12 Video Game Genres That Desperately Need A Comeback

3. Insane Arena Shooters

The Genre: Anyone who owned a PC in the late 90s onwards has probably played one variation of Quake, Unreal Tournament or Doom, and each delivered gloriously insane arena-based deathmatches in spades, whether with bots or online. The focus was on a fast pace, futuristic weapons, deep-voiced announcers and a ton of hilariously over-the-top gore. What Happened: Call of Duty happened. While the CoD series itself boasted an increasingly fast pace and occasional flirtation with advanced weaponry, it's the stat-tracking and obsession with challenges and achievements that caused it to bury the arena shooter, which simply had no interest in introducing leveling mechanics and the such like. Quake Live continues to endure as an in-browser game, but for all intents and purposes, the genre is pretty much dead. Why It Needs A Comeback: Because not everything needs to be relentlessly stat-tracked, and CoD just can't deliver the same brilliant absurdity because it's still at its core a military shooter. While a free-to-play Unreal Tournament is on the way and Doom 4 is in development, few have much faith that either of these are going to be able to revitalise a genre that's been steamrolled by Activision's commercial juggernaut.