I realise this is strange to comment on a 2 hour video but Noah is at his best when he keeps the scope of his video narrow and (moderately) focused like this.

Definitely looking forward to watching this. I feel like arena shooters are at a super weird place where people have nostalgia for single player “”boomer shooters”” and multiple successful (AAA and indie) shooters shave come out trying to recapture that energy but the multiplayer side is almost completely forgotten.

I think there are aspects to what an “arena shooter” must be that are just super unfriendly to new players, and it keeps a stranglehold on the amazing game mechanics of multiplayer quake style games. I also think the weapons in quake just aren’t that interesting (some of them are useless like the grenade launcher) and games that try to recapture the formula of quake multiplayer too closely end up making the mistake of thinking the weapon design HELPED quake multiplayer instead of hindered it.

Whoever can get quake style movement into a multiplayer game mode that is fun to play as a noob will have a leftfield smash hit on their hands mark my words. The movement in a game like Xonotic is just impossible to describe, it’s like butter if butter was extremely fast. It reaches deep down into my brain and tugs on wires in a way that almost no other game I have ever played does (maybe rocket league when you feel really locked in?).

Further why does quake style movement have to be limited to multiplayer shooters or quake style single player games? Quake style movement is so good that people make levels where the challenge is just to race through them as fast as you can, what about a procedurally generated open world Minecraft-like where you could zoom across the landscape strafe jumping doing something similar?

Yes, it is an obscure skill/gameplay mechanic but it is super intuitive to learn, just dress it up as magic that only speeds you up if you move smoothly or something.