THQ’s global communications boss Huw Beynon believes that FPS aren’t what they used to be, and his studio hopes to rectify that with Metro: Last Light. According to Beynon, a lot of the creativity previously seen in FPS shooters has been “stamped out” by Activision’s tried-and-tested Call of Duty formula.
“I think it’s probably very true to say that there’s reaction to what used to be a small subset of the genre of a military shooter,” he said. “It’s ballooned and mushroom-clouded to almost define the genre and kind of stamp out memories of what I remember being great about first person shooters, whether that was Half-Life, System Shock, or GoldenEye—where a FPS didn’t necessarily have to involve military material, it just meant an invitation to a fantastic other world, which to me was always the point of video games in the first place.”
Beynon believes that gamers are losing interest in the idea of being as some kind of superhero soldier, and are eager for a fresh experience – he believes Metro delivers on this front. He did however have some kind words to say about Dishonored: ”I’ve hugely enjoyed [Dishonored] and I’m thrilled that they’ve had success with that—it’s probably the game that’s interested me most this year and am glad to see it get the critical and hopefully commercial success that it deserves.”
The elephant of the room is of course that THQ has just filed for bankruptcy, while Activision has Scrooge McDuck pools of money to swim around in. If gamers are sick of the Call of Duty formula, why do they sell so many copies? To be fair, Black Ops 2 did sell a bit less than Modern Warfare 3, maybe Beynon is on to something.
Source: PC Gamer
Related articles
Ubisoft looks to pick up THQ assets on the cheap
THQ files for bankruptcy, sells assets
Metro: Last Light gameplay is dark, frightening and beautiful
Loading ...
My immediate reaction after reading this article was something along the lines of “Yeah, well, like, that’s just your opinion man. Mega COD sales beg to differ with you”.
But now that I think about it, maybe he has a point? COD, it can probably be argued, is now the success that it is for one because it pioneered the concept of doing battle in a modern context. When Call of Duty 4 came out, we were all sick to death of rehashing World War 2 and everyone was saying “OMG Can we PLEASE have something other than another Bren gun and a bunch of Nazis?” so, perhaps obviously, the fresh approach offered by COD was a success.
Whether or not gamers are actually tired of the ‘modern warfare’ concept, is another discussion entirely, but personally, I don’t think so. I don’t see the kind of comments on the internet about the genre yet, that we were seeing about the WW2 genre before the launch of COD4. And games that have tried to break the mold (Bulletstorm, Borderlands etc etc) have just not been able to reach the level of success that the COD franchise has.
So, maybe he’s wrong and the modern warfare hero soldier franchise is here to stay. Or maybe he’s right but his prophecies are just a year or two ahead of their time. Regardless though, I like the fact that he is willing to try something fresh. That takes more guts than just copy-pasting someone else’s formula.
PS: LOVED the ‘Scrooge McDuck pools of money’ line, absolutely cracked me up!