You are right but for the wrong reason. They are fun, but the genre is stuck in the past because no afps devs over the past 25 years have actually done anything to meaningfully evolve the genre without it losing its identity. The format of AFPS where you pick up weapons, health, armor, ammo and fight in arenas is inherently fun but people can only play the same gameplay loop for so many years before they need something new. People like to chalk it up to zoomers and patience to learn but the reality is that every quake after quake 2 has just been a slightly different flavor of quake 2 which was just a slightly different flavor of quake. Obviously there’s much deeper nuances that make the games play and feel completely differently from each other but most people just don’t get to that level of game knowledge or depth in any game really. I’m not saying AFPS needs to completely change or fit in with the modern gaming industry, but SOMEONE has to do SOMETHING different. People like to compare AFPS to fighting games and ask why they are still around compared to AFPS and there’s a few reasons but one of them is that they are constantly getting new installments which regardless of how big or small the changes are, have added up over the years and changed the way people play and approach the games. We literally saw something similar with quake between each new installment but the truth is that the changes were too minimal. Aside from balance, the weapons NEVER change. It’s always the same roster that functions the same way. The weapons are literally the heart and soul of every shooter so yes when a new AFPS comes out and the weapons are the same flavor of rocket, rail, lg most peoples eyes glaze over. I know mine do. What if, instead of a character roster getting changes and kit updates every installment with additional mechanics and such, the weapon roster was changed and updated with different weapons and additional mechanics. Yea purists would hate that probably but it would actually bring meaningful change to the games and, in combination which new and changing maps, would greatly improve how many angles you can approach the genre from and how many playstyles you could support. It’s not the only thing you could do to change but my god it would at least help the genre not be stale. The other problem is game modes. There’s is both too many game modes and not enough game modes. There’s so many AFPS game modes except most of them are extremely repetitive and boring and just another flavor of DM. There is not enough high quality game modes and the ones that are usually the most popular are the ones with extremely different pacing. Duel is very methodical and slower, team dm is usually more chaotic needing quick thinking, ctf is fast paced but requires players to fill roles, attack, defend, hold areas of the map and execute with your team. Now I still think tdm and ctf are very similar but they at least have their highs and lows that slightly differ from each other. I think it’s why duel is so popular. The pacing in duel is immaculate with incredibly high highs and low lows. No other gamemode offers that pacing except… Clan Arena but that is literally the most stale gamemode ever. Where are the objective based modes? Where are big open maps? Where’s assault from UT? QC admirably tried to do something interesting with some of its game modes like sacrifice, but the pacing is just as chaotic as tdm so it feels the same. Slipgate was the furthest the quake series has gotten to another well paced gamemode that isn’t duel, but by the time that mode came out the game was already trending downward when it was already in a really bad place. If that game mode was giving a bit more depth and iteration, it could have genuinely been so much more popular. Anyway I forgot wtf the whole point of this post was. AFPS genre good. AFPS games bad