Shooter Games

What are Shooter Games?

Shooter games are a popular type of video game that belong to a specific subgenre called action games. In these games, the primary objective is to eliminate enemies using ranged weapons controlled by the character you’re playing as. These ranged weapons can include firearms, bows, or other projectile-based tools. Shooter games typically offer two main perspectives for gameplay: first-person and third-person.

First-Person Shooter (FPS) Games

First-person shooter games, often known as FPS games, are immersive video game experiences that mimic our everyday perspective by allowing players to see through the eyes of the character they control. This perspective creates a realistic and engaging simulation that makes it feel like you’re part of the virtual environment.

However, with this FOV (field of view), also know as POV (point of view), comes a narrower viewing perspective. Luckily this can be changed in the game’s settings under the FOV or POV option.

Increasing the FOV can help broaden your peripheral view to see enemies earlier, but as you raise it higher, your ability to see objects up close becomes less effective. This means objects will appear further away than they actually are, which can impact your gameplay readability, affecting target acquisition. Because of this, I wouldn’t recommend setting the FOV too high; a slight increase is sufficient to give you that extra peripheral vision without compromising close-range visibility too much — and that’s it. My subjective rule of thumb is: if it starts to look stretched, you’ve gone far enough.

FPS games can vary widely in scale, ranging from small-scale to massive, large-scale warfare, and the experience you get really depends on the specific game you choose to play. For instance, games like Battlefield offer expansive maps and large team battles, while Call of Duty tends to focus more on fast-paced, smaller-scale combat. Despite these differences in scale and scope, both types of games belong to the same genre and share many of the same fundamental core mechanics that define FPS in general.

Third-Person Shooter (TPS) Games

Shooter games aren’t limited to FPS games; they can also be third-person shooter games. This is a perspective style that is positioned behind and slightly above the character you’re controlling, essentially looking over the shoulder and in front of the character.

TPS perspectives provides a much broader field of view, allowing players to see more of their surroundings and better anticipate enemy movements. But also, it highlights more detailed and noticeable action animations of the character you’re playing, making the experience more immersive and visually engaging. And if you have have any cool cosmetics, you can see them.

You’ll commonly find this type of camera perspective in popular titles such as Grand Theft Auto (GTA), Days Gone, and Arc Raiders to name a few.

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