it is its own thing, separate from the other World War Two games.”
BOOMER SHOOTERS It’s perhaps that drive to ‘be its own thing’ that has inspired the recent resurrection of the ‘boomer shooter’ - titles that harken back to the classic shooters of the 90s, many of which were pioneered by Romero himself. The revived genre has not only seen the return of both the Wolfenstein and Doom franchises, but has even inspired a host of indie games looking to replicate that 90’s shooter feel. It’s perhaps not a huge surprise - Not only is the 30
year nostalgia cycle likely playing a part, but games like Wolfenstein 3D and Doom fundamentally defined what shooter games could be for a whole generation of players. And while the genre has moved in new directions over the years, you can hardly blame players for wanting a return to basics. Especially when you consider that this resurrection
has taken place during an interesting time for shooters. While in many ways the genre has been pushed to new heights with the advent of battle royale titles, this rise has also been matched with a growing linearity - at least in terms of single player campaigns. “To me, the resurrection of these retro shooters feels
like people want to get back to that 90 aesthetic. The way you play those games is not the way that you play
66 | MCV/DEVELOP June2022
today’s shooters. Call of Duty introduced this objective- based, pushing through a level, all very scripted… That’s taking away from the freedom people have to just try and survive in a level. Go ahead! See if you can get past this point, see if you can survive - and then open worlds really magnify what you can do in that area. “I kind of go more towards the open world game,
because I like to explore and that aspect of shooters was kind of getting removed when you have games like Call Duty and Battlefield. Games that have these giant teams that cost a lot of money, and the less QA you have to do the cheaper it is to make the game, so you start walling people off and it starts to feel linear. And that linearising of shooters, is one of the reasons why people want to get back to the freedom that they used to have.” Beyond their linearity, another issue many people
have with modern shooters is how they’ve largely abandoned old staples of the genre, in favour of focusing on shooting galleries. This, combined with the trend over the last decade or so of deproritising single player experiences, has caused the genre to often feel somewhat homogeneous, at least to a casual observer. “There used to be fun puzzles to solve!” says Romero.
“They’re not really puzzles now, they’re just about overcoming an arena of characters, and then pushing on to the next arena. “You know, some people love that. Some people love the movie aspect of Call of Duty and Battlefield - plus the
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