So uh... WHO IS GONNA GET THAT GUY!!!

Well hello again to all of our faithful readers! I hope that both of you have had a great holiday. There was recently a posting about the future of FPS’s by another member of our fine clan, and even though that was cool I see a slightly different future. The future that I see in first person shooters is one that involves truly dynamic levels that can be significantly altered by either the player, or at a set time of each multiplayer map. Black Ops gave us a little taste of this I think, several levels have either switches or scripted events that slightly change the level during game play.

I envision these changes to be more dynamic, hopefully sooner rather than later. In my opinion first person shooters are reaching their peak. It is getting to the point where little seems to change from game to game with the exception of a few new looking guns and some maps that basically boil down to being one of three sizes(small, medium or large), how many passage ways are available to get around the map, and the setting. I think that this is going to have to be mixed up a bit to keep players involved with the game.

For example, imagine a map on a submarine or underwater station like certain Bioshock levels, or even that one silly level in Black Ops. The match begins like any other, but through either a scripted event or a player action the map starts to flood. As time continues the water continues to rise, possibly flooding entire areas of the map and forcing players to adjust from a large map to a small one. Each player would be forced to adapt, to move from camping spots and adjust the way that he/she plays each map depending on how the map plays out. I prefer the player controlling whether or not this happens. Maybe you shoot windows out which speed up the flooding or maybe you can close certain rooms off to slow it down.

I think that we are eventually going to get tired of shooting other player and perhaps injecting a second “enemy” will reinvigorate a tired system, and perhaps force groups to even work as a team(gasp!) Obviously this won’t appeal to everyone, but I think that this would make each map much more interesting than trying to win in 10 min, now you will have to try to win with the world changing around you. Perhaps there could be a separate mode that incorporates these changes while leaving the standard modes alone.

These changes could completely change how certain modes would be played. Search and Destroy with changing levels would be incredibly intense and forcing players to move from camping spots could make every objective mode more fun. For example, in a mode like Search maybe one player could/should stay behind to close a valve to stop the water from rising further(and thus drown), or the whole team might not win. I think it would make for an interesting challenge.

Below ill toss a few more ideas out there with current maps, let me know what you think and feel free to come up with your own.

Jungle: maybe it could be slowly burning, or a giant boulder could roll down the ravine at a certain point Indiana Jones style. Or maybe a stampede rolls through at a certain time. I can only imagine having to run from an elephant while getting shot at.

Array: Avalanche. Boo Yah

Launch: The rocket ship fails to take off (depending on player actions) and crashes/blows up taking out half the map. Or maybe some aliens land and lay waste to all.

Hanoi: Zombie prisoners rise from the dead.

Or maybe even in the new hockey rink level half way through the game the Zamboni rolls out and hilarity ensues.