Competitive FPS: A Dying Genre?

Titanfall was released last week to stellar reviews. I was fortunate enough myself to be able to sit down with the game and play it quite extensively. This is by no means a review of the game but my reflection on the decline of FPS gaming.

My first encounter with an FPS was back in late 2003 when I was first introduced to Counter-Strike. I regard it as the moment I became a gamer. This is over a decade ago and I still play Counter-Strike to this day but I have seen the decline of the competitive side of the game. Games like League of Legends and DotA 2 has propelled the competitive side of gaming in another direction, leaving games such as Counter-Strike behind in the dust. 

I want to touch on the subject of Titanfall for a moment. I feel like Titanfall is an extremely casual game. A game of Titanfall is less about gunplay and strategy and more about who can summon a giant behemoth to the battlefield and stomp marines for points. And it really worries me when developers introduce weapons like the Smart Pistol, an auto-locking pistol with the capability of killing an unsuspecting player in one press of a button. No aiming means no skill.

I don’t believe that games like Titanfall are taking this genre in the right direction. And it’s disappointing that we will probably never see another FPS with the skill requirement games such as Quake and Counter-Strike require.

I enjoy MOBA style games, I just wish there was more room for Counter-Strike.