I lurk this sub quite a bit, and always get a bit iffy seeing people's recommendations and the games they post, even besides the usual mobile game or cod clone early development suspects.

I fail to understand how a game without emphasized item pickups can really be an AFPS. Throughout all my time playing Quake and UT, it felt like the time, energy and effort put into these games was related to timing items and map control in some way. Straight up, everything I learnt out of those games had to do with managing and reclaiming a stack and weapons, and controlling power up locations if there are any. The map sizes and shapes/verticality, traversal options, certain tech, weapon variety etc felt like they were built specifically to work with the on-the-ground items and not the other way around.

This isn't exactly the millionth post about the definition of "arena shoota". From my understanding, genre names and groupings mostly rise due to shared mechanics and game design that a community resonates with and can point out clearly. I'm just a bit stumped, since it feels like anyone who would play Quake and UT, regardless of skill level, would resonate with and point out the importance of item pickups, and thus also be made consciously aware of the lack of them in other modes or games (like Clan Arena or something like both TF2s, or Tribes).

Of course, if it's not clear, I'm not saying every game with item pickups is an arena shooter (would Fortnite be an arena shooter?), but that every arena shooter has item pickups. I also don't want to appear as an elitist in any way.

I've been thinking about hitbox design lately. This isn't meant to start a "skill issue" debate, I'm genuinely curious what the community that actually play the genre think.

A lot of classic arena shooters relied on relatively large, simplified hitboxes, often an AABB or capsule-style collision that wasn't tightly wrapped to the player model. In many cases, different player models shared the same hitbox. That meant you could visually miss a shoulder or arm and still score a hit.

My theory is that this may have been part of what made those games feel so good. The movement was incredibly fast, and generous hitboxes rewarded tracking and prediction more than pixel-perfect model alignment.

Later, many shooters moved toward tighter, per-bone hitboxes that match the character's body much more closely. Some players love the precision, while others constantly complain that shots "should've hit."

Modern games often seem to land somewhere in the middle: not a giant box, but not truly model-tight either. Ironically, those hybrid hitboxes still get criticized for feeling oversized or visually inconsistent.

So my question is specifically for Arena FPS gameplay:

Do you think larger, gameplay-first hitboxes actually make the genre better? Or would you always choose tightly fitted hitboxes if everything else stayed the same?

Edit: thank you guys for all the replies, it really does help me, thanks!

QL? QC? QW? Something else?

Do you think AFPS could have a revival where a game has an astonishing number of active players (for an AFPS) and has a ranked mode?

Does it exist and I didn't realize it? I'm asking mainly because almost all the AFPs I play require me to play at a certain time or ask on Discord if anyone wants to play.

Been a while since I've been on this sub, but the only game that's come close to an AFPS for me lately is Empulse and I haven't seen any posts here about it.

"movement shooter" might be more accurate but it plays like an AFPS. I think defining AFPS as "quake-like" is restrictive. If the main thing you care about is item timing/dueling then QL/QC is perfect for that, and this doesn't have it, but for all the movement/aim/strat aspects it is great.

Worth giving it a shot. Personally I'm addicted to it and don't think there'll be a better game any time soon (unless some Quake reboot). Do yourself a favour and don't watch some trailer/stream of it and give it a try. My first glance of it I thought it would be something like the finals/apex/etc but it's so much better than that.

If you're into QC and like sac/ctf, queue for "upload" mode or "intel" mode. I think they've missed a trick by not prioritising and promoting those two modes and a lot of their promo is showing mech bs which you can just ignore and isn't even featured in ranked play. As a shooter it's cool but feels like an aimtrainer, but those two modes are objective focused "score/hold the ball" which makes it fully movement/team-play focused. Movement is basically strogg+athena+nyx.

The title is self-explanatory. I haven't played an arena FPS in a while and I would love to experience this genre again. I am scared that the answer is quake live because I didn't like that game very much. If Quake live is the answer to my question I will have to give the game another chance but if there is another more modern option I would rather try the other option 😅

After obvious news, arena fps community is shaking again. Seems like we will have no new quake or actively sustained quake game. When i look into alternatives other than quake live which has very bad graphics, i rememberes we have q3 mode blood run. Same quake feeling with champions mechanics and community has source code and can someone continue to work on. However when i look into web there is no news about for a long time seems like it is forgetton. What do you think guys? Anyone play here? where the all community of this game?

There was a quake/half life movement style arena shooter in development maybe 10 or more years ago. I believe it had wall running too. The graphics style was very minimalistic and neon/holographic. I think it even had wall running but I can’t remember. It had a trailer or two on YouTube and looked really promising but I’m pretty sure it was never released. Just really curious to see if it still looks as hype as it did back then. Anyone know the name?

EDIT: IT WAS CALLED “INSIGHT”

Which AFPS pulls in the highest average players?

Hi, sorry if this is a dumb or very commonly asked question, but I was wondering:
What’s the most active arena FPS right now?
I’ve been looking around and the one that seems the most populated is straftat, but it doesn’t really convince me.

Thanks in advance! :D

I'm looking for a few others to frag with once a week or bi weekly. Just a small group of friends having fun and chatting in discord. Not looking for a large community. I used to play a lot of q3, tribes, and ut. I'm open to trying new and old games. All of my old buddies stopped fragging a long time ago. If you would be interested lmk or if you are already a part of something like this and would be open to adding another. I am us east tz.

Xdefiant was my favorite game i have not been able to find a game like it movement, loadouts gun customization game modes i cant find anything. any recommendations

I understand that this might be a contentious topic, but I am of the opinion that if the arena FPS genre wants to become relevant and accessible to any significant degree, it needs to be rid of bunnyhopping.

While it is a fun and engaging mechanic for those experienced with it, I think that unless it is streamlined to the point of practically being automated; it creates an immense skill gap that gives those who can do it far too big of an advantage over those who don't.

The reason for this is that it gives bunnyhoppers a permanent and fundamental advantage over people who can't do it. As opposed to rocket jumping, which sacrifices some health as a trade-off for mobility, bunnyhopping costs nothing and massively unbalances the playing field.

Most players just don't want to get stomped by Quake players with over 20 years of experience for over 500 hours before they can even begin to compete against them. Unless you spend a lot of time practising bunnyhopping in empty servers, the genre is too unapproachable to simply learn through playing the game.

TL;DR: Bunnyhopping raises to skill floor to an unreasonable degree for newer players. It gives experienced players a massive advantage at no cost, and results in servers being aggressively dominated by veterans, with newer players barely able to defend themselves. Therefore it needs to be either streamlined and made fully accessible, or removed in future titles for the genre to become anything other than a tiny niche.

I love the genre. It's got immense potential to be an extremely popular genre, but the current state of most arena shooters holds it back, and limits it to a small community of extremely skilled players constantly stomping everyone who's trying to get into it. Mechanics like bunnyhopping and sniper weapons like railguns [although that's a different discussion] give veterans too much of an advantage for the game to have a fun new player experience that encourages new players to stick around and keep the genre from dying out.

By no means do I want the genre to become mainstream slop, but I feel like some mechanics are adhered to too dogmatically, and we should have a critical discussion about the mechanics that hold the genre back.

As a somebody who likes to play multiplayer for games like Blood, Shadow Warrior and QuakeWorld whenever the opportunity is given, there is something I struggle with. That would be finding pickup games more often.

So far, most of the communities I am in (on Discord) have been more game event heavy as opposed to pinging a role looking for players. As a matter of fact, I recall pinging a LFG role in one server hoping to play Blood and nobody responded.

So this is my question to anyone who manage to play, how often did you mange to catch games in recent times? If so, how did you go about it? is it through scheduled game events or through pickup channels? which platform do you use to find players?

For games like Blood, most of the matches I managed to succeed in playing are on NukemNet. https://nukemnet.com/home

hello, i really like fps games and for some reason now im lookiong for a game where u just move and shoot without using brain just having fun killing enemies zombies whatever
i dig steam alot and there is tons of games which look like what i look for, im thinking of buying games like bloodshell and hellbreak cuz they look fun
u know old school doom quake serious sam im looking for something similiar or maybe even more fast paced and maybe gore is ok
also it would be cool if u have to use ur skill like aim to kill enemies but nvm
i just wanna put music on and kill enemies in game lol

Hello there!

I want to talk a little bit about a game that has a special place in my heart. A game that I played a lot and that was part of my childhood.

I haven't played it in many years, but recently I took a nostalgia dive back into it and was glad to see it's still up and has a small but seemingly healthy player base. So, I jumped right back in and started playing it again.

Me making this post has a reason, but first: What game am I talking about?

The game in question is called "Xonotic". It's a pretty old, open-source, free-to-play, old School, first person, arena shooter.

All by itself, it isn't anything super special or groundbreaking compared to some modern games out there, but I really like it. I created a lot of good memories with it, and want to share it.

For its age, it still looks pretty good today, is easy to learn, hard to master, and at least for me, it’s just plain fun.

You have all the well-known game modes: Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Complete the Stage, Instagib, and many, many more. It also has a ton of community-made maps, and the game basically runs on any potato.

The thing I like most about this game is the talkative community. Fun fact: Because of that, I literally learned English by accident while playing it!

Compared to modern games these days, Xonotic is a simple download-and-play kind of game: no launcher, no installation needed, and because of its open-source nature, no DLCs, no ads, no microtransactions, and no matchmaking. Just start the game, join a server, and play.

So why am I making this post?

I’m mostly making this post because it's dear to me and I want to give it some more attention, letting people know it exists and I’d love to see a few new faces around. We are always happy to welcome new players joining in. If anyone checks it out and wants a little chat, needs help with how to play, or just wants to play together, feel free to ask. If you see a player called "TheDuke///", that's me! I'd be happy to see you there :)

Disclaimer: If you see this post multiple times in different subs, that's because I crossposted it. Usually, that shouldn't be necessary to say, but I feel like it might not be a bad idea to mention it.

Been building a wall run for my arena-style roguelite shooter and I've hit the point where I can't judge my own work anymore.

Right now it's short. It's a repositioning tool - reset an angle, get off the floor for a second, come back down into the fight. Part of me wants to extend it so you can chain walls across a whole room, because that feels amazing to play. The worry is that a long wall run in a room-sized arena just means you go over the fight instead of into it.

Other thing I keep second-guessing: the camera banks into the wall. That felt right when I played it, but most references bank away from it, so I might have just gotten used to my own mistake.

For people who play a lot of arena shooters - where's the line? Should movement like this be a tool inside the fight, or is flying over an encounter a legitimate way to play it?

Game is NULLGATE: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5042810/NullGate/?utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=arenafps

Just wanted to get some leads on people who'd be interested to use a platform specifically made for arena fps tournaments.

In particular I'm in need of community managers and discord admins.

I mainly just want to do backend stuff for the website and have some people who are plugged in to respective afps communities help to make this all happen.

I am from Australia but this project is international. So I'd need leaders from all different countries to help manage and run respective tournaments.

Website will have a system for people to report their own match results as part of a knockout tournament bracket.

Will be advertising the website itself soon enough.

Thanks!

Hey everyone, we're new here! We are game developers and big fans of boomer shooters and arena shooters! We're currently working on an Arena Shooter ourselves and we're currently doing research on what we should do for our Arena Shooter project!

We're currently thinking of making a relatively conservative Arena Shooter FPS project that maintains the design philosophies and cores of Quake 3 + Team Arena and Unreal Tournament, all the while finding ways to evolve the design further for the modern gaming landscape and take a shot at solving fundamental issues with the genre (while keeping the cores intact)

We have an idea as to what the fundamental cores of an Arena Shooter are, as well as the problems with the genre that need to be fixed, and we do have our own ideas for how to build upon the existing design! But we want to get this right and, as such, we want to ask genre fans, experts, and veterans on some of these things! And we do want to share the project with you all when it's in a presentable state!

So tell us, what do you all think are the nessecary fundamentals of a Quake 3/Unreal Tournament-style Arena Shooter that must be maintained? I would love to hear all of your thoughts

Quake live, diabotical, quake champions, ratz instagib, xonotik/toxikk whatever they called, warfork, half-life, unreal tournament - im familiar with them, i have low end pc and i like one shot type of stuff like instagib/sniper

Would like some new recommendations what to play, where i can find at least a one playable server

Also can buy a game u recommend if its worth it in steam