Tactical shooter
[1][2][3] These games and (often) mods enhance the genre's realism to include aspects such as individual limb damage, realistic multi-step injury treatment, enhanced ballistic and ricochet simulations, weapon wear and malfunctions, detailed vehicle damage and repairs, and lengthy trips to the area of operations, to authentically simulate military procedure.
In these games, making decisive pushes, quick moves for cover, strategic retreats, and last ditch grabs at the gold are not only important to success, but balanced in such a way that they become enjoyable activities in play.
Basically, you usually move slower than most shooters, your accuracy is much lower and bullets drop over a distance, you usually have a squad to command, and all of you only being able to take two or three shots before dying.
To account for this, a number of tactical shooters implement different levels of body armor, such as in the Rainbow Six and SWAT series, though these only offer a modicum of safety and do not guarantee player survival.
To highlight their emphases on realism, tactical shooters feature limited or minimalistic HUD elements compared to most other shooters, the extent of which can vary depending on the game, difficulty, or selected options, ranging from the absence of a minimap or health bar to the full or partial absence of HUD staples such as crosshairs and ammunition counters.
Some developers of tactical shooters may hire technical advisors from military, law enforcement, or firearms specializations to ensure accuracy in in-game depictions.
There may be considerable modifications to in-game weapons and ballistics compared to real life, deliberately done to ensure game balance in multiplayer PvP or competitive modes.
[23][24] For instance, tactical shooters with notable competitive scenes such as the Counter-Strike series typically allow the player to survive multiple bullet hits to the torso (ignoring the bullet resistance of different types of ballistic vests) and even more to the legs (rarely armored in real life), while registering an automatic kill for melee hits to the back (whether punches or knife stabs) and headshots (regardless of weapon caliber, impact point, or whether the target is wearing a helmet).
"Akimbo" (dual wielding) of firearms is generally rare in tactical shooters, yet it still appears as an option occasionally, such as in Counter-Strike with weapons ranging from small pistols to long-barreled shotguns.
The Desert Eagle, despite being unsuitable for actual military applications, is still frequently found in many tactical shooters as a high-powered handgun option.
[27] Experimental weapons, such as the OICW, are commonly seen in many titles, such as the Ghost Recon and Delta Force series, and modern tactical shooters have tended to place more of an emphasis on the future of warfare through the implementation of drones and micro-cameras.
This game already offered many of the basic features associated with the genre, including utilizing support elements and vehicular units, and running a real-time simulated environment (with 3D Vector graphics) that reacts to the player's actions.
Experiments in tactical shooter design were sparse over the next five years, and included Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri, released in 1996—one of first 3D-rendered games with squad-oriented gameplay.
Infiltration has been noted for detailed aiming system including hip-fire and sights while lacking a crosshair, different movement stances (running, walking, crouching, and prone, leaning around corners), and a weapon customization feature with a weight penalty.
[39] Counter-Strike (2000), a mod of Valve's Half-Life (1998), was the most popular multiplayer game of its era, in spite of the release of arcade-style first-person shooters with more advanced graphics engines such as Unreal Tournament 2003.
At that point, most tactical shooter franchises such as SWAT and SOCOM were discontinued, while developers such as Red Storm and Sierra went defunct or were absorbed by larger companies.
The later releases of tactical shooters like Rising Storm 2: Vietnam (2017), Insurgency: Sandstorm (2018), Squad (2020), and Ready or Not (2021) in the late 2010s and early 2020s signaled a revitalization of the genre.
Its Pointman user interface combines head tracking, a motion-sensitive gamepad and sliding foot pedals to increase the precision and level of control over one's avatar, enabling users to more realistically aim their weapon and practice muzzle discipline, to take measured steps when moving around obstacles or cover, and to continuously control their postural height to make better use of cover and concealment.
