I was trying to think of which games created certain mechanics that became popular and copied by future games in the industry.
The most famous one that comes to my mind is Assassin’s Creed, with the tower climbing for map information.
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Slay the Spire spawned a ton of deck builder roguelites.
Without which we wouldn’t have the only true deck builder roguelite, Rogue Light Deck Builder.
First thing that came in to my mind was Gears of War with its specific third person view and hiding behind covers. I don’t think it was the first game with that mechanic but the most influential one
Operation WinBack from 1999 is considered the first third person cover based shooter.
This game is a broken buggy mess but in a good way
The term I refer to is “hiding behind cover” singular - so when I hear “hiding behind covers” I think of the COG seeing locusts, getting scared, and wrapping themselves up in blankets. Lol
when I hear “hiding behind covers”
Operation Blanket Fort
Donkey Kong (1981) popularized having different levels in a game to progress a storyline. Until then, you would have the same level over and over with increasing difficulty
Battlefield 1942 always stands out to me as the one that popularized large scale online battles on big maps with vehicles. At the time it was revolutionary in online gaming.
Command & Conquer: Renegade came out around the same time as well, with similar features. I kinda wish that game had a sequel as well.
Another gameplay feature that comes to mind is the exclamation/question mark above NPC characters for quests. I remember it first from WarCraft 3, but I think it really kicked off with World of WarCraft to get adopted by many more games.
Was it the first to allow you to look on the map to choose where you respawn, specifically on teammates?
Battlefield 2 intruduced that one.
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I don’t remember being possible to spawn on teammates in BF1942, but definitely remember it as a first to select spawn points on map like Battlefield always did.
I remember an old BF1942 mod that had spawn selection; I don’t know exactly how far back the feature went, but it was around for a while before BF2.
I’m not sure I’ve ever had more fun with any game than I did with BF1942. It was just so much fun. There were games with smoother play and deeper mechanics and better graphics, but none were as fun. The dumb mechanics made it amazing, like being able to lie down on the wing of a plane and snipe people while your buddy flew, or dive bombing and parachuting out at 10ft above the ground to capture a point, or shooting the main cannon from a tank into a barracks that has 15 people spawned inside it, or piloting a goddamn aircraft carrier and running it aground to get to a spawn point safely. It was so stupid but so fun.
Renegade was some of the most fun I ever had in a shooter. Truly a unique experience
Though it was used in a few games before, a Quake tournament and Half Life 1 cemented the use of WASD controls.
ESDF is the superior keybinding
Esdf requires more dexterity and is generally less accessible.I’m an idiot and misunderstood which key bind was being talked about
Asdf is just better for general key availability imo
I am glad I am not alone!
There literally dozens of us!
But for real, i struggle to play games with wasd default and now keybind changes. Part of it is as simple as my hand is just used to using esdf and I constantly hit the wrong keys in those games. But the loss of useable keys on my pinky just feels so bad.
^ This. So much this.
Used to play Warframe pretty religiously with wasd, where shift was part of a key movement combo. After a year or so, developed significant pain in my left pinky.
Shifting to esdf was damn awkward for about 2 weeks. The sheer pinky comfort though.👌
I wish I could upvote twice. It just allows so much more customization, that allows much more comfortable hand positions. I often with disable my caps lock and use A and caps lock as run and crouch.
I am unable to play Fallout 4 because E is hardcoded to be “Use.” You can change all the movement keys, but for some reason you cannot change that keybinding. So you can make E be forward movement, but every time you approach a door or chest or person you will automatically open or talk whether you want to or not.
It made the game completely unplayable for me.
Been RDFG since about 2002. One of my roommates in college was in the top thousand on Unreal Tournament. He talked me into it. God, I get good at that game playing against him.
yeah HL definitely was the one popularized it as default. quake players changed the bindings for it; i know because i played that game with old-school doom/duke controls
Minecraft for the fully breakable/buildable procedural open world.
Minecraft is far more responsible for the survival crafting genre that followed in its wake.
Minecraft Hunger Games, although a mod, is responsible for the Battle Royal hype aswell.
So Minecraft caused Fortnite twice - once as a survival crafting and building game and then as a Battle Royal retaining some of these elements
What’s the timeline on that mod versus the Battle Royale mod for DayZ? Because as far as I could tell, the DayZ mod is the true progenitor, but DayZ was itself inspired by Minecraft.
I couldnt find a release history for the Minecraft mod, however according to the following article, it was released about a year before the original PlayerUnknown mod for DayZ / Arma 3.
Warning: Cant decline cookies (at least in EU)
https://www.eurogamer.net/before-fortnite-and-pubg-there-was-minecraft-survival-games
It was more a server side plugin than a mod, but that only grew its popularity.
Even randomised loot existed around the map
I miss u bukkit ;-;
Pretty sure the actual hunger games movie had more to do with that
As the inspiration yes. But Minecraft hunger games was the first to do it in gaming while also reaching maybe not more people than the movies, but definitly spreading to communities that the movies and books didnt reach (e.g. i didnt watch the movies until well over ten years after I had played my first game of MC hunger games)
Also Mindcrack UHC, not sure if that came before the hunger games mods tho
Maybe cheating a bit but there are several genres of games that are named after the games that popularized their mechanics such as roguelike/roguelite, souls-like, metroidvania
CoD and Assassin’s Creed popularised selling the same fucking game 20 times
FIFA and other sports games as well
Sports games have been doing it faaaar longer. Madden started in 1988, released a sequel in 1990, then hasn’t missed a year ever since. The baseball and basketball counterparts existed just as long.
The original XCOM is the source of grid based inventories.
Star Control 2 is the first RPG that did the standard dialogue interface where you talk to someone and choose from multiple replies.
SC2 did (or did the first mainstream) implementation of a bunch of things, but I’m surprised it was the first for this.
Batman: Arkham Asylum’s free-flowing combo system was copied by many future games.
And unfortunately, not one of them did it better.
The Spider-Man games come close, but that first Arkham game was just so well done
They might be closest, but they’re still pretty far off. One of the core pillars of Arkham combat is that it would punish you for button mashing by dropping your combo, meaning you not only gain fewer points at the end of combat but also lose access to your instant finishers, which are all too valuable for taking out the toughest opponents. Spider-Man is happy to let you mindlessly mash, and it’s far worse off for it.
Might just be because I’m just starting out, but Spider-Man’s combat is much more punishing for me. Could just be the higher emphasis on using specific combos on certain enemies, which I have some difficulty keeping straight.
i think Shadow of Mordor did actually. the system was pretty similar but it didn’t feel as magnetic, which is an improvement.
I did like the magnetic nature of Arkham, and since Mordor lacked it, they let you hold your combo streak for longer, which also made it too easy.
yeah i don’t care so much about ease, i care about how it feels. Arkham’s combat was fun, but the insane distances you could instantly travel made it feel like the game was playing itself. mordor’s solution is better imo. but it obviously comes down to personal preference.
I felt it was more about the “free flow” in the free flow combat system in Arkham. You want it to all chain together, and Arkham made sure you only hit the buttons you needed to exactly as many times as you needed to. Mordor let you keep your combo going even though it had been like 10 seconds since the last time you did anything, which wasn’t exactly flowing at that point. That combo system was a great fit for Batman, and it would fit in nicely with Jason Bourne or John Wick as well, and I’m not sure Lord of the Rings was the best fit for it, but it doesn’t seem like many are trying to do that combat style anymore.
I think Spyro was the first mainstream game to standardise achievements, you could do random stuff in-game and it gave you a little pop up, carried over to Ratchet and Clank and now every game has official achievements
For first person shooters (mix of first introduced and popularised):
Doom: started and popularised the genre. Also started and popularised rasterized 3d graphics for gaming (though the game itself was still 2d). Also first fps multiplayer and modding
Quake: various game modes (Deathmatch, capture the flag), as well as being the first true 3d fps. Popularised multiplayer and modding.
Team fortress (quake mod): Different specialist characters.
Goldeneye 64: popularized multilayer console fps, taught character size can be a significant advantage/disadvantage, depending on if you got Oddjob or Jaws.
Half-life: started horror fps genre, (mostly) seemless world
CS: customizable loadouts instead of search for guns each time you spawn, more game modes
UT: AI bots
Perfect dark: secondary fire for weapons
Deus ex: rpg fps
Halo: finally figured out a decent controller control scheme (one stick looks, one moves, button for grenades rather than needing to select grenade from list of guns). First fps I remember vehicles in, too.
Battlefield: large scale multiplayer
Socom: fps game that isn’t first person, online console multiplayer
Call of duty: using gun sights to aim
Far cry: open world fps
Doom 3: used lighting (or lack thereof) to bring fps horror to a new level.
Crisis: famous for pushing hardware and people caring more about the benchmark results than the game itself (I tried the second one, it was ok but I didn’t really get into it)
Call of duty: zombies (and other alternate game modes), kill steaks, online progression (unlocking guns and attachments as you level, prestige levels)
HL2/portal: brought physics and its involvement in fps games to a new level
TF2: f2p, microtransactions (though not predatory or p2w so the game isn’t remembered for this)
Borderlands: loot-based fps rpg
Metro 2033: fps survival
Halo reach: custom maps
Destiny: MMORPG FPS
Overwatch: hero-based, and hero roles (dps, tank, healer)
Pub bg: battle Royale
Alien Resurrection on PSX was the first game to use the dual-stick control scheme. Halo came out more than a year later.
Funnily, it was reviewed poorly at the time:
Game journos have always been a joke.
Yes, but they have definitely become worse in recent years.
i disagree with a lot of this
Assassin’s Creed and the Open World Gameplay design. It definitely existed before then, but after AC came out, it felt like every RPG switched to the open world map.
I feel like Elder Scrolls was the model being followed for open world RPGs. Assassin’s Creed didn’t even have RPG mechanics until the later games.
Quake revolutionized fps games
Ape Escape was the first PS1 game to require the dual shock controller
I’d argue that quake did far more for 3D graphics then it did for FPS. Like Doom is what got FPS into the spotlight even though Wolfenstein 3d came first. Like quake is pretty much what made real 3D possible and doable on the hardware of the time thanks to everything going on under the hood
That may be what I was thinking of. I actually never played Quake, I just knew it was groundbreaking
I don’t know what game first came up with it, but Super Mario RPG was the first time I saw timed hits for attack and defense in a JRPG. While the mechanic isn’t exactly ubiquitous it has popped up in a handful of other games over the years and it always reminds me of that game.
This was definitely the first time I also remember this appearing, and it made it more engaging for me as a child.
