i wish modern multiplayer FPSes would remember the storytelling aspect of map design and its spontaneity, rather than esport balancing. Unreal Tournament's Two Worlds, for example, is a beloved classic because of it being a sniper-infested hellhole that was blatantly unfair to everybody. CTF became a war of campers keeping players at bay and runners desperately hoping there wasn't enough bullets to get them all, it was magical.
the science of multiplayer has become so well understood that maps feel characterless, in service of the player like some impressionable mould. my experience and player psychology is rarely different from my opponent, since we've been given equal opportunities by design. nothing disadvantages me in say, Apex Legends outside of my own skill, which is "fair", sure, but i couldn't tell you anything about where i played and how memorable it was, only who i played against. it gets incredibly repetitive.
idk, probably some boomer-shooter ramblings but it's why i fall off hard with multiplayer shooters these days. everything comes off like a vehicle for an attempt at tournament play, i miss maps that happily screwed with you.
i think we are desperately missing this old genre of online FPSes that were primarily focused on just… being fun, instead of laser-focusing on being good for competitive esports or whatever. i think that’s why team fortress 2 is still hanging on by a thread, and one of the reasons people still care about it so much—it’s pretty much the only real outlet left i can think of for this kind of thing. for joining some random community server and shooting the shit with whoever else is there and seeing whatever kind of fun and interesting emergent bullshit happens, instead of necessarily caring about winning or losing. and it’s really sad to see this kind of thing fading away as it gets replaced with identical centralized-server esports slop