The Future Of Shooters

This article has definitely gotten me thinking about what a First Person Shooter (or Third Person Shooter, for that matter) might be like, when played with a motion-sensing console instead of a controller-based one. Both of my current gaming machines (PS/3 and XBox 360) have announced that just such a revolution is coming, although it's not immediately clear whether that means that the wireless controller will necessarily go away in the process. In other words, certain types of games might still make use of the controllers while others would not require them at all. Let's assume for the sake of this blog post, however, that shooters are eventually going to be played without a handheld controller, using only the capabilities of a motion sensing device. Here's the flashy 3-minute ad that Microsoft made for its announcement of Project Natal at this year's E3 conference, by way of introduction:



So... how would a shooter work in that world? (And note that none of the examples shown in the video were actual shooters... the closest was the monster who was stomping and swatting various objects.)

The first-blush answer seems to be that you'd be standing (rather than sitting or reclining) and holding your imaginary gun in your hand (or hands, in the case of some of the larger artillery). The reason I say that is that so much of a typical shooter involves movement of your virtual body (to get places, to jump or dodge, to grab cover, to look left, right, up or down, as well as to aim) that it's initially difficult to imagine it being done, controller-free, in any way other than by mapping your real body's movements. Which brings up the first huge paradigm-shift: playing a video game shooter in the future may become quite physically draining! Right now, it can be hard on the hands, arms and shoulders (from holding the controller in front of you) and mentally exhausting (from dealing with tense situation after tense situation, sometimes going for minutes without blinking) but that's about it. Imagine, instead, having to stand for hours, simulating running, jumping and spinning about. Would most people really be able to do multi-hour marathon sessions - as many of us do now - under those conditions? I don't think so, and I have an alternative approach in mind... keep reading.

As for the actual dynamics of playing, I'm sure it'll take some getting used to and probably feel a little silly at first. After all, it's not exactly every North American child's dream to grow up to be a mime, and yet to some degree, that's exactly what's required in that Microsoft video. On the other hand, there's probably something very naturalistic, once you get past the embarrassment factor, of acting out the role on the screen. Compare that to the transition from mouse-and-keyboard (for PC gaming) to current console controllers, and the brain re-wiring required for role-playing the game is almost immeasurably smaller. I have friends who still won't play shooters on their 360 or PS/3 because they find the use of thumbsticks for movement and looking around to be too foreign compared to their familiar mouse/keyboard combination, indicating just how large of a shift they perceive it to be.

However, I'm still not sold on the idea of having to pantomime actions like running, jumping and crouching, as it just seems like I'd be winded after about 2 minutes of it. So perhaps some form of shorthand will be used, where all you really have to do is map a slight movement of some sort as indicating each of the larger ones. For example, suppose you could play the game seated instead of standing, and that you mapped lifting your left foot's toes off the floor as indicating running, while lifting your right foot translated to a jump (and the higher your toes came up, the higher the jump, within the character's physical parameters). That would solve the problem of standing, as well as the physical exertion (some might say, physical exercise!) angle. Seated, your sight-line could still be matched by the character on-screen, which is perhaps one of the biggest advantages to this approach over the conventional controller (I can never massage that thumbstick perfectly enough to get my weapon's sight on the other player's head quite fast enough in online play, for example). Even that may take some getting used to, of course, as even just turning your head or moving your eyes slightly and then having the screen shift in response might easily be disorientating, at least at first.

And then there's the use of weapons. As with the standing/running/jumping issue, I'm not a big fan of the idea of having to hold my hand or arm a certain way to mimic the cradling of a pistol, machine gun or rocket launcher. I already feel the strain of keeping my hands wrapped around a small wireless controller for hours at a time, and so I'd love to get away from that (as I'm not getting any younger!). What I think would work better would be to, once again, have a gesture or action that you've established for each of the following gameplay activities:

• primary fire on the weapon
• secondary fire on the weapon (if applicable)
• reloading of the weapon
• changing the weapon to another one in your arsenal
• meleeing your opponent with the weapon
• picking up a weapon/ammo that's lying on the ground

Again, these could be simple movements on your part, such as jabbing forward with a pointed finger, making a fist with one hand or the other, or slapping your hand on your knee. The idea would be that it should be something easy to do but also distinguishable from any other gesture that you might make. I would dearly love to see this particular evolution of the game, because I'm always suffering now from bad mappings on controllers that have me meleeing or zooming unintentionally while I try to shoot someone, simply because I pressed down too hard on the movement thumbstick in the process. For me, being able to set my own commands (in the form of physical movements) would allow me to get away from that, and play at whatever my actual skill level is, without being penalized for having hands that are almost fifty years old.

So will shooters work that way, or will they require a lot of standing and miming of running? There isn't a whole lot of consensus yet, as far as I can tell... but I'm hopeful that, even if the game makers get it wrong initially, it'll evolve into something better and better as time goes on. And really, this is all just another big step on the path to true Virtual Reality, which is pretty exciting all on its own. Just imagine where the porn industry will take these developments!

[Update Aug 26/09: On the PS/3 side, at least, it sounds like a wand will be required (and two wands will be even better). Now I have to think about what that means to my ruminations above!]