Is The First-Person Shooter Genre Overrated?

First-person shooter (FPS) games are among the most popular kinds of games then, now, and perhaps in the future too. Many people from the older generation grew up loving FPS games. Some even credit their introduction to the whole gaming space thanks to titles such as Doom, Goldeneye 64, and Duke Nukem. 

Today, the genre is still among the most popular, thanks to the Call of Duty and Battlefield franchises. Again, there exists a generation that grew up loving such games. And you can bet the next ones are susceptible to doing just the same.

The FPS genre truly feels generational, mainly thanks to how easy it is to pick up. Unlike RPGs where you have to juggle dozens of systems at once, FPS keeps everything straightforward. Like platformers, FPS games almost always have only one goal. If the former is to jump from one platform to another, the latter simply expects you to shoot the bad guys. Point your gun at the enemy in front of you and riddle them with bullets. That is it for most FPS games.

That said, if there is a game genre that has earned the ire of gamers worldwide more than anything else, it is undoubtedly FPS. Nowadays, gamers see the FPS genre as the ‘genre of kids.’ But why is it that way? What happened to the genre to earn this much hatred from its fans? Is the first-person shooter genre truly overrated? Read on as we give you our take on that.

Why Gamers Hate First-Person Shooters 

As established above, the FPS genre is extremely easy to pick up. Anyone, and even their grandmothers, can play FPS games without much problem. While that may be a good thing, game developers took the genre’s ‘easy-to-play’ nature and began running away with it. Several studios saw green and started flooding the market with it. 

There existed a time when it felt like every game release was an FPS. Worse yet, all of them resembled each other. It truly felt like one FPS game was just a different skin from the other. There would indeed be excellent releases, but they are few and far in between. No matter how much you enjoy playing such, believe us, that is pretty infuriating.

While older gamers were already on their final straw, the new kids on the block loved this constant flow of FPS games. The newer generation of gamers kept buying these games no matter how monotonous they now felt. Because of this, developers grew lazier. 

Take, for example, the state of COD games in the 2010s. Although a new sequel comes almost every year, they genuinely look like re-skins of the previous one. FPS developers were pretty much doing the bare minimum on those days. After all, why go the extra mile, if only a few kilometers can already rake you millions, right? 

The larger the demand for FPS grew because of ‘gamer kids,’ the lazier developers became. Unfortunately, this sad cycle persisted throughout most of the decade. And that summarizes why gamers hate FPS so much today.

Is the First-Person Shooter Genre Truly Overrated?

The FPS genre is indeed the most-hated genre right now, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any good FPS games out there. You only have to look at the Bioshock series, the newer DOOM games, and Halo to prove just that. Even the aforementioned COD series has since regained the trust of many thanks to their excellent latest releases. 

With that said, to say that the genre is overrated feels wrong. Many genre titles deserve the high praise they are getting just as much as any other genre out there. Gamers grew tired of FPS games, yes, but the genre itself isn’t overrated. The better part of the last decade was just too damaging for the first-person shooter genre. Give gamers a couple more years and perhaps they’d grow to appreciate such games again.

Do you agree with this take? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.