Where Did FPS Shields Go?
Sometimes, the most fun in FPS games comes from…well, not shooting. Overwatch and the new wave of class-based shooters have reminded a lot of gamers of this fact, with many gunless characters employing melee weapons and shields alongside tracking beam-style weapons. Today, FPS shields are the thing we’re going to pay attention to. Specifically: why don’t we see traditional shields in FPS games? We see swords (a la Destiny), tomahawks, chainsaws attached to the front of our guns…but we don’t really see many shields?
Why do we only see them nowadays in these classic shooters, where the entire game can revolve around their existence? Why don’t we see any more riot shields in the realistic games, or shield off-hands in the more sci-fi shooters? What happened to seeing them as just cool equipment like in the original Counter Strike?
It’s worth exploring the iconic examples of FPS shields in games so we can have a better understanding of why they appear when they do, and why they’re sometimes absent.
One of the most famous (or infamous) examples of FPS shields are the earlier entries of Call of Duty. Players might fondly remember the Riot Shield, which is a weapon that took the primary slot, meaning you couldn’t use the way-more-useful sniper rifles, SMGs, or assault rifles.
However, the riot shield was really fun in its own right; you would not take any damage, recoil, knockback, or anything on any bullet that hit the riot shield’s hitbox. If you crouched and looked a little bit down (so that your feet were hidden), you were completely covered and could not be killed so long as you were looking at someone. From there, two melee attacks (because you used the shield, not a knife) were enough to kill any target.
Coupled with equipment like the throwing knife, which you could “aim” before throwing just by looking at someone through your shield, or the blast guard, which reduced explosive damage and made you more of a tank, you could be a force to be reckoned with in random matchmade games…so long as no one snuck up on you while you were crawling around the map like a turtle.
It’s fun, but in most games, it just isn’t practical. For those playing against it, it warped the way they would play the game if there was a riot shield on the other team, which made the match a lot less fun unless you were the dude beating down snipers with a big slab of plastic. Developers try to avoid this “zero sum” style of design, where one person gets to have “all” the fun.
Besides, if the shield was good enough for everyone to use, why would you use anything else? An example of this is the frying pan in PUBG. For those that don’t know, having the frying pan as a melee weapon but using another weapon will “sheath” the frying pan on your back, which can potentially block bullets shot from behind. If shields were good enough to block damage reliably and still allowed you to kill your opponent consistently, wouldn’t everyone be using them all the time?
From a different balance of perspectives, shields represent something in game design often called “parasitism.” Parasitic mechanics and features can be described as “needing others to exist,” and are therefore too self-contained to be fun.
It makes total sense in games like Overwatch and other character-based shooters because the developers are aware that shields are a core protective mechanic of the game; teams are almost “required” to have some combination of Reinhardt, Winston, Orisa, or Brigitte to protect the squishier characters. The game is developed with them in mind, and other shooters generally aren’t; you can’t just put a Reinhardt-style loadout in Halo and expect things to be normal like they are in Overwatch.
They do tend to make more sense in an RPG environment–players are more likely to want to play the role of “tank,” and holding a shield in their off-hand can provide static effects like a flat damage reduction or play a role in melee abilities. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel comes to mind. Can we translate that sort of thing to a modern setting?
It’s possible we might see a comeback of FPS shields, but it would require a shift towards more equipment-based loadouts and experimental design beyond just different kinds of guns. Maybe it would take CS:GO getting dethroned as the most popular “realistic” eSports shooter, or maybe it would take a new franchise getting wildly popular to give other developers the idea. Either way, it would be cool to see the course of FPS games change.
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