If you could narrow down the entire shooter genre to a minimal unit, that would be the point-and-shoot mechanic. One that has proven to be so effective that it has probably been the most prolific in video game history. Why do we get so hooked? What is the magic of its simplicity? Let’s talk about it.

Did you know that Mario (Nintendo’s moustached plumber, not me) was called Jumpman in the beginning? That’s because, in the world of video game design, when you want to do something fun you start with a single , simple mechanic , which in this case would be the jump, and you create everything from there. The enemies, the story, the levels, the characters, the publicity. The A button in Super Mario games is incredibly versatile, because although the action is always the same (jumping), there are countless variants that depend on how long you press the button, the momentum that the protagonist has or where he is hanging.

If you are interested in the subject, I recommend a very interesting video by Mark Brown where he delves into verbs like this one. However, my favorite games are not platform games, but shooters . Maybe it’s because we assume that I play on PC and the most basic control ratio possible with a mouse in hand is the equivalent of point and shoot , so it feels very natural to handle firearms. But shooters are much more than that, they are like a spring festival of video game design: learning, managing and even serving the narrative in unique ways.

This is not a 3DGames sponsored article, I’m not here to tell you to play more shooters. But I hope that at least as you read you fall into some detail that you had not thought about before and that makes you say, “It’s true, this works like this.” In this specific case, we have to talk about the addiction factor , learning, overcoming! A vicious circle that has been polished by time and experimentation.

An Infinite Learning Curve: DOOM Eternal

DOOM: Eternal

Shooting and competition go hand in hand. Think of the hundreds or thousands of hours that fans of Call of Duty , CS: GO, Valorant, Rainbow Six and the like spend on their favorite games. Same maps and modes, over and over again. When you wait for your friends to join the game to team up (because we don’t want to play ranked matches with just anyone, do we?) It is time to practice in Kovaak or playing OSU. Discipline, muscle memory , mastering each weapon … you can always improve. But not everything is a matter of aiming faster, and there are games where the cognitive process after the game expands in other directions.

Valorant / Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War

I remember interviewing Hugo Martin , DOOM Eternal’s creative director , when they were preparing to release the DLC. Back then we had seen Slayer fighting two Marauders – the most difficult enemy archetype in the game – simultaneously. In networks, many of the comments joked that this part was going to be impossible, but those responsible were calm about the matter: it was content for experts where the player had space and all the tools he needed to win. Keyword: tools.

DOOM’s enemies are designed like a puzzle. You think about where you are, where the enemy is, what his weak point is, and almost unconsciously, your head develops a plan to dispatch him or reach his location to be able to remove his armor with a Blood Punch. There are no better weapons than others, but useful weapons for different situations, just as you value all the heads of a screwdriver in the same way.

You don’t need heart-stopping precision at any point in DOOM, but there is an incredibly well-defined learning curve . Newbies learn the most basic mechanics: shooting while walking and jumping, combining the two types of grenade, understanding the impulse of the Super Shotgun’s hook, that sort of thing. Intermediate players learn to switch weapons : in DOOM, it’s rare to go around shooting demons, when you can rather go in a straight line annihilating everything that comes your way. The key is understanding how enemies behave and using the right weapon at the right time. Lastly, the more experienced ones maximize the outgoing damage by switching weapons before the next shot is available: ” quick switching“they call it.

You take advantage of the time that separates the launch of a missile and another to switch to crossbow, shoot, and then instead of waiting for the next shot you equip the shotgun and shoot. And so on. Automatic weapons work as well, though you have to hold a short burst before you can quickly equip the next one. It’s a complicated hierarchy, but once mastered, it allows the player to defeat – no, rather humiliate – any Marauder in the blink of an eye. That brings us to the next point, which is the power fantasy . Before that, let’s see a video of the well-known player Oyff about a boss of the fantastic ULTRAKILL.

Unlimited Power Fantasy: Battlefield

I’m sure by watching the video above, you can appreciate how many techniques Oyff performed every few seconds while fighting Flesh Prison: swipes, dashes, targeting key targets, loading and swapping weapons … all of that, coupled with the music. , to the effects of blood splatters, to the cruel ending that awaits Minos Prime, to the title of the video, to the title of the game, to the counterattacks of the impacts (including his own shots) conveys the feeling of being more skilled , more powerful than anyone. A real killing machine. It is a cascade of testosterone. It’s not just about completing something difficult, but about making you feel like a true hero by accomplishing it. A very powerful sensation that one gets used to , and that the designer must dose.

Moments like this can only happen once every so often, they need to be kept fresh and unique. I think the Battlefield series from EA and DICE understands this very well – Call of Duty too, with the casualty streaks – because it voluntarily has the Levolution destruction system , which rewards us with spectacular destruction of buildings like Shanghai in Battlefield. 4 or war vehicles like the Zeppelin from Battlefield 1 . Technically, we could apply that to any game that isn’t a shooter, but it does serve to illustrate that power fantasy we’re talking about. In playing a character that makes you feel good. In this case we are a soldier, but think about the Batman games. Have you ever stopped to think how simple the combos are in those games?

The most basic input possible with a mouse in hand is the equivalent of point and shootIn any other melee action game, quickly pressing the square or X four times in a row unleashes a light combo that is easily interrupted by the most skilled foes, but in Batman they are viable, powerful and spectacular. Those responsible admit that this is so on an intentional basis: they want you to feel like a true superhero capable of doing beastly things with little effort. That’s a direct expression of the power fantasy, and Levolution is too. What perhaps the Swedish studio did not take into account when making their games is that users were also going to take all the licenses to feel powerful doing crazy things. Killing a helicopter pilot from the ground and with a sniper rifle feels absolutely great, it’s a huge payoff for the effort it takes to learn how to drop the bullet , take the time to aim, and take the risk of pulling the trigger.

Batman: Arkham Knight

That fantasy is far superior to the one behind a few scripts. It is just my opinion, but it is not unfounded: if you have been playing video games for a few years, surely you are well acquainted with the culture of the gamewhat’s on the internet. How many montages have not been seen of people giving a “360º no-scope”? You don’t need to do that to kill in CoD, you do it because it’s pretty and it feels great. It’s a flourish. And there are people who spend a lot of time and effort glorifying them with professional-grade video editing. Nothing you don’t already know too well, I guess. But it is that demonstration of mastery, that desire to show off and, ultimately, that passion that comes from playing a game not because of its history or its artistic section, but because it is fun and encourages you to improve. There are also very good edits in fighting games or MOBA, of course, because the logic is the same behind all of them; but right now we are concerned with shooters.

Point and shoot further

Destiny 2

I don’t think shooters have to “compete” against anything. We are players, after all, we like to have fun playing. What we have at hand is only one way to achieve that goal. In any case, I do think there is something very special about point and shoot. Something that other genres do not have and that extends to all aspects of the game, not just what corresponds to skill. Think, for example, of user interfaces , the ability to hold and drag items from one table to another, like when you organize materials in Minecraft inventory . Destiny 2 , which is my favorite game, has also influenced modern character screens a lot:

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla / Everspace

The latest Assassin’s Creed games – another game that has traditionally been designed with remote control in mind – and the newer space looter Everspace 2 have also embraced that more agile mouse and keyboard cursor menu . Personally, it’s also one of the reasons why the PC version of Monster Hunter: WorldIt left me a bit cold: I thought that the interface could be a bit more intuitive if it allowed me to drag objects from the box to the inventory or enable a permanent bar of consumables for the number keys (it has something similar already, although it is not so successful). But it’s just a matter of preference, I guess. Another thing that I also like about shooters is the flexibility they have to adapt to different genres and formats. More than anyone, I think. Think medieval battle games . Mordhau , Chivalry 2, you already know. Although they are close combat games, the control of swords and maces is also reduced to aiming and shooting, although logically the player’s mind substitutes the recoil, the deflection and the number of bullets for the time it takes to give a gash or the distance it covers. The role has also shaken the hand of shooting since time immemorial, although the result is more open. Let’s see Halo – there, you know that shooting a Jackal to the head with a sniper rifle is a kill 100% of the time. Would it be fun to implement stats in such a way that a possible level difference would make the enemy survive the shot? Personally, I think not; perhaps the best direction is to leave mathematics tospecific mechanics such as VATS from Fallout .

It’s not just about completing something difficult, but about making you feel like a true hero by accomplishing it.And what about narrative and puzzle games ? Think of Portal and how the portal gun often asks us to fire at a certain point in the middle of a jump, or how in Superliminal we can imagine the size and shape of objects as we aim up and down. Frankly, I think there is no more versatile, adaptable and addictive form of interaction than point and shoot. And I hope it continues to give us many unexpected ways to have fun: be it by honing our skills, or with new ways of thinking.