Any upcoming Sci-Fi games that I should look into?

[ngilop]

Hey guys, I am playing some old computer games on my new computer (Metal Fatigue, Age of Empires 2, Unreal Tournament)

But, it got me thinking of what kinda new games might be out for PC in the next few to several months.


I got enough fantasy to last me I feel. As well as plenty of RTS games. I am mostly interested in FPS and Sci-FO themed ones at that.


Anybody know of any that are decent? Caveat: Nothing makes me more angry and upset about games where it supposed to be set in a future where the human race has discovered interstellar flight, intra-solar system instant communication, and perfect artificial intelligence. BUT, the player is still using gunpowder based ballistic weaponry.

SO if it is the year 3021 and people are still shooting each other with bullets BUT then go into a ship that is capable of traveling through blackholes.. I am not interested in that at all. It just goes beyond my own suspension of disbelief.

[Jera]

Caveat: Nothing makes me more angry and upset about games where it supposed to be set in a future where the human race has discovered interstellar flight, intra-solar system instant communication, and perfect artificial intelligence. BUT, the player is still using gunpowder based ballistic weaponry.

SO if it is the year 3021 and people are still shooting each other with bullets BUT then go into a ship that is capable of traveling through blackholes.. I am not interested in that at all. It just goes beyond my own suspension of disbelief.

Why? think about it, ballistic weaponry doesn't lose efficacy just because technology has improved. People still use knives, hammers, axes, poison, and fire to kill people; just because we have guns doesn't mean that it's the most effective method of killing someone, for in Star Wars a Blaster can be deflected by a Lightsaber, however in the Legacy Universe and the Clone Wars we are shown that Slugthrowers(guns) are either cut or melted when passing through the blade of the saber, the melted bullet maintains its velocity and will often wound or even kills the force user. When Jaina, acting as the Sword of the Jedi, trained to fight Darth Caedes, she didn't use a lightsaber, she used a Mandalorian sword, which is completely antiquated, however it was the right tool for the right job.

Now in regards to ships, high velocity projectiles(not necissarily gunpowder based) are potentially extremely effective weapons depending on the level of technology. Imagine, you take a very large rock, speed it up to .1 or more of the speed of light, and put it on an intercept course with a (relatively) static target, like a space station or a planet, and you've got an extremely cheap effective weapon that has the potential to cause an extinction wide event.

[factotum]

Now in regards to ships, high velocity projectiles(not necissarily gunpowder based) are potentially extremely effective weapons depending on the level of technology. Imagine, you take a very large rock, speed it up to .1 or more of the speed of light, and put it on an intercept course with a (relatively) static target, like a space station or a planet, and you've got an extremely cheap effective weapon that has the potential to cause an extinction wide event.

AKA "Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son-b***h in space!". (Seriously, you've got to look up a video of the gunnery sergeant making that speech in Mass Effect 2 if you've never seen it).

As far as SF FPS are concerned, the recent Doom (2016) and Prey (2017) games are supposed to be very good indeed--I haven't actually played either because I'm not a massive fan of FPS, though, so that's a second-hand recommendation.

[GloatingSwine]

Warframe?

Sure, some of the guns are just dakka, but they soon get far more weird and wonderful.

[ngilop]

Why? think about it, ballistic weaponry doesn't lose efficacy just because technology has improved. People still use knives, hammers, axes, poison, and fire to kill people; just because we have guns doesn't mean that it's the most effective method of killing someone, for in Star Wars a Blaster can be deflected by a Lightsaber, however in the Legacy Universe and the Clone Wars we are shown that Slugthrowers(guns) are either cut or melted when passing through the blade of the saber, the melted bullet maintains its velocity and will often wound or even kills the force user. When Jaina, acting as the Sword of the Jedi, trained to fight Darth Caedes, she didn't use a lightsaber, she used a Mandalorian sword, which is completely antiquated, however it was the right tool for the right job.

Now in regards to ships, high velocity projectiles(not necissarily gunpowder based) are potentially extremely effective weapons depending on the level of technology. Imagine, you take a very large rock, speed it up to .1 or more of the speed of light, and put it on an intercept course with a (relatively) static target, like a space station or a planet, and you've got an extremely cheap effective weapon that has the potential to cause an extinction wide event.

1) star wars is Sci-fantasy
1a) it is from a long time ago in a galaxy far away
2) If you seriously belief that with the technology that comes with FTL travel we are still using the same weapons of war we are using currently I think you need a dose or dozen of reality.
2a) Nobody fights wars equipping their soldiers with spears, pikes, horse calvary, bow&arrows, or slings anymore. We use balisitc weapons, and that is only widespread in what, the last 600-700 years?
2b) There is a reason nobody uses wooden warships anymore; or that we use night vision or any other advancement EVENTUALLY the newer technology make the older technology mostly or completely obsolete.


You can argue all you want BUT if a game is set in places where such craziness is available as I stated ad we are still using guns from 2018 but fancier looking, something is very VERY wrong.

[Eldan]

Do you actually want a game with realistic space combat? You know, where everything is semi-autonomous drones, stealth is probably impossible and you fire, then wait 2 hours for hit confirmation while the computer calculates new vectors?

And the others are right. If there's one thing that's probably never going to go out of fashion in combat, it's E=1/2mv^2.

[Jera]

1) star wars is Sci-fantasy
1a) it is from a long time ago in a galaxy far away
2) If you seriously belief that with the technology that comes with FTL travel we are still using the same weapons of war we are using currently I think you need a dose or dozen of reality.
2a) Nobody fights wars equipping their soldiers with spears, pikes, horse calvary, bow&arrows, or slings anymore. We use balisitc weapons, and that is only widespread in what, the last 600-700 years?
2b) There is a reason nobody uses wooden warships anymore; or that we use night vision or any other advancement EVENTUALLY the newer technology make the older technology mostly or completely obsolete.


You can argue all you want BUT if a game is set in places where such craziness is available as I stated ad we are still using guns from 2018 but fancier looking, something is very VERY wrong.

> 2. I need to check reality for a hypothetical fantasy? Also you're presuming that FTL directly equates to more advanced weaponry, it doesn't. Planes, Trains and Automobiles did not lead to new weapons, they're just new ways to transfer those weapons.

> 2a. Try the last 100 years, there were major conflicts that occurred where swords, lances, and bows were in regular use up until WW1. But lets look at current military's, most of which, the U.S. included, still are trained in and are issued bayonets. Units in the French Foreign Legion are trained in and carry axes, Russian Spetnaz are trained in hatchets, The Ghurka regiments of Great Brittain and India are famous for their use of Khukris; and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. You cannot disregard history nor the present when looking towards the future, and most importantly when dealing with the military you cannot disregard Tradition. There's a phrase that's popular with fans of Military History, Generals always try to fight the last war. If ballistic weapons work, they'll still be used, maybe not in every circumstance in this hypothetical future, but in some. Which was the point of my post, a well organized military would use the right tool for the right job, presuming that they don't fall back on what traditionally worked in the past; and if they fell back to tradition it's probably going to be ballistics. Thus my Star Wars example, blasters work well vs normal troops but against force users a gun is more effective.


> 2b. That is a completely fallacious argument and you know it. Yes there are no wooden "warships" used outside of training purposes in modern armies, however wooden boats and dingies are used all the time. We have GPS, but soldiers are still trained in land navigation using maps and a compass. We have computers and even maps, but ask almost any infantryman or Marine who deployed to the Middle-East in the last 17 years and they'll tell you that often times patrols and raids were planned out drawing in the dirt with sticks. You use what you have, and what works.


Do you actually want a game with realistic space combat? You know, where everything is semi-autonomous drones, stealth is probably impossible and you fire, then wait 2 hours for hit confirmation while the computer calculates new vectors?

And the others are right. If there's one thing that's probably never going to go out of fashion in combat, it's E=1/2mv^2.

It's that damned relativity again, where unless you have the magical Star Trek-esque sensors, you don't even see the enemy fleet entering our Solar System near Pluto for 5.3 hours that it takes for the light of their arrival to reach earth. But the good news is they have to wait 10.6+ hours to see if we even see them.

On that note, the series The Lost Fleet by Jack Cambell is a great set of military sci-fi books, that is the only book series i've found that features fleet on fleet space battles that takes into consideration relativity. It's a retelling of Xenaphons Anabasis, and it plays on the Arthurian Trope of the 'lost hero returning at the time of our greatest need,' and follows a man out of time(cyrogenic escape pods kept him on ice for 100 years) who is thrust into command of a Navy that has 100 years to evolve into something he barely recognizes.

[Bastian Weaver]

Do you actually want a game with realistic space combat? You know, where everything is semi-autonomous drones, stealth is probably impossible and you fire, then wait 2 hours for hit confirmation while the computer calculates new vectors?


I believe the question was about sci-fi, non? You know, with faster than light space travel, perfect AI and other stuff that is, well, science fiction.

[Eldan]

Science fiction, I thought. About things that are actually possible.

[Bastian Weaver]

Units in the French Foreign Legion are trained in and carry axes, Russian Spetnaz are trained in hatchets, The Ghurka regiments of Great Brittain and India are famous for their use of Khukris; and those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

As a friend of mine, a former Russian military man and a journalist, says, "There are two kinds of armies in the world. Those that use modern technology, and those that rely on cannon fodder. With enough cannon fodder, you still can keep up with the drones for a while".

[Jera]

I believe the question was about sci-fi, non? You know, with faster than light space travel, perfect AI and other stuff that is, well, science fiction.

But it doesn't negate relativity that's why it's Science fiction.

[Bastian Weaver]

Science fiction, I thought. About things that are actually possible.

FTL travel is not actually possible. So still fiction.

[Cespenar]

For FPSs, I'm gonna have to second Factotum there. DOOM and Prey are both excellent, despite being on the opposite edges of the FPS spectrum (kinda).

More, hmm, Shadow Warrior 1-2 and Titanfall 2 were also pretty good.

Also the two new Deus Exs, while not being strictly FPSs, are good first-person RPG-stealth-shooter thingies.

Edit: Oh, well, this devolved into "real scifi" talk really quick.

[deuterio12]

Why? think about it, ballistic weaponry doesn't lose efficacy just because technology has improved. People still use knives, hammers, axes, poison, and fire to kill people; just because we have guns doesn't mean that it's the most effective method of killing someone,



But lets look at current military's, most of which, the U.S. included, still are trained in and are issued bayonets. Units in the French Foreign Legion are trained in and carry axes, Russian Spetnaz are trained in hatchets


The thing with knives/hammers/axes/fire is that they're not only weapons, they're also multi-purpose tools. Knives, hammers and axes can all build useful stuff, fire keeps you warm and allows cooking, etc. Thus both civilians and soldiers have reasons to keep those around and that they can be used to kill other humies is a bonus.

Contrast with longswords/pikes/halberds/spears. All the rage back in the day, but nowadays not even militia will use them for the simple reason that they don't have pratical use besides combat (plus being quite bulky), and you simply have much better weapons available for the task of killing.

So yes military will keep improvising everyday tools into weapons, but no military will keep obsolete weapons just out of nostalgia besides ceremonial stuff (and those aren't designed for actual combat either).

[Aeson]

1) star wars is Sci-fantasy
Science fantasy is different from science fiction only in the degree of departure from real world science.

Furthermore, I would not say that Star Wars is a particular egregious example of a fantastical science fiction setting - the Force is seemingly unnecessary for the technology, and moreover Force adepts capable of overt manifestations of magical abilities are implied to be very rare in the Prequel and Original Trilogies. A story or video game in the Star Wars setting in which a Force adept capable of overt manifestations of Force powers never appeared is plausible; there are supposedly only ten thousand or so Jedi in the final days of the Old Republic when city-planets such as Coruscant clearly exist, and overt Force use is rare enough that Han doesn't believe that it's any more than a bunch of mystical nonsense and a bit of luck in A New Hope. Reduce the Force and Force adepts to a background element, and you're left with a pretty typical popular sci-fi setting, without any particularly abnormal magic required for its technology to work.


2) If you seriously belief that with the technology that comes with FTL travel we are still using the same weapons of war we are using currently I think you need a dose or dozen of reality.
Jera really doesn't; there are any number of assumptions about how technology could progress which one could make, and only some of them render various forms of missile weapon similar to those currently in service less practical than for example laser-based weaponry.

Also, at least for the present, real science would suggest that various forms of missile weaponry will likely remain more practical than laser-, plasma-, or particle beam-based weaponry for quite some time. Maybe not using chemical propellants, but something like a railgun or coilgun is not so different from a modern rifle as to bear no recognizable relationship. Also, with regards to personal weaponry, there are significant issues in terms of weight, recoil, and heat generation to overcome if you want your space marines to pack handgun-analogues with the destructive potential of 16" naval rifles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16%22/50_caliber_Mark_7_gun) or something like that, and there's the additional question of what the point of a personal weapon that powerful would be.


2a) Nobody fights wars equipping their soldiers with spears, pikes, horse calvary, bow&arrows, or slings anymore. We use balisitc weapons, and that is only widespread in what, the last 600-700 years?
A rifle with bayonet fixed is a spear. Perhaps not as good a spear as historical examples, but a spear nonetheless. First-world militaries equip their soldiers with knives and with implements which can be used as improvised clubs or axes and teach them to use them in close quarters combat to this day. Why? Because while rifles and carbines are great at range over open ground, they're not actually that great in close quarters or in restricted environments.

Close combat weapons are not the primary infantry weapons anymore and the forms that they take may have changed somewhat from when they were, but they've hardly disappeared from the arsenals of even the most technologically-advanced nations in the world.


2b) There is a reason nobody uses wooden warships anymore
Oh, really? I guess the United States Navy, only perhaps the largest and most powerful navy in the world at the present time, doesn't count, then. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avenger-class_mine_countermeasures_ship)


You can argue all you want BUT if a game is set in places where such craziness is available as I stated ad we are still using guns from 2018 but fancier looking, something is very VERY wrong.
There are serious limitations on the size and power of man-portable single-man projectile weapons, and there are serious drawbacks to laser-, plasma-, or particle beam-based weaponry which could prevent them from ever becoming practical for use inside of an atmosphere, or even outside of one. The idea that the infantry will still be using projectile weapons bearing recognizable relationships to modern rifles and carbines in the distant future despite the development of FTL drive systems may not be particularly appealing to you, but it is also not that far fetched from a scientific perspective. Lasers suck in environments with high particle concentrations, there is at present no known practical means by which plasma packets could be made to remain coherent over any significant distance, sonic weapons have beam-spread and attenuation issues that make it unlikely for them to be practical at any significant range, and so on. Name a theoretical weapon system, and there are scientifically-plausible reasons why it might not supplant weapons similar to modern firearms even in the distant future.


Contrast with longswords/pikes/halberds/spears. All the rage back in the day, but nowadays not even militia will use them for the simple reason that they don't have pratical use besides combat (plus being quite bulky), and you simply have much better weapons available for the task of killing.
A rifle with bayonet fixed is a spear. A crappy spear, perhaps, but a spear nonetheless. It's also still a rifle, unless for some reason you're using a type of bayonet which prevents the rifle from being used as a rifle while the bayonet is fixed, as was true of some early types of bayonets.

Some spears were and are used for hunting, though typically such spears were not normally used for fighting.

[ngilop]

OK. I would like to apologize. It was not fair of me to call out anybody who decided to deride my parameters for a Sci Fi game that I was looking to purchase.


You all have valid points on how idiotic of a request that is to want to have in a expectation.



Still, instead of, justifiably, pointing out how much of a moron I am. Can you please just point out such games as fit the qualifications I am looking for.

[Eldan]

The only sci fi game I can think of that's upcoming is Cyberpunk, an that doesn't even feature spaceships.

[ngilop]

Now that I think about it. Really any decent game from the last 5 or so years will suffice.

[deuterio12]

A rifle with bayonet fixed is a spear. Perhaps not as good a spear as historical examples, but a spear nonetheless. First-world militaries equip their soldiers with knives and with implements which can be used as improvised clubs or axes and teach them to use them in close quarters combat to this day. Why? Because while rifles and carbines are great at range over open ground, they're not actually that great in close quarters or in restricted environments.

That's for what we have pistols/shotguns/grenades/flamethrowers/submachineguns.

Also there's the key bit of "good luck getting close when the other side has rifles". There's a reason why snipers are feared quite a lot in modern battlefields.



Close combat weapons are not the primary infantry weapons anymore and the forms that they take may have changed somewhat from when they were, but they've hardly disappeared from the arsenals of even the most technologically-advanced nations in the world.

Modern soldiers still carry spoons like every other soldier in history but don't see anybody claiming that spoons are deadly weapons.

So those knives/axes are still around only because they have plenty of non-combat uses.



A rifle with bayonet fixed is a spear. A crappy spear, perhaps, but a spear nonetheless. It's also still a rifle, unless for some reason you're using a type of bayonet which prevents the rifle from being used as a rifle while the bayonet is fixed, as was true of some early types of bayonets.


Rifles can also be used as nice clubs in a pinch, but it's insane to claim they're clubs. Still shoot bullets, which is a lot more effective than trying to bayonet someone.

In particular since if you can align your target with the bayonet tip, you could just pull the trigger. A situation where you're too close to properly aim your rifle is also a situation where a bayonet won't do you any good either, in which case you're better off just pulling out a pistol.



Some spears were and are used for hunting, though typically such spears were not normally used for fighting.

Indeed, and that's they key difference between an actual close combat weapon and a tool that may just be used to kill an unarmored human. Modern military knives/axes and whatnot aren't optimized at all for melee compared to what soldiers had before, but rather so they can be used in all sorts of non-combat situations while being as easy to carry as possible so they don't get in the way of the real guns.

[warty goblin]

Why on Earth are we arguing about whether knives are still relevant weapons? Guns are still relevant weapons, and they're like 600 years old. Really, we've mostly just made incremental advances in propellent, projectile design and loading mechanism to an idea that's older than movable type. And we've haven't made many of those in the last 100 years - arguably none at all in the last half century - in spite of having invented magic hand-boxes we can tell to order us pizza.

And it's not like handheld railguns make a lot of sense. Until you get a battery with higher energy density than gunpowder, it'll mean more weight for the same number of shots. The only fundamental advancement it offers is a much higher theoretical maximum velocity, but then you're stuck with much higher recoil. So unless you want your rifle to tie your shoulder blades into a pretzel with every shot, a railgun's just a complicated and electronics-packed version of a normal gun. More expensive, harder to service in the field, and probably less reliable in the face of mud, sand, gunk, getting dropped, etc. Sure it's cool and makes the geeks happy, but the logistics officers will blow a blood vessel at the prospect.

Lasers actually offer some real advantages: basically zero recoil*, no need to lead targets at distances human marksmanship is relevant, no need to worry about wind or adjusting for range. But they seem significantly worse at dealing with leaves, brambles, or other forms of concealment. I suspect that very dusty, foggy, or other conditions that put a lot of larger particles in the air also cause some problems.


*If your laser has enough recoil you need to worry about it, you have other problems. Like the backscatter vaporizing your face off. Or the waste heat melting your entire body.

Titanfall 2 is the best shooter ever made, and I will go to war over this. In MP, it's the only game I've played that actually made the charging up powers thing interesting and fun, because instead of one BS special move or whatever, you get a GIANT STOMPY ROBOT**. Once inside your GIANT STOMPY ROBOT you find yourself playing an entirely different, but no less fun game, to the infantry combat bit. And the jetpacks, wallrunning, superb weapon handling and general shenanigans of the infantry combat, I'd have played the game for that alone. The singleplayer is really excellent as well; a pretty much perfect implementation of a gimmick-per-level approach, some of which are just superb.

DOOM is also excellent. Most satisfying implementation of a chainsaw ever. Instead of worrying about DPS, DOOM cuts straight to the point: do you have enough gas to kill this ugly SOB? If yes, it's dead. If not, shoot the bastard in the face, then tear its arm off and beat it to death with that.

Mass Effect: Andromeda is certainly science fiction. The parts where you're toodling around some rando chunk of extraterrestrial topography are good enough, in a gormless Ubisoft open world sort of way. The combat is quite good, just crippled by a really painful level of RPG nonsense coupled to open world grind; so you have to find some sort of element to upgrade your gun from level 1 to level 2. This has no effect but to let you keep up with the goddamn inflating enemy health bars. And when Andromeda isn't doing the open world thing, it is making you deal with the story and characters. This is bad, because the story is dull and takes a long time to explain its dullness, and my reactions to the characters ranged from indifference to wondering if I could shoot them into a convenient star.

People have... feelings about No Man's Sky. I found it slightly duller than expected at release, but I really like it after the last round of patches. It's not a thing I play for the actual pleasure of the mechanics or anything like that, but I really like wandering around exploring stuff. Because of the delightfully minimalist story, you are free to do this in a way that Andromeda can't touch, and the gloriously endless universe invokes a very strange sense in me. Instead of the feeling that the game is built for me, instead No Man's Sky feels like it is perfectly indifferent to me, an endless tesselated tapestry played out across the stars. Endless forms most beautiful, signifying nothing, to bastardize both Darwin and Shakespeare at once.

XCOM 2 is possible. My feelings on the new XCOM games inevitably sour with time, as the staleness of the tactical battles grows, and the Skinner Box nature of the upgrade treadmill becomes ever more visible. But it's a good game, at least for about 20 hours; just so long as you subject no part of it to any level of rational thought. You are shooting aliens in a turn based manner on this grid, after which you will upgrade your dudes with better alien-shooters, then shoot more aliens. Don't think about anything other than this.

Upcoming there's Age of Wonders: Planetfall, about which I feel a truly ridiculous amount of excitement.


**Some may argue that Overwatch contains several giant robots, and that therefore Overwatch is worth considering. This argument is invalid because you cannot punch players into a fine red mist when driving your robot in Overwatch, and a game where you can't do that is just not worth playing

[ngilop]

Does titanfall 2 have an actual single player? or did consoles ruin that too and they just went full multiplayer like in the original?

I know all about the latest and off track ( sci-fi instead of the previous fantasy) Age of Wonders, and am stoked. it is actually the only turn based game I enjoy other than heroes of might and magic III.

[Triaxx]

Depends on how you're containing weapons grade plasma, but nothing prevents a shotgun slug from acting as a shaped charge containing a magnetically contained plasma payload.

X4 is upcoming and previous weapons have run the gamut of missiles, while also including mass drivers, Gauss Cannons, and the more 'sci-fi' laser weapons, High-Energy Plasma Throwers, and the ever murderous Plasma Burst Generator (which is a Flamethrower in Space). Capable of burning through entire capital ships with frightening efficiency. No idea what the future weapons will be though high tech is likely.

[warty goblin]

Does titanfall 2 have an actual single player? or did consoles ruin that too and they just went full multiplayer like in the original?

I know all about the latest and off track ( sci-fi instead of the previous fantasy) Age of Wonders, and am stoked. it is actually the only turn based game I enjoy other than heroes of might and magic III.

It does, and it's very good. At this point I'd buy the game pretty much for the SP, because the MP is probably pretty dead at this point, and the remaining players are going to be mostly insanely good. Titanfall 2 has a skill ceiling that's through the roof, and a set of mechanics that rewards system mastery to a remarkable degree; not just in the sense of twitch skillz, but in the ability to use the environment and movement mechanics to do stuff that doesn't even seem possible when you start out.

[rooster707]

Seconding Titanfall 2. I wouldn’t necessarily say best shooter ever, but it’s up there. Like, top 5. And the campaign is amazing.

[deuterio12]

Why on Earth are we arguing about whether knives are still relevant weapons? Guns are still relevant weapons, and they're like 600 years old.

Knives are tens of thousands of years old, guns are still the new kids in the block relatively speaking.:smalltongue:



Really, we've mostly just made incremental advances in propellent, projectile design and loading mechanism to an idea that's older than movable type. And we've haven't made many of those in the last 100 years - arguably none at all in the last half century - in spite of having invented magic hand-boxes we can tell to order us pizza.


Actually the soldiers of the most advanced militaries do have magic hand boxes that they can use to order magic metal birds with no flesh inside to come and launch magic darts guided by magic lights to magically make targets disappear.

The last 70 years also had magic orbs that can magically one-shot cities resulting in standstills from the world's greatest militaries and magic boats that can remain underwater for months and plenty of other magical stuff that means knife/axe/bayonet charges simply do not happen anymore.

And guns are indeed showing their age, it used to be most families were packing guns at home, but nowadays magic hand-boxes are a lot more popular, and arguably even more deadly in the way the pen's mightier than the sword. Doing a video with your hand magic-box and sharing it with the world can be as fast as unloading a gun clip and have much greater consequences. Or hacking the enemy magical stuff.

[factotum]

X4 is upcoming

Before 15th November 2013 I wouldn't have hesitated about recommending an X game to someone looking for some good old-fashioned space ship shooty action, but then Rebirth came along. X4 will be the first Egosoft game since X-BTF that I will wait for reviews before purchasing, because Rebirth was easily my most disappointing gaming experience ever.

[warty goblin]

Seconding Titanfall 2. I wouldn’t necessarily say best shooter ever, but it’s up there. Like, top 5. And the campaign is amazing.

I just can't think of a shooter that exceeds it consistently. Even if it comes out behind a game in some aspect, it's ahead on like four others. So yeah, there are definitely shooters that look better, but they usually don't have quite as tight of gunplay. Or sure, Overwatch arguably offers more diversity in powers and character selection, but has flaccid gunplay and boring as hell map designs. And nothing even comes close to touching Titanfall 2 in terms of the movement mechanics; the sense of momentum and flow and control is just superb. I don't usually like platforming, but I loved the platforming bits in TF2's campaign, and obliterating another player while wallrunning along at 30mph in MP was just the best feeling.


It's like they took everything great about shooters circa 2008 (aka when shooters were really good), added some modern touches, and just refined every aspect of it into pure gold.

[Triaxx]

Does it still have the giant robots?

[warty goblin]

Does it still have the giant robots?

It does, and they're a lot of fun. It's not a mech sim by any means - and it clearly isn't trying to be - but they do an excellent job of making you feel like you're wandering around in a humongous walking death machine. The Titans play nothing like the Pilots; so in the campaign Titan fights are used to break up the action and for mini boss battles.

In multiplayer, or the MP modes with Titans, they act to pace out the match. Basically the game works like a hero shooter, except that instead of getting to wallhack or auto-aim for a couple of seconds, when you fill up your charge meter you get to call in a giant robot. Because they're persistent until destroyed instead of being temporary powerups, the match dynamics shift from infantry combat to stompy mech battle; with infantry mixed in as titans get blown up.

It's a really brilliant system, because it means that beginning of a match plays quite differently from the middle and end, and within those there are distinct periods as well, when one team or another has more titans out and you adjust your playstyle accordingly. The one drawback is that because early titans are so powerful, matches tend to snowball a bit; but the gameplay's so damn fun I very seldom actually care. It's only really at all frustrating when one team gets totally curbstomped, but that's a thing that happens in every shooter ever.

[Artanis]

Can you please just point out such games as fit the qualifications I am looking for.

How do you feel about the Halo series?

The (human-made) AIs in the Halo setting are good, but quite limited in their own ways; FTL is accomplished by outright cheating and finding a loophole with which to ignore the rules, rather than bend or break them via sheer power; and bullet-using humans spend most of their time getting their a**es kicked by aliens with energy guns.

[ngilop]

How do you feel about the Halo series?

The (human-made) AIs in the Halo setting are good, but quite limited in their own ways; FTL is accomplished by outright cheating and finding a loophole with which to ignore the rules, rather than bend or break them via sheer power; and bullet-using humans spend most of their time getting their a**es kicked by aliens with energy guns.

I have a love hate thing with Halo.

On one hand, I love how basically humanity gets beat up because we bring 20th century weaponry to a 26th century battle. and get stomped because of it.



The other hand, I loathe how Halo is one half of the reason games are atrocious now. Focused on multiplayer and not an engaging storyline and a non 90 -120 minute single player campaign.

[Knaight]

The other hand, I loathe how Halo is one half of the reason games are atrocious now. Focused on multiplayer and not an engaging storyline and a non 90 -120 minute single player campaign.

The original Halo had a pretty solid campaign - I don't know how the rest of them went, though I do know that Reach at least isn't 90-120 minutes outside of speedruns, which are routinely an order of magnitude faster than normal play, if not more.

[deuterio12]

Do remember the team that made the first 3 halos got out to make their own company and ended up making Destiny (2). The Halo rights stayed with Microsoft that had other people work in the sequels.

[warty goblin]

Do remember the team that made the first 3 halos got out to make their own company and ended up making Destiny (2).

Which has worse combat design than original Halo. I blame the RPG nonsense.

[Artanis]

The other hand, I loathe how Halo is one half of the reason games are atrocious now. Focused on multiplayer and not an engaging storyline and a non 90 -120 minute single player campaign.

I own Halo 1 and 2, and have played 4 and ODST on friends' machines. The only one I've done multiplayer on is Halo 1, and then only a tiny bit.

IMO, Halo 1 has an amazing campaign. So great that I've played through it enough times to practically do it with my eyes closed by now :smalltongue:

Halo 2's campaign is also really good. It fixed a few of Halo 1's flaws and added some new mechanics, but also added a couple of annoying bits (*grumble grumble stupid Jackal snipers grumble grumble*). It's almost (although not quite) as good as Halo 1's campaign.

Halo 4's campaign was not bad. I respect what they tried to do with the storyline, and give them an 'A' for effort, but it's still not-Bungie trying to be Bungie.

ODST was an interesting take on things, both mechanically (by having you play a "mere" elite shock trooper, instead of a literal superhuman) and in how they did the campaign/story structure. The voice acting being a Firefly reunion was also fun.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Not an FPS, but if you're interested in a realistic near-future sci-fi tactical space combat game, Children of a Dead Earth is pretty damn cool. It's based all on actual scientific papers exploring the possibilities of these different technologies, so only things with proven science. Orbital mechanics and drones and battleships that look like cigars. Even just reading the developers developers blogs are pretty sweet

[ngilop]

I have a vastly different opinion of Halo's campaign, mostly considering it was literally only half a game that you just played in reverse once you hit the end. The later Halo games had a bit more of a campaign, though I have no idea how anybody could spend more than a couple of hours on any of them ( I'm cutting out cutscene time since it is not actualy playable campaign time; if you add cutscenes that is like what another 45 minutes?)


I can say while it is not a FPS, Anthem looks to be a very interesting game coming out, depending on if it is going to be pay for the game or subscription based.

There are a ton of 'sci-fi horror' games coming out but that is something I am 100% not interested in at all.

[Driderman]

How about Immortal: Unchained?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/369440/Immortal_Unchained/

[ngilop]

How about Immortal: Unchained?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/369440/Immortal_Unchained/

No, dark souls: In SPAAACE! is not something I am interested in. personally I do not see the interest that dark souls gathered and all the dark soul clone that have spawned in the last few years. Just not a game style I am interested in.

[BeerMug Paladin]

Not sure it exactly fits, and it's not exactly low-profile, but Metroid Prime 4 is apparently going to be a thing..?

[Kane]

Stellaris has an overhaul patch slated.
Battlefleet: Gothic: Armada: 2: The Colon: The Revenge of the Colon is slated for later this year.
Prey 2017 isn't upcoming, but I thought it was a superb System Shock remake.
Age of Wonders devs have announced Age of Wonders: Planetfall, which seems like it will be a scifi version of AoW but possibly still using ballistic weapons, oh well.

Edit:
OH, and I do myself a disservice; Subnautica was the best game I have played in the past year or three, and while it's already out, the devs are making an expansion of some sort for it.

[The_Snark]

OH, and I do myself a disservice; Subnautica was the best game I have played in the past year or three, and while it's already out, the devs are making an expansion of some sort for it.

Subnautica was beautiful, I had a lot of fun with it. It is decidedly not a FPS game, though, and while there's technically combat the gameplay strongly discourages it& - it's a first-person survival/exploration game. If that sounds potentially interesting I definitely second the recommendation.

*probably because picking a fight with an shark is a pretty dumb thing for a castaway to do

[deuterio12]

Subnautica was beautiful, I had a lot of fun with it. It is decidedly not a FPS game, though, and while there's technically combat the gameplay strongly discourages it& - it's a first-person survival/exploration game. If that sounds potentially interesting I definitely second the recommendation.

*probably because picking a fight with an shark is a pretty dumb thing for a castaway to do

Bonus points because you can customize the survival needs so if you think the game's too harsh in some aspect you can fit it to your preferences and better enjoy the underwater world.

[Psyren]

I'm (very, very) cautiously optimistic for Anthem. It will either be Bioware's roaring comeback, or the final nail in their coffin.

@OP: If you want to avoid a lot of confusion and arguing over what constitutes sci-fi, just pick the degree on the Scale that you're looking for (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness) and we can all calibrate accordingly.

[ngilop]

the scale is kinda difficult for me to determine because 1) I have no idea what most of those examples are like 2) id rather soft sci fi than hard because I want to play a game and be entertained NOT be like OH well that totally follows the 3rd law of thermodynamics.

I hesitiantly say level 3: Physics Plus. I kinda want to already know a base ground of how things works from my own experiences But it needs to have some aspects that while our current science says is impossible, totally is in the game and is treated consistently through the entire works

I guess kinda like the Starship Troopers novel, but, they have lazers and photon cannons instead of freggin M-16s...