Remember when Apex Legends was shadow dropped? It’s a risky move for such a high-profile game to skip all the pre-release marketing hype entirely, but it paid off, and it’s clear why Respawn went that route—“photoreal PvP hero shooter” was an eyeroll-inducing prospect even back in 2019, so letting the game speak for itself short-circuited any pre-release angst.
We don’t know if the strategy could have been replicated, but would it have been worse than the late Concord’s legendary failure or the reaction to the recently announced Highguard, which was the final big reveal at last year’s Game Awards? Viewers expecting something like 2023’s Monster Hunter Wilds reveal or the one-two Matrix Unreal Engine 5 tech demo and Matrix 4 trailer in 2021 have been taking out their frustrations on Highguard.
The reveal was drowned out by hot takes calling out its “Concord vibes” and it received a ghastly 2,400 dislikes on YouTube compared to around 500 likes when it first dropped. There’s been an assumption to some of the criticism that Highguard wanted this smoke, so to speak—an idea that if the Highguard studio hadn’t splurged on such an exclusive spot, it wouldn’t have earned all this ire.
I’d love another good hero shooter after Overwatch shit the bed, and Rivals doesn’t really do it for me.
It’s been my favorite multiplayer genre since Quake World Team Fortress.
It’s not really a hero shooter, but I think it stands out. The Finals.
You have 3 distinct class options. Light, Medium and Heavy, with base build options for each one.
So as a light you are small fast and then can have one of 3 abilities, dashes, a grappling hook, or invisibility. A medium, more health but larger and slower, can have a healing gun, turret or dematerializer(temporarily remove walls). Or finally a heavy, very big and slow, but even more health, and can choose between a hook, shield, charge(smashes through walls), or a good gun.
You the pick a gun, and 4 utility options. The guns are class locked, so you can have a mp5 on a light, but a heavy gets a M60, all distinct and a pretty well matched for the classes. You utility options are more mixed, you have general options like frag, pyro, gas and goo grenades, but also specific ones like a jump pad for medium, or teleport gates for light, heavy gets barricades.
So while it isn’t a hero shooter it’s got a nice blend of hero shooter elements, and I personally love that it couples that with destructible environments. The main game mode(cashout and tournament), is a 3v3v3v3 capture and hold with 2 active points that can also be doubled up, but the point you hold is movable. You can bury it under rubble, move it into the open, or just fortify the area as best you can.
I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for more heros shooters, if you don’t mind relaxing the hero part of it .
That does sound interesting, kind of like you build your own class. I’ll check it out, thanks!
I play Rivals a lot. Played Paladins for couple of hundred hours too and that wasn’t it (besides stopped working on Linux). The biggest problem of Rivals in my opinion is, its too much for casual and unbalanced, and their focus is to make it “engaging and fun”. Nothing will beat peak Overwatch 1 days, that’s for sure…