more open to just play just for fun. no stats no competition ( or at least it felt more relaxed and open )
I have very fond and vivid memories of playing on xbox live for the first time I was 12 and was absolutely blown away to know I can play online with my friends and family from different states away it was glorious sadly the person who introduced me to xbox live back then is no longer with us and I miss him on a daily basis
Damn man, I came into the multiplayer area when it was a little to late for the Arena Shooters, but I've got to say that there's one game that, for me, is a dream come true: Unreal Tournament 3. It really had all of it: great and smooth gameplay, game modes, vehicles, a pretty ok story and the engine to make whatever you want with it. To bad we don't see such complete packages of games now-a-days.
what about ut2004 ? its has everything copied from ut3 and more. its just the same but more of it. actually, i consider it the best arena shooter ever. excellent scaleable bots and tons of maps. looks ok and plays awesome. still on my harddrive. its on steam btw and if you want humans to play with i think its your best option.
@@syrales5539 I have seen it, but somehow, the first UT I've got into was UT3. And the gameplay and graphics blew me away then. Even now I consider it a good game in these departments
The first 3 ut are all good in their own way
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UT2k4 was such a monster when it came out, nowadays with the dated graphics it might be a little harder to appreciate. It was the king of shooters.
My best gaming memories were with Halo. 16 person LAN parties every weekend for 2 years straight, playing 12 hours per day.
RIP LAN parties. You will be missed
I don’t mind being born in the early 00’s, but holy goddamn do LAN parties make me wish I was old enough to have been there
Dude I'm 32 and have the same group of friends from school. Now and again when we have time we still meet up at one of our houses for a LAN sesh! We all bring our TVs and consoles and stuff. Pizza and gaming. It's awesome.
they still exist...
I remember in 2016 in High School, this kid managed to get halo ce on a thumbdrive and was able to copy it to everyone elses thumbdrives. All the kids had got it copied from each other, and a shit ton of us were playing halo with each other. Full big team battles.
And the best part was how cool our school was, because they allowed us to play it even when they caught wind of it. They allowed us outside of lecture times to play it with each other. Whether in study hall, lunch, or a bit after school until the faculty left.
It was great. All the kids were trash talking each other, and it made me feel so good due to being a very decent halo player, wiping the floor with people. It was an amazing memory of high school. Because despite being a server based matchmaking with each other, we were all next to each other, making it feel like a LAN party.
I miss those days! I hope schools are still that cool with their students allowing them the joy of playing video games with each other.
They still exist
I’ve gotta say Daibeetus getting wrecked by that reverent at 4:41 had me rolling lol
Unreal Tournament really was amazing for its time. It had great music, awesome maps & modes, cool mutators, and fun weapons. To top it all off the bots were pretty badass and fun to play against if you had crappy dial-up and couldn't play against other people.
I love Act man for the scholastic thoroughness he puts into these videos
Sweet DnD Steezus, that Gauntlet: Dark Legacy clip at 4:45 brought back Vietnam flashbacks of my brothers and sisters fighting for the controllers to see who got next game 😆 Good fights, Good times
HE FELL OFF!!!!! THE ACT MAN.... F E L L O F F . . . .
Because he made 1 mistake?
@@iateyourlizard3497 ahhh.... well..... He fell off for now. He might rise up soon.
@@iateyourlizard3497 I know he made one mistake, but it's one mistake I seriously had never knew he would make, which kinda disappoints me a lot
Idk it'll take one good essay from him just to forgive him
@@iateyourlizard3497 he didn't make 1 mistake almost every comment now thinks boomer shooter = arena shooter that's a whole a## L
Love you Act Man keep up the great content ❤
Just when I started going through your old content as need to scratch that itch you drop a banger
This is the first time I’ve ever heard about “Arena Shooters” in my life. But I did play all the OG DOOM games back in the day. Didn’t know it had its own genre 😂
Unreal Tournament 2004 absolutely needs a modern re-release with no dlc.
The halo 3/CoD4/Gears of War era will always be the golden age of gaming for me, the industry was just about making great games
Glad someone is giving GOW their flowers
@@bigez4024 Original trilogy deserves its praise. Now we just got angsty teenaged girl trilogy and Horde 5.0 sucks ass.
@jffry890 yeah I recently finished the campaign for gears 5 that I started in 2019. IT was rough as well havent even bothered touching Horde but I believe you
Same, I had always played games before, but it's during those years that I really got hooked. Cod 4 and Gears, were the games that really drew me in. Then went on to other games, L4D, Fallout. Hell in HS I would play Quake during lunch, we had a cool teacher who would let us into the computer labs, and a bunch of my friends would hop on and have mini tournaments or just ffa. What a blast.
I never heard anything good about those game save for Halo 3. CoD4 was toxic beyond belief and the same goes for GoW. No matter how good those games actually are they will be forever ruined for me due to the fanbase's being so ungodly toxic.
I grew up with Doom and Unreal Tournament 99 and I still keep them on all my computers and actively play them. I love those games, to the point that I even homebrewed my Nintendo 3DS so I could play Quake and Quake 3 when I'm out of my house. Metroid Prime Hunters also counts~
God I miss the days of Quake 3 Arena 😢
Great video
I'll never forget the triumph that was Unreal Tournament, specially 99 and 04. Not only surpassing most games in weapons, maps and modifiers, but also pioneering enemy AI like no other game in the genre. It's truly a testament of what easy to learn hard to master actually means.
Sadly, it was treated poorly and there's no Steam versions for the OG games. Things like that begs the question of whether or not piracy is a valid way to preserve old games.
Epic has stopped selling them on Steam but they're still available to anyone that bought them, I have every single one in my library.
@@satannstuff I hate that, too bad I could not get in hands of Unreal Tournament. B fu for Epic!
@@MS-du7ue By all acounts, if there's no legitimate way for you to play those games, feel no shame in getting those games by other mediums. Epic Games took those experience from many players, even if they legally own them.
Act Man, I love your content. Been watching you for years now and what I really appreciate is that your style of editing, and timing has grown and improved without you losing a single ounce of what made your channel so charming in the first place. Always look forward to Act Man content!