TECH

The sudden increase and rapid decline of tactical FPS

First-person shooter is one of the genres most associated with the medium, both among those who use it regularly and those who are fasting from it. It is an iconic genre, which is doing very well, because over the years it has managed to keep up with the evolution of the medium quite easily, unlike other equally classic ones, such as the purest version of the platform. Of course, there was a period, around 2010, when the single player component seemed to have become a useless embellishment, which would soon have been abandoned or, at most, would have been the stuff of a few enthusiasts; but in the years immediately following productions like the first Metro, Wolfenstein: The New Order, Titanfall 2, DOOM and others would have proved that no, it would not have happened.

But in the ten-year history of the genre, filled with hits that carved its imagination and iconography, there is an excellent victim. A fallen in action, you could say, since we are talking about the tactical FPS subgenre, inevitably inserted in the police/military context. Between the end of the 90s and the beginning of the 2000s it was the most popular and it is really strange to think that today, with the exception of the promising Ready or Not from VOID Interactive (but still in early access), it has practically disappeared. It is undeniable that the taste of FPS enthusiasts has changed, but there really is no room, in a market that has grown exponentially in twenty years, even if only for a niche dedicated to this very peculiar interpretation of the genre, for some verses antithetical to its canons and why so fascinating? Apparently not, for now.

Therefore, one cannot look back with a bit of nostalgia on that period when FPS was not necessarily synonymous only with deaths to be surrounded, hordes of enemies to be killed or movements far beyond human limits. There was that too, mind you, and that was all right; but the tactical FPS undoubtedly had something more. Unlike all its peers, it was grounded in reality; in the settings, in the story (the first Ghost Recon was indeed prophetic, as it narrated events resulting from the invasion of Ukraine – but also of Belarus and Kazakhstan – by Russia), in weapons and, above all, in the nature of the fiery confrontations. Being shot meant, in the vast majority of cases, dying, so every action had to be carefully planned and a firearms approach was simply not feasible.

At first it was Rainbow Six. While Tom Clancy was writing the novel, Red Storm Entertainment was developing the video game: both achieved resounding success, but if the first was just one of many by the American writer (who had already signed books such as The Great Escape from Red October and Danger Imminent, from which the films The Hunt for Red October and Clear Signal were based), the second actually achieved a turning point for the FPS, becoming a milestone.

Rainbow Six totally changed the paradigms, imposing a methodical and reasoned approach to a genre based on the exact opposite, that is, the intensity and speed of the action. It worked, yes. The fact of being able to die practically in a pittance, even for the slightest distraction, for not having covered a corner well when entering a room, or for having kept your finger on the trigger for too long, nullifying the accuracy of the weapon, characterized each unique mission. with crazy tension, from the first to the last second.

Not only that: the active phase was reached from a preparation phase, in which it was possible to plan practically all the actions of the teams in the field: the course, the use of grenades and other tactical devices, the waiting points for signals specific. Practically a boon for the tactician, but also a significant problem for those a little less patient, especially when forced to change plans mid-action, it causes the loss of your personnel.

And yet, even in the face of a stubbornly rigid game platform in all components, Rainbow Six was a monumental success, paving the way for similar titles and inaugurating a historic series, whose peak is certainly represented by the third chapter, Raven Shield. Appreciable, but nothing more, the two Vegas, while that of Siege is quite recent history and very different from that of the glorious past. Regarding extraction, it is better to spread a regretful veil.

Like Rainbow Six, Delta Force, the first installment in the Novalogic series, dates back to 1998. Lacking the tactical complexity of Red Storm Entertainment's game, however, it had in its favor the fact that it set the action in open spaces rather than predominantly congener closed. Delta Force was certainly more permissive, also thanks to a decidedly poor artificial intelligence of the enemies, but it wasn't easy for that and, in any case, it required a methodical approach: shoot from prone, find cover, clear areas, use the appropriate weapons to the mission.

In Delta Force one can subtly perceive an issue that will also assume embarrassing contours for the series and that is probably one of the reasons why the tactical shooter does not exist today: morale. If the stories conceived by Tom Clancy for Rainbow Six had a complexity that at least pretended to go beyond the good soldiers/bad terrorists dichotomy, Novalogic's games didn't even try. Few problems in the case of the first two, almost aseptic from the narrative point of view; the third, on the other hand, raised the banner of militarism for the good guys, but it was with its expansion that things took a problematic turn.

In 2002, a few months after the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, with the objective of eradicating the Taliban and destroying the terrorist cells commanded by Osama Bin Laden, Delta Force: Task Force Dagger proposed a campaign set in the Asian country, placing the player control of international coalition units effectively engaged on the ground. While a real war was being waged, Novalogic had already created its video game version complete with a final mission set in the caves of Tora Bora, where the call was believed to be hiding terror check. Think of doing something like that today, the world would fall; twenty years ago it was possible.

And quite similar is what the development team did with the next chapter in the series, Black Hawk Down, inspired by real events, namely the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993, already told by Ridley Scott's 2001 film of the same name. A good game, the best in the series, with attention to both gameplay and technique and characterized by a heavy and tragic atmosphere: even today it is able to convey the overwhelming feeling of being an infantryman in a hostile environment. However, even that final mission to kill warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid is enough, avenging the comrades who died in the camp, totally alternative to reality (Aidid was shot in a firefight with a rival faction and died a week later from his wounds reported) to give a representation of the value identity of the game. The Delta Force series would then continue with the considerable expansion of Team Saber, and with the two Xtremes, now out of time, before disappearing with the closure of their development team.

It was Red Storm Entertainment that combined the open environments of Delta Force with the Rainbow Six gameplay system, which shifted from Team Rainbow's missions to those of the Ghosts, Green Berets engaged in a war unleashed by Russian ultranationalists. To this day, Ghost Recon (2001) is probably the best tactical FPS of all time, able to combine still-grim gameplay with the flexibility brought by big battlefields. It takes a moment to plot the path that teams not directly controlled by the player should take, because there's no need to struggle with the complexities of similar Rainbow Six stages; the firefights are fast, fierce, they explode and resolve themselves in a few seconds, and getting out of them without damage with tactics, even before taking aim, is a source of great satisfaction.

Too bad Ghost Recon as a series was lost almost immediately: three expansions to the first game (the first two are appreciable, minus the third), two decent sequels (Advanced Warfighters) but already quite distant and different from the concept of the first chapter. In the recent past, between Wildlands and Breakpoint, it's best to hold off. But that both Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon are in the hands of Ubisoft and that so far they are not distant relatives of their first chapters, something says about the use of their IPs by the publisher.

The last major production that marked the golden age of the tactical FPS was SWAT 3, in 1999, and quite in-depth in content by two updates, in 2000 and 2001. The Sierra Northwest game took melee combat to a very high level. higher than Rainbow Six.: less rigid, extremely more fluid and fast, with advanced tempo physics and a command system capable of interpreting different situations. Deploying the two different units of the player-led strike team was a snap, for highly effective strikes; and then handcuff the suspects, call the paramedics, order the use of tactical gear, all with a few keystrokes. And that's not all: the indiscriminate use of force was not allowed, it was necessary to respect procedures, such as, for example, ordering the suspect to throw away the weapon before resorting to lethal force. The sequel, from 2005, was built on the same foundations, another excellent game, but already among the last of its kind.

In nearly five years, the tactical FPS has exhausted its momentum. Of Operation Flashpoint we must remember the good first chapter (2001), but when the series passed into the hands of Codemasters it actually lost much of its appeal; Bohemia Interactive, behind the original, continued with ARMA, perhaps the only niche left for fans of the genre, but stopped in 2013; of others, including SOCOM, Hidden & Dangerous, Brother in Arms and the like, all trace has been lost.

The reason? As mentioned, the change in the tastes of the players, already projected to the frenzy that today distinguishes the multiplayer FPS (just think of the hero shooters, or the Call of Duty time to kill), and therefore the consequent difficulty on the part of the developers and editors in proposing something similar to the tactical FPS and at the same time capable of meeting the tastes of the general public. Who, today, would risk investing in a difficult, rigid genre, capable of knocking down even the most patient player? However, that was precisely the charm of cotton-gun missions, of long-thought-out tactics and necessary improvisations, of a game where shooting wasn't everything.

Author: Fabio Canonico