Echoing sentiments I’ve shared for what feels like frigging forever, DICE has finally admitted that the modern combat manshoot setting that just about all first person shooters currently ascribe to is getting a bit stale. Getting?
"I think we’re going to start seeing people moving away from the modern setting, because every now and again settings or themes start to get stale and then everyone jumps over," DICE general manager Karl Magnus Troedsson told Edge.
Expect modern day FPS to dwindle down. Instead, you‘ll be manshooting everything in a near future setting soon.
"Y’know, at some point dinosaurs are the hottest thing and everyone is making games with dinosaurs, but there are trends. It used to be WWII, and recently it’s been the modern era and people are now moving towards near future."
That said, just switching settings isn’t going to keep the genre alive.
"But it’s a bit cheap to just say, ‘Okay, we’re going to switch and go back in time or into the future and that will be innovation’. It will definitely drive the franchise forward for whatever game, but it’s not true innovation, it’s more a thematic change that has a perceived value to the gamers out there. But as a developer you can only make so many games in one particular era, and then you personally start to get a bit bored with it.
"I think it’s our responsibility as game developers to always push ourselves when it comes to the experience of games," he said.
Are you bored with that modern combat setting? I sure as hell am; The reveal trailer for the new Medal of Honour, for example, nearly put me in to a damned coma.
FPS, popular as they are, sure as hell aren’t going away any time soon. What do you think they need to keep ‘em fresh?
Last Updated: July 6, 2012
