Melee weapons in shooters

In the past, melee weapons, like swords, clubs, axes and so on were a surprisingly common type of weapon in "Shooter" games either First Person or Third Person. Lately though, they seem to be less common.

My purpose for this thread is thus: Try to discuss why melee weapons have become less common, highlight a few examples of melee weapons in shooters that stood out as either better or worse than the pack, and try to figure out new ways of implementing melee weapons in shooters that haven't quite been figured out before.

...I don't actually know how or where to start this off other than that though.

We have quite a few First Person Slashers now that aren't Dark Messiah or Elder Scrolls. Things like War of the Roses, Chivalry and War of the Vikings are known for having melee weapons that are vastly more effective than any of their ranged options befitting the medieval setting.

There are also some melee heavy old FPS that are being remade, such as Rise of the Triad and Shadow Warrior.

Melee weapons in Warframe are extremely effective. In fact, they were considered more effective than the various space guns until more powerful firearms were introduced in recent updates. Now they're only ineffective when enemies are poisonous and you don't want to get close. For a time there were also more melee weapons than there were guns and I believe the count evened out only recently.

Team Fortress 2's Demo Knight also really stands out for obvious reasons.

Actually, why the notion that melee weapons have become less common? Virtually every FPS nowadays has a melee weapon that can kill in fewer hits than the strongest sidearms - usually just one hit. Maybe it's just that players don't use them as much due to notions of them requiring less skill or the fact that they're, well, limited to arm's length versus the tens of meters or more range of even the worst videogame guns.

edited 27th Aug '13 4:54:39 AM by Recon5

Generally, I think melee in shooters works a lot better in TPS than FPS. A good example, I think, is in the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer, where every class has a melee combo and heavy melee, and a few are designed entirely around it. By contrast, melee in FPS tends to feel very floaty and uninteresting for me.

If a spunkgargleweewee game like Modern Warfare 3 or Battlefield 3 doesn't have a melee weapon option it further removes it from reality. Every infantry soldier with the capability to carry it on his rifle has a bayonet, the classic infantry melee weapon. Even if it is a piece of shit like the one used on the SA 80. Reason? Bayonets don't run out of bullets and even if the thing has a habit of snapping, like the one used on the SA 80, you can still stab some bastard with the broken bits.

Some armies train their troops to use spades or shovels as melee weapons as well.

Melee weapons/options are still there. Co D has you using a combat knife. Halo has the general melee attack, plus the Energy Sword and Gravity Hammer.

Thats actually a good idea. Make 1 hit kill melee a separate weapon that you have to draw unless you sacrifice a perk slot or an attachment to be able to use instant attacks.

(and bring back the 2 hit kill bash)

edited 27th Aug '13 8:24:40 AM by Canid117

I see soldier and shovel in the same sentence and think of Team Fortress 2.

Generally, if we're talking about first-person games, it's not easy to simulate swinging around a melee weapon without moving the camera all over the place and making the player either dizzy or unable to see a damn thing. So instead they usually have the more limiting option from games like the Elder Scrolls series - you can only swing forward. And that's not very satisfying or realistic-looking as moving your whole body around. That's probably why a lot of first-person games don't use melee weapons. Serious Sam 3 has a sledgehammer, and every time you swung, the camera spins a little bit. Hell, there's even a 360-degree attack, which actually makes you turn 360 degrees.

As for third-person, aside from games that do it well like Warframe, I only assume that since the primary focus of most games is, well, shooting, they don't really focus on melee combat that much.

You maaaaaaaaaaay want to try Chivalry Medieval Warfare if you're wondering about newfangled melee in FPSes.

theres a reason a shovel is one of his weapons

they really do that.

I absolutely love melee combat. Just as much as I love shooting. Combined they become more than the sum of their parts.

Warhammer 40000 Space Marine is one game that mixed hack'n'slash with run'n'gun really well. Nothing really more to say about it other than the fact that it did what it set out to do pretty perfectly. In order to win you need to master both the art of the headshot and your average Dynasty Warriors esque combo performances.

Thing is I don't really consider some of the games being brought up here as having "Melee combat". Melee weapons sure, but not melee combat. If a sword is swung in an FPS exactly like a pistol is shot then they are basically just really short-range guns. Team Fortress is exactly what I'm talking about in this regard, as well as Call Of Duty's knifestabs. They're not a separate mechanic and they require the same basic skillset.

Doing Melee combat properly with a mouse and keyboard, with combo strings and heavy attacks and the like, is a bit more difficult. It's why I laugh when people say the Mouse is superior to the controller. Sure, it's better at aiming. And since so many games focus on nothing more than getting someone on the other end of your scope and nothing more I can see where that mindset comes up from. But switching instantly from spraying machinegun fire into a mob of monsters to swinging a battleaxe to and fro properly is something I think controllers have already mastered and the mouse has not.

It can be done of course. Warframe is proof enough of that. The Keyboard and Mouse just largely lacks predecessors in the Beat 'em Up genre to build off of. There's never been a "Hey guys this is how you do melee with a mouse" game. A few of them like Vindictus exist but they're not enormously influential like Devil May Cry was.

I remember when FPS games largely did NOT have a melee weapon. Then came Halo and the genre changed forever. Now it's nigh-impossible to find a shooter that doesn't have melee in one way or another.

Even Doom had fists and a chainsaw... it's hardly a new idea.

FP Ss have always had melee, ever since Wolfenstein.

I once thought you could get a sword in that game. ^_^;;

@Shirow: Hence, the gap between FPS and TPS in that aspect. Warframe, ME 3, Vanquish, Uncharted, they all do things that an FPS couldn't.

Yup yup. Mass Effect in particular has the "Holy trinity" of action game attacks; Guns, melee and magic spells "Special abilities". That'll be the new standard in years to come I assure you. Right now Guns are #1, Melee is closing the gap since its glory days and Magic spells are mostly off the radar.

Powers are half the fun. I couldn't believe how dull COD was after spending a while playing ME.

FPS games always had melee, but there may have been a point in time when melee switched from Emergency Weapon to "über weapon at close range".

Yeah, when you found the Chainsaw.

@Shirow Shirow: I'd disagree with you on the mouse-based games not having melee combat. Die by the Sword even made it extremely free-form. Other than that game, I can think of very few FPS or TPS games on the PC or video game consoles which really handle melee combat as anything other than "Push button A to swing your sword. Push button B to block". Video Game/Oni perhaps. Mirror's Edge and First Encounter Assault Recon‎ had a few more options, but it still came down to basically spamming the attack button rather than any meaningful ebb and flow of combat.