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Dueling Works / First-Person and Third-Person Shooters

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Dueling Works — Video Games
Shooters | Fighting | Pinball | Platform | Racing | Eastern RPG | Sandbox | Cross-Genre

  • Initiators / Followers
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Description
    • Implementation: Implementation
  • MechWarrior series (1989) / Earthsiege series / Starsiege (1994)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Mecha-based combat simulator games set in a futuristic sci-fi universe.
    • Implementation: Several games in these series competed directly. Earthsiege 2 with Mech Warrior 2, as well as Starsiege and Mech Warrior 3.
  • MechWarrior series (1989) / Heavy Gear series (1997)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Mecha-based combat simulator games set in a futuristic sci-fi universe, based off of popular tabletop games. Mechwarrior is based off the BattleTech game, while Heavy Gear is based of the tabletop game of the same name.
    • Implementation: These two games were backed by a lot of story, a consequence of their origin as popular competing tabletop wargames. Both Mech Warrior 2 and Heavy Gear were developed by Activision, with Heavy Gear being made after Activision lost the Mech Warrior license.
  • Wolfenstein 3-D (1992) / Pathways into Darkness (1994)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Early first person shooters.
    • Implementation: Wolfenstein was made by id Software, who would later make Doom. The story involves a soldier shooting Nazis in a German castle. Pathways was made by Bungie, who would later make Halo. It is set in a strange alien pyramid filled with monsters. Pathways also has a more involved plot.
  • Doom (1993) / Marathon (1994)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Sci-fi first person shooters set in space.
    • Implementation: Doom was made by ID Software, and was initially released for the PC. It tells the story of a Space Marine who fights demons on the Martian moon of Phobos, before going into hell itself. Marathon was made for the Mac by Bungie, who would later make Halo. It tells the story of a security officer aboard the titular Marathon as he repels an alien invasion. Marathon also has a much more complex story.
  • Kileak The Blood (1995) / Robotica (1995)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Japanese First-Person Shooters starring mecha. The plot of both games center around the survivor of a strike-force team exploring the hallways of a hostile complex swarming with Mecha-Mooks.
    • Implementation: Both games were released within two months of each other on rival consoles, Kileak on the Playstation, Robotica on the Saturn. This is a race race of a company dueling itself as both games were made by Genki for different publishers and shared staff, although Genki's name was omitted from Robotica's credits and packaging.
  • Twisted Metal (1995) / Vigilante 8 (1998) & Rogue Trip (1998)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Character-driven vehicular deathmatch.
    • Implementation: Twisted Metal was the original Playstation 1 car combat game and its sequel, Twisted Metal 2: World Tour was an early blockbuster. The awful 3rd game in the series was pounced on by the more realistic, '70s-styled Vigilante 8 and the underpromoted Rogue Trip; the clear winner was Vigilante 8, but then that series proceeded to release their own flop sequel, V8: Second Offense whose scavenger hunt missions doomed the franchise.
  • Duke Nukem 3D (1996) / Serious Sam (2001)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Over-the-top first person shooters with a one-liner-spewing macho protagonist fighting off an alien invasion.
    • Implementation: Duke Nukem had two sidescroling platform games before becoming a first person shooter with Duke Nukem 3D in 1996. Serious Sam was inspired by and originally based off Duke himself, but his games would include many Take Thats towards Duke, particularly the long-in-development Duke Nukem Forever. Serious Sam's gameplay also involves traversing ancient civilizations (First and Second Encounter) and alien planets (2), whereas Duke Nukem has been primarily about aliens attacking modern-day locations.
  • Nanotek Warrior (1997) / N2O: Nitrous Oxide (1998)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Trippy tube shooters released exclusively on the Playstation.
    • Implementation: Nanotek Warrior place an emphasis on avoiding obstacles and gives the player craft more mobility. N2O is more about Scoring Points and has really trippy visuals.
  • Half-Life (1998) / SiN (1998) & Blood II: The Chosen (1998)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Narrative driven Sci-Fi First-Person Shooters pushing the boundaries of then-current technology and rendering realistic environments.
    • Implementation: SiN and Half-Life were new IPs built on different versions of the iD Tech engine, while Blood II was a sequel built on Monolith Productions' proprietary Lithtech 1.0 engine. Tonally, SiN and Blood II were darkly humorous and over-the-top, with talkative protagonists in the vein of Duke Nukem. SiN had more of a hard, realistic sci-fi angle, while Blood II took a Science Fantasy approach. Half-Life, in turn, was more grounded, serious, and atmospheric, with a protagonist who never uttered a word. All three games were released within a three week span, with Half-Life interestingly coming out only a single day before Blood II. As for the outcomes of said games, Half-Life is a regular contender for best game/best FPS of all time, while SiN's Obvious Beta netted a lot of criticism and Blood II was widely panned as well. However, in the long run, the Half-Life series suffered from a scarcity of games (a product of Tough Act to Follow and Steam taking over as Valve's main project), Ritual Entertainment made another sequel for SiN before being bought out and absorbed by MumboJumbo as a result of a Quake IV Mission-Pack Sequel getting canned, and Monolith, despite not releasing any new title under the Blood banner, not only still exists but still makes games.
  • Unreal Tournament (1999) / Quake III: Arena (1999)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Game Mod-friendly, multiplayer-only First-Person Shooters showcasing a shiny new game engine.
    • Implementation: Unreal Tournament was based on a somewhat newer engine (albeit technically an incremental update of the original Unreal engine that debuted the year before), and was lauded for its creative and interesting game design; Quake 3 came out two days later, with a simpler design and somewhat more Hard Core gameplay. Both games were highly commercially successful, with Unreal Tournament outselling its competitor by a slight margin.
  • War: Final Assault (1999) / Outtrigger (1999)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Arena deathmatch-style first person shooters made for arcades.
    • Implementation: War: Final Assault was made by Atari, while Outtrigger was made by Sega (and thus a rare example of a first person shooter made in Japan). Both games had a counter-terrorist theme, but War had a more gritty sci-fi flavor to it (and notably featured guest characters from Mace: The Dark Age). Outtrigger was also ported to the Dreamcast while War remained arcade-only, though a Nintendo 64 port was in development at one point.
  • Counter-Strike (1999) / Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror (1999)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Asymmetrical team-based multiplayer first person shooters with a terrorist/counter-terrorist-theme originating as mods before getting picked up by a publisher and released as commercial products.
    • Implementation: Counter-Strike originated as a mod for Half-Life whereas Tactical Ops started out as a mod for Unreal Tournament (under the name SWAT). Both were very similar in terms of gameplay, but Tactical Ops had (even) less focus on realism with quicker player movement and rewarding twitch reflexes over precision.
  • Medal of Honor series (1999) / Call of Duty series (2003) & Battlefield series (2003)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Long running FPS series that began with games set during WWII.
    • Implementation: Before going multi-platform, Medal of Honor started on the PlayStation, while Call of Duty and Battlefield were first released years later on PC. Also, Medal of Honor games typically focus on a single American protagonist and feature traditional "lone wolf"-style gameplay. Call of Duty games are played from the perspective of multiple soldiers of varying nationalities and had a heavy emphasis on squad combat, while Battlefield games in general have larger scale multiplayer experiences with more players at once. Incidentally, Call of Duty was initially created by a developer team made up of several former employees of 2015, Inc., who had just worked on Medal of Honor: Allied Assault.
  • System Shock 2 (1999) / Deus Ex (2000)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Both are Cyberpunk themed First Person Shooters with RPG Elements.
    • Implementation: Both games are Spiritual Successors to the original 1994 System Shock, and share developers in common with it (System Shock 2 was made by the original studio, Looking Glass Studios, with assistance from Irrational Games, though many of the key people behind the first System Shock had since moved to Deus Ex's developer, the Austin branch of Ion Storm). Both share a major element in human beings being augmented by way of nanotech enhancements, though both take these in different directions: System Shock 2 is more pure science-fiction, set almost entirely on one of two spaceships and with its enhancements including sci-fi-flavored versions of magic spells, compared to Deus Ex having a more grounded story, set on Earth 20 Minutes into the Future and with most enhancements simply augmenting what a regular human can already do.
  • Twisted Metal Black (2001) / Motor Mayhem (2001)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Competitive Vehicular Combat games exclusive to the Playstation 2. They were released the same month.
    • Implementation: Black was very much Darker and Edgier than its predecessors, while Motor Mayhem had silly characters, a bright color scheme and outlandish locals.
  • Serious Sam (2001) / Will Rock (2003)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Budget-priced throwbacks to old-school First-Person Shooter featuring unrelenting hordes of strange enemies. Both have an ancient civilization theme.
    • Implementation: Serious Sam is set in ancient Egypt (and several other places in The Second Encounter) while Will Rock is inspired by Greek mythology.
  • Halo (2001) / Killzone (2004)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Futuristic, "hard Sci-Fi" first-person-shooters which cast the player as a member of the military of a NATO-esque Earth Federation battling an invasion by a powerful, technologically advanced totalitarian foreign military power. Both are probably the definitive exclusive FPS for their respective console (Xbox 360 for Halo, PS3 for Killzone.
    • Implementation: Halo is an overall more colorful and fantasy-like game that casts the player in the role of an elite Super-Soldier, and the gameplay is more run-and-gun. Killzone, in contrast, has a grittier, more low-tech setting and casts the player as an ordinary grunt in the Federation army. Gameplay is somewhat more tactical, and cover-based combat plays heavily in the later games in the series. Notably, Killzone was marketed as a "Halo-killer" for the PS2 by Sony (much to the chagrin of the actual developers, who never intended for the comparison to be made).
  • Enter the Matrix (2003) / Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (2003)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Third-person action titles revolving around Bullet Time gunfights and complex narratives in Film Noir-inspired city settings.
    • Implementation: Both were ambitious in goals: Max Payne 2 focused on cutting-edge graphics and dark storytelling. Enter The Matrix worked alongside the cast and crew of The Matrix Reloaded and had the story written by The Wachowskis themselves to directly tie into the then-upcoming film. The first Max Payne was seen as a Spiritual Licensee of The Matrix due to successfully adapting the film's slow-motion gunplay.
  • Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy (2004) / Second Sight (2004)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Third-person action titles where the main character is an amnesiac with incredible Psychic Powers, trying to unravel a conspiracy.
    • Implementation: Both have third-person shooter qualities, though Psi-Ops maintains this in its entire control scheme. Notably, Second Sight has more focus on story/adventure elements, while Psi-Ops has a more hardcore, straight-up military shooter feel.
  • Doom³ (2004) / Half-Life 2 (2004)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Long-awaited new installments of beloved FPS series, both of which pushed graphics technology of the time to its limits.
    • Implementation: Half-Life 2 should have pre-dated Doom 3 by nearly a year, but developmental delays compounded by the source code being stolen and leaked onto the internet pushed it back until a couple of months after Doom 3 was released.
  • Red Dead Revolver (2004) / GUN (2005)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Third person shooters set in The Wild West with some aspects of an open world.
    • Implementation: GUN's world was the more open-ended of the two, with more in the way of sidequests and the like. Red Dead Revolver started life as a Spiritual Successor to Gunsmoke, but Capcom sold the rights to Rockstar part-way through development. Rockstar would then continue to use the liscence with Red Dead Redemption.
  • Rengoku: Tower of Purgatory (2005) / Coded Arms (2005)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Japanese-developed shooters with dungeon crawling gameplay. Both games were published by Konami and followed similar trajectories (Two PSP installments released in the 2005-07 range followed by a cancelled Playstation 3 sequel).
    • Implementation: Coded Arms is first-person and its main gameplay feature was the usage of proceduraly-generated level design. Rengoku is third-person, features a greater focus on Character Customization and had fixed levels with randomly-generated enemies. While Rengoku II: Stairway to H.E.A.V.E.N followed a similar design, Coded Arms Contagion was much more linear and dropped most of the RPG elements.
  • Gears of War (2006) / Resistance (2006)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: First-party shooting game where the protagonists fight to defend what remains of a mankind ravaged by a Badass Army of monsters, and with very depressing settings if one really thinks about it.
    • Implementation: Both games were first released in the same week, as well as being the first major exclusive shooter for their respective system (Xbox 360 for Gears of War, PS3 for Resistance).
  • Gears of War (2006) / Halo 3 (2007) & Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2007)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Games more known for their multiplayer, at least now.
    • Implementation: People knew that a followup to the infamous ending Halo 2 had would bring about a sequel, which gave the then-upcoming Xbox 360 a massive boost in sales. But biding time between that and Halo 3 was Gears of War. It had surprisingly good multiplayer. Of course, once Halo 3 did come out, it was the multiplayer FPS genre king until a sleeper hit out of what appeared to be a dying World War II series was released: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
  • Unreal Tournament III (2007) / Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (2007)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: The latest iterations of the multiplayer-focused FPS franchises.
    • Implementation: Both introduced major new technologies for each series; the Unreal Engine 3 for UT3,note  and MegaTexturing for ET:QW.
  • Crysis (2007) / Far Cry 2 (2008)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Spiritual Successors to the original Far Cry.
    • Implementation: Both games came about after the first Far Cry's developers (Crytek) and publishers (Ubisoft) split ways; Crytek kept the engine and made Crysis, whereas Ubisoft kept the name and made Far Cry 2.
  • Kane & Lynch (2007) / Army of Two (2008)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Gritty, co-op centric Third-Person Shooter cashing in on Gears of War. The sequel of both centers around the protagonists trying to escape Shangai after a job goes south.
    • Implementation: The protagonists of Kane adnd Lynch are two criminals escaping from prison. Army of Two is about a pair of mercenaries sent into war zones to carry out special operations. Kane and Lynch is more gritty and serious while Army of Two is more humourous and over-the-top.
  • Team Fortress 2 (2007) / Battlefield Heroes (2009)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Team-based multiplayer-only shooters with a bright, cartoony aesthetic and a shifting pricing model.
    • Implementation: Team Fortress 2 started out as a regular commercial retail product, but later switched to free-to-play and financing itself through purchase of cosmetic character items. Battlefield Heroes went the opposite direction and started out completely free to play, financing itself through advertisements and purchase of cosmetic character items, but later revamped. Though nominally still free, a much greater emphasis was put on microtransactions, not only for cosmetic items but also for gameplay advantages, making some deride it as a "pay-to-win" title.
  • Team Fortress 2 (2007) / Overwatch (2016)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Team-based, objective-contesting FPS where characters tend to be more unique and colorful than other shooters. In other words, Hero Shooter.
    • Implementation: Overwatch is a commercial game like TF2 started out; you have to pay to play it. However, their heroes are all obviously unique and colorful, and the roster continues to expand. Both are dubbed 'Hero Shooters', much like Blizzard trying to bill their MOBA as a "Hero Brawler", thus each character possesses unique skills similar to MOBA characters. Team Fortress 2 is a veteran title, having been out for nearly nine years by the time Overwatch launched. Their all-male class-based roster will not expand in size and lack flashy MOBA-like "Ultimate" abilities that Overwatch has, but rather have unique skills primarily based on the class's existing speed, health, and their weapons, leaving it up to just you and your marksmanship provided by the class' weaponry alone. Despite only coming in RED or BLU uniforms, each class is already very unique on their own, and most importantly... it's free to play (though it used to be a regular commercial title).
  • The Club (2008) / 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand (2009)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Third person shooters that in equal parts ride the wave of post-Gears of War cover shooters while attempting to break from the mold with Stylish Action inspired scoring systems that encourage stylish, aggressive play.
    • Implementation: The Club comes from acclaimed Project Gotham Racing developer Bizzare Creations and sold itself on bringing that games' ethos to the the shooter genre. Blood on The Sand comes from relative unknowns Swordfish Studio and follows up the critically panned, yet commercially successful 50 Cent: Bulletproof. The Club partially shares the name of the G-Unit leader's biggest hit, while Blood on The Sand stars him.
  • ARMA II (2009) / Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising (2009)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Large scale, realistic Wide-Open Sandbox first person shooters. Sequels to Operation Flashpoint.
    • Implementation: The developer and publisher split up after the original Operation Flashpoint, with the developer keeping the engine and making the Arma series, and the publisher keeping the name and making Dragon Rising. Arma had already seen a first release in 2006 before Codemasters created their own Operation Flashpoint followup.
  • Borderlands (2009) / Rage (2011)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Shooting game with RPG elements in a barren, Crapsack World.
    • Implementation: Borderlands has a more humorous tone and cartoonish graphics while Rage takes a realistic "no-nonsense" approach. Like Saints Row, Borderlands was designed to take advantage in the lull between Call of Duty releases and get sales from impatient players.
  • Far Cry 3 (2012) / Crysis 3 (2013)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: The sequels to the Spiritual Successors to the original Far Cry.
    • Implementation: By 2012, the three-quels to both series were announced. Still produced by the original developers of Far Cry, Crysis 3 builds up on the decisive turn to the sci-fi genre made by Crysis 2. By then, the first Crysis was ported to seventh-gen consoles, allowing EA to make more sales from Crytek's IP. Ubisoft Montreal (producers of Far Cry 3), on the other hand, returned to the island roots of the series and focused their story on insanity.
  • War of the Roses (2012) / Chivalry: Medieval Warfare (2013)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Arena combat games set in the Middle Ages, where players run around with various flavors of medieval weaponry.
    • Implementation: Chivalry was revealed first, but beaten to market by Roses. Chivalry was also made by the creators of a popular Half-Life 2 mod and is considered more "gamey," while Roses' developers focused heavily on historical accuracy in their game. Chivalry is played in the first-person while Roses is played in the third-person.
  • Destiny (2014) / Anthem (2019)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: New MMO Looter Shooter IPs from renowned studios.
    • Implementation: Both are open-ended, "Games as Service," always-online titles from studios that are famous for "games as product" boxed titles — ones which, it might be added, revolutionized their genres (Bungie for the Halo first-person shooters, BioWare for the Dragon Age and Mass Effect RPGs). Both were ambitious attempts to, once again, re-define genre, only to run against technical and design limitations; both had to be rebooted late in the launch process, according to Kotaku (Destiny, Anthem. Both were created at least partially under the supervision of (what audiences perceived to be) money-grubbing executives at larger companies (Activision, EA Games), with gamers both deriding the resultant decisions and expressing concern that the games themselves would be Creator Killers. Both titles were the lowest-rated games ever released by either studio.
  • Ships That Fight Underground (2015) / Overload (2018)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Kickstarter-backed 6DOF first-person shooters with gameplay inspired by Descent.
    • Implementation: Ships That Fight Underground, previously also known as Descent: Underground and Descent, runs on Unreal Engine, and is made by a group of developers who worked on Star Citizen and had Interplay's blessing to use the Descent license before forfeiting it in a lawsuit filed against them by their publisher. Overload runs on Unity and is developed and self-published by several former employees of Parallax Software, the developers of the original Descent games.
  • Battleborn (2016) / Overwatch (2016)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Team-based multiplayer Hero Shooters with cartoon-esque visuals.
    • Implementation: Battleborn was announced by Gearbox Software in July 2014 as the first new IP since 2009's Borderlands and they considered it "the most ambitious video game Gearbox has ever created". Overwatch was announced by Blizzard Entertainment in November that same year as the first new IP in seventeen years (early 1998's StarCraft). Both games have MOBA influences, but Battleborn is much more prominent with the MOBA aspect, while Overwatch gears more towards the 'shooter' part. Both were released in May 2016, and were in direct competition with each other.
  • Overwatch (2016) / Paladins (2016)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Team-based multiplayer Hero Shooters with cartoon-esque visuals. Both games involve four roles, special abilities, and an Ultimate.
    • Implementation: Paladins was announced in 2015 by Hi-Rez Studios nearly a year after Overwatch was announced. While Overwatch takes place in a future influenced by science-fiction and comic books, Paladins is set in a Constructed World of science-fantasy, displaying both high tech gear and weapons alongside magic. Overwatch features six-vs-six battles with the ability to switch characters on the fly and no gameplay modifiers, while Paladins is five-vs-five with no switching and a loadout system. Overwatch is buy-to-play, while Paladins is free-to-play.
  • Overwatch (2016) / LawBreakers (2017)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Team-based multiplayer Hero Shooters set in the future. Both games involve special abilities and an Ultimate.
    • Implementation: Overwatch is influenced visually by Pixar, while LawBreakers aims for a more realistic look. LawBreakers is far more focused on mobility than Overwatch, with every character having a mobile ability. Also, LawBreakers is far gorier and more profane than Overwatch. Lead designer Cliff Bleszinski was specifically influenced by Overwatch when creating LawBreakers. Currently, there is no Xbox One version of LawBreakers planned, but the game launched at only $30.
  • Reflex Arena (2017note ) / Unreal Tournament 4 (2017)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: The arena shooter wars continue.
    • Implementation: Both are revivals of the arena-FPS genre after the slump it experienced late in the Turn of the Millennium. Unreal Tournament 4 is the next installment in its series, with Epic Games heavily consulting its community to create a new Unreal Tournament that satisfies the series' Broken Base. Reflex, on the other hand, is an indie Spiritual Successor to Quake 3 Arena created by the developers of the acclaimed Quake 3 ProMod that aims to keep Quake 3's competitive focus while updating the game with modern competitive features like skill based matchmaking similar to Starcraft 2.
  • Player Unknowns Battlegrounds (2017) / Fortnite (2017)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Trailblazers in the "Battle Royale" genre, both of which got early-access releases in early-mid 2017, and fuller releases near the end of the year.
    • Implementation: Fortnite is free-to-play and the Battle Royale mode is effectively a More Popular Spin Off of "Save the World", a mode which was originally intended to be the main attraction. Furthermore, PUBG has a realistic style while Fortnite is more cartoony.
  • Splatoon 2 (2017) / Fortnite (2017)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Colourful and comedic third-person shooters that throw the genre's standard rules out the window by emphasizing mechanics outside shooting, those being inking territory and crafting/construction, respectively.
    • Implementation: Fortnite, or rather the "Battle Royale" mode that the game is best known for, is free-to-play, whereas Splatoon 2 is a full price retail game. While both have a single-player mode, Splatoon 2's is well-liked by the community and would get an additional DLC campaign, while Fortnite: Battle Royale would quickly come to overshadow the original "Save the World" single-player mode so much that Epic separated them into two different games, with the single-player mode never seeing release on the Switch or mobile platforms. Speaking of, as a first-party Nintendo game, Splatoon 2 is exclusive to the Switch, while Fortnite is a multiplatform title.
  • Destiny 2 (2017) / Warframe (2013) & Anthem (2019) & The Division 2 (2019) & Ghost Recon Breakpoint (2019) & Borderlands 3 (2019)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Battle of the Looter Shooters.
    • Implementation: A case of Follow the Leader ignited by the success of Borderlands 2 and Destiny, along with the general trend of live-service models for online games. Warframe, The Division 2, Ghost Recon Breakpoint and Anthem use the third-person perspective, while Destiny 2 and Borderlands 3 use the first-person perspective. Warframe is distinct for being a free-to-play game, while the others are full priced retail games. Destiny 2did go Free to Play in 2019, strippng Warframe of this unique trait.
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops 4: Blackout (2018) / Apex Legends (2019) & Battlefield V: Firestorm (2019)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Triple-A first-person Battle Royale shooters inspired by PUBG.
    • Implementation: Apex Legends is a free-to-play spin-off set in the Titanfall universe and plays like a Hero Shooter, with each Legend having their own unique abilities. Blackout and Firestorm are more grounded installments that are locked behind a full-price purchase of their respective games. Furthermore, each game carried signature elements from their parent franchises such as advanced movement in Apex Legends, perks in Blackout and destructible environments in Firestorm.
  • Far Cry: New Dawn (2019) / Rage 2 (2019)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Wide-Open Sandbox first-person shooters with colorful post-apocalyptic themes. Both games released within three months of each other, with New Dawn releasing first.
    • Implementation: New Dawn is effectively a standalone expansion that directly continues the story of Far Cry 5, making a number of gameplay changes that introduce role-playing mechanics inspired by Ubisoft's The Division and Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. Rage 2 is a full sequel with a plot line that has no connection to the first game, and makes its own drastic gameplay changes inspired by Doom (2016) and Wolfenstein: The New Order. New Dawn was sold for $40 USD, while Rage 2 was a full $60 USD.
  • Valorant (2020) / Rogue Company (2020)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Objective-based tactical Hero Shooters inspired by Counter-Strike.
    • Implementation: Valorant has a first-person perspective and cartoony art style. Rogue Company has a third-person perspective and a more grounded look. Their respective developers, Riot Games and Hi-Rez Studios, previously competed in the MOBA genre with League of Legends and Smite.
  • Paladins (2016) / Overwatch 2 (2022)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Free-to-play Hero Shooters with teams of 5 characters who fulfill offensive, defensive, and supportive roles by using abilities, most of which are limited by cooldowns, and have a powerful Ultimate ability that can turn the tide of a battle.
    • Implementation: Apart from the differences that were carried over from the previous example between the first Overwatch and Paladins, such as Overwatch allowing switching characters mid-match and Paladins having customizable loadouts, Paladins is an older game that has been receiving updates for 6 years and has been free-to-play from the start, while Overwatch 2 is a replacement for its predecessor, which was buy-to-play.
  • Apex Legends (2019) / Valorant (2020) / Overwatch 2 (2022)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Sci-fi, team-centric free-to-play Hero Shooters with characters who have unique abilities including a powerful Ultimate ability that can turn the tide of a battle. All three titles have major overlapping presence in competitive eSports with many professional gamers having played all three games.
    • Implementation: Aside from having unique heroes, each game represents a different genre. Apex Legends is Battle Royale game in which 20 teams of 3 players fight to become the last team alive. Valorant is a 5v5 objective-based tactical shooter similar to Counter-Strike. Overwatch 2 is a 5v5 shooter inspired by Team Fortress 2 and replaces its predecessor, which was buy-to-play.

Alternative Title(s): First Person And Third Person Shooters

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