FPS highlights of 2019

[Chriz86]

Another slow year for "AAA" FPS (imo). At least Call of Duty improved this year, but Wolfenstein New Blood wasn't too thrilling. Having said that, the "genre" of retro FPS had another great year with Ion Fury and Amid Evil. WRATH: Aeon of Ruin was also released in Early Access and Blood got a modernized release too.
What were your highlights?

 

[erdelf]

Well we got Halo: Reach remastered and of course Destiny 2's weapon systems got expanded.

 

[Maniac]

Rage 2 was a guilty pleasure, im annoyed i bought it (even on sale) because its on Gamepass now, but the game was surprisingly addicting. Its not a great game, its not bad either, its just a solid fun dumb shooter.

New Blood was very disappointing to me; i despised the shoehorned leveled enemies (which also was put into breakpoint and i avoided in the end) and also Far Cry New Dawn (which was ok in my book)

 

[PreetiMod]

testing

 

[Mknott]

I think we saw a bit of a slowdown in Battle Royale games over 2019 and a shift toward trying to evolve the genre. Which is for the best. I really enjoyed Apex to begin with, then trailed off.

I've gone back to PUBG because my friends got that itch a few weeks ago. It's still just a half hour action movie every game, we've just lost all of our skills and are basically the bad guys at the end of Commando.

We exist to get blown up by some incredible twitch shooter prodigy.

This thread reminds me I have a lot of catching up to do! Going to be watching for any recommendations I missed.

 

[Chriz86]

Rage 2 was a guilty pleasure, im annoyed i bought it (even on sale) because its on Gamepass now, but the game was surprisingly addicting. Its not a great game, its not bad either, its just a solid fun dumb shooter.

New Blood was very disappointing to me; i despised the shoehorned leveled enemies (which also was put into breakpoint and i avoided in the end) and also Far Cry New Dawn (which was ok in my book)

Right, already forgot about Rage 2. Great shooting in a mediocre open world. Skipped New Dawn after not liking 5 (which I bought in a sale this year).

 

[Buttface Jones]

I can't speak to the volume of "AAA" shooters this year but good retro shooters have never been more common or more popular. Dusk and Amid Evil are my favorites and it seems like a new one is released or announced every other week lately.

 

[PCG Phil]

Fingers crossed for next year with Doom Eternal. But yeah, I'd say Dusk was easily my favourite shooter of the year. Although I'm quite enjoying the new CoD, too? First one I've played since Modern Warfare 2, so it's possible I'm just finding that style of FPS more of a novelty than most.

 

[Chriz86]

Fingers crossed for next year with Doom Eternal. But yeah, I'd say Dusk was easily my favourite shooter of the year. Although I'm quite enjoying the new CoD, too? First one I've played since Modern Warfare 2, so it's possible I'm just finding that style of FPS more of a novelty than most.

Still my most anticipated FPS (other than Witchfire, but that seems way off).

 

[PCG Tyler]

I've got to find a copy of this game "test." Seems very popular.

 

[SWard]

I've got to find a copy of this game "test." Seems very popular.

 

[PCG AndyC]

Dusk and Amid Evil were highlights (although being that guy, Dusk came out in 2018), and Wrath looks super-legit. I should probably get around to trying Maximum Action, too. Great year for retro-shooters.

On the big-budget side, I'm all about the Metro Exodus. Just started playing recently, still in the Volga, but daaaaaaaaaaamn, this is my kind of shooter. Me, the boys, some 180-proof swill, the shittiest guns in Russia, and a big, bad, thoroughly messed-up world to save. Heavenly.

It's not quite big-budget, but Wolfenstein Youngblood was tons of fun too and I'll fight anyone who says otherwise.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Loved the new Wolfenstien games but haven't gotten to Youngblood yet.

I'm really hyped for DOOM Eternal. I rarely play through games twice, but DOOM I did, what a thrill.

 

[Julez]

I'm with @Maniac on the RAGE 2 shout. It's the only true FPS I played in 2019, and it was a lot better than I expected. Although I guess going in with basement expectations and playing it on GamePass influences how I feel about it. I felt it was a more fun, whacky, open world DOOM.

 

[PCG AndyC]

Loved the new Wolfenstien games but haven't gotten to Youngblood yet.

It's quite a bit different. More open-ended, areas are replayable, not as narrative-focused - it's something you can jump into for five or ten minutes of ****-blasting before work, although it works quite well as a full-time shooter too. And even though it doesn't lean into the characters the way TNO/TNC do, the Blazkowicz girls are great - giggly, silly, sometimes not very bright, and tons of fun.

 

[Grimshaw]

I felt it was overall a decent year for the genre, particularly in the AA and midrange space. (Including developers making lower budget spinoffs/sequels.)

Ion Fury was excellent. The first commercial BUILD engine game since Duke Nukem: Zero Hour & WWII GI back in 1999, and they nailed it, IMO. The level design is fantastic, the core gamefeel is tight, the secrets are devious, and the game's presentation is detailed, but very clean and readable.
Terminator: Resistance was the spiritual successor to Terminator: Future Shock (among other things), and a real dark horse, being announced two months before release with basically zero marketing budget. Love the game to bits, but it definitely needs a difficulty adjustment. There's supposedly one coming this month.
Sniper Ghost Warrior: Contracts picked up the pieces of SGW3 and used them to weave a very good hybrid of Project IGI and Hitman. My only real complaint is that the game shipped with bugs from SGW3 that they still haven't fixed. We're talking "change a single line"-tier stuff here.
Far Cry New Dawn was a solid standalone expansion sequel to Far Cry 5. I think that overall Far Cry 5 is the better game, but New Dawn brings back the powers from Far Cry: Instincts, and introduces Expeditions, which are great. I'm not a huuuuge fan of the direction they took the story, that said. I think that the game ended up overexplaining and subtly retconning stuff from Far Cry 5 that was better left ambiguous. IMO, it's telling that New Dawn subtly contradicts interpretations of the story endorsed by the game's lead writer.
Wolfenstein: Youngblood had a pretty rough launch. (You couldn't even pause in singleplayer.) But the game got patched into something pretty decent. I think the big problem with Youngblood is that it's a 6 hour long spinoff game padded out to 12+ hours. It seems to me that game publishers are afraid of being perceived as short.

 

[Temo]

The new CoD is fantastic. Crossplay is a real breath of fresh air, and the campaign has some amazing set pieces and consistently high production values.

After abandoning BFV because of the latest DICE PR fiasco, it's weirdly comforting to feel how much less toxic IW is toward their community.

I guess technically it happened in 2020, but donating all the profits from the Australia pack was a real nice move too.

 

[Nighthood]

I feel it's been a very lacklustre year for FPS. The only two I can remember playing are Metro Exodus and Rage 2. I dropped Rage 2 after a few hours of not enjoying it at all, and though I completed Metro Exodus I thought the whole thing was pretty uninspired overall. The writing felt poor overall (if a character EVER coughs in a videogame you know exactly what's going to happen), and I thought that trying to rip off Mad Max ended up taking away Metro's USP.

Mostly I'm just disappointed by how few well-written FPS games seem to come out these days. I'm sure Ion Fury and Amid Evil were fine, but I prefer when my FPS has a story hook to it and they seem to be "blast all the monsters then move on to the next level". I guess stories don't sell these days.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Forgot to mention I played Prey in early 2019 (I think.... its all blurred together), IMO that was a great game, anyone else play that?

 

[blinksy]

It was interesting to see games like Hunt: Showdown and Escape from Tarkov get more popular in 2019. I image we'll see more games in that kind of small BR format in the future

 

[PCG Jody]

Forgot to mention I played Prey in early 2019 (I think.... its all blurred together), IMO that was a great game, anyone else play that?

Yep! It's one of my favorite games, definitely the highlight of that too-brief immersive sim revival we had.

 

[Martin]

Prey was a great game but one of the toughest FPS/RPG shooters I've ever played.

On more than one occasion I felt the game punished you too much for not having the right equipment when pushed into conflict with enemies.

I made extensive use of 'fast save' in that game, more so than any other in a LONG time.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Prey was a great game but one of the toughest FPS/RPG shooters I've ever played.

On more than one occasion I felt the game punished you too much for not having the right equipment when pushed into conflict with enemies.

I made extensive use of 'fast save' in that game, more so than any other in a LONG time.

That was part of the terror/entertainment of the game. More than once I needed to just make a run for it because I had no chance of beating the enemies that were between where I was and where I was going. So I'd either need to find another way around or just figure out how to sneak through.

But yeah, I died, a LOT.

 

[StingingVelvet]

Rage 2 was a guilty pleasure, im annoyed i bought it (even on sale) because its on Gamepass now, but the game was surprisingly addicting. Its not a great game, its not bad either, its just a solid fun dumb shooter.

I really enjoyed Rage 2 and am not afraid to say it! The combat was so, so good it made up for all the other shortcomings. The missions were boring and the story was barely there, but it's not an RPG really so I can forgive that as long as the combat is fun and intense, and it was.

I also loved Amid Evil, which was a great Quake throwback. I enjoyed it more than Dusk or Ion Fury, personally.