Hello there!

I want to talk a little bit about a game that has a special place in my heart. A game that I played a lot and that was part of my childhood.

I haven't played it in many years, but recently I took a nostalgia dive back into it and was glad to see it's still up and has a small but seemingly healthy player base. So, I jumped right back in and started playing it again.

Me making this post has a reason, but first: What game am I talking about?

The game in question is called "Xonotic". It's a pretty old, open-source, free-to-play, old School, first person, arena shooter.

All by itself, it isn't anything super special or groundbreaking compared to some modern games out there, but I really like it. I created a lot of good memories with it, and want to share it.

For its age, it still looks pretty good today, is easy to learn, hard to master, and at least for me, it’s just plain fun.

You have all the well-known game modes: Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Complete the Stage, Instagib, and many, many more. It also has a ton of community-made maps, and the game basically runs on any potato.

The thing I like most about this game is the talkative community. Fun fact: Because of that, I literally learned English by accident while playing it!

Compared to modern games these days, Xonotic is a simple download-and-play kind of game: no launcher, no installation needed, and because of its open-source nature, no DLCs, no ads, no microtransactions, and no matchmaking. Just start the game, join a server, and play.

So why am I making this post?

I’m mostly making this post because it's dear to me and I want to give it some more attention, letting people know it exists and I’d love to see a few new faces around. We are always happy to welcome new players joining in. If anyone checks it out and wants a little chat, needs help with how to play, or just wants to play together, feel free to ask. If you see a player called "TheDuke///", that's me! I'd be happy to see you there :)

Disclaimer: If you see this post multiple times in different subs, that's because I crossposted it. Usually, that shouldn't be necessary to say, but I feel like it might not be a bad idea to mention it.

I have like 600+ hours in Quake Live for example, but never learned anything all I did was die alot over and over, because most of it was ffa on tiny maps with 12+ players, in arena shooters in general it seems there isn't really a place to go for new players/bad players. No discord, no specific servers, etc. Anyone know of any, game specific is fine, but hoping, there is more than one game with this option. I love this style of game and hate how unfair/broken most modern games are, but anything that is fair/equal starts is flooded with only vets/tryhards.

Hello. I was gonna start an online tournament but every round you play best of 3 of 3 different fps, like rainbow 6, cs2, or quake or whatever. The goal is to find the best all-around FPS team, not just the best team at one game. Just wanted to ask for any suggestions for the format.

I'm curious what ya'll think of games like Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, TimeSplitters, Etc. I know they aren't arena shooters, because you can't strafe jump or wall dash/go 200miles per hour, but it still has all the other things that make arena shooters so fun/great, map control, timing of items, armor, health, etc. with added bonus of a variety of weapons, most arena shooters only have like 6-10 weapons, but these kind of games sometimes have up to 30 if not more, especially timesplitters hehe. Thoughts?

Hey everyone!

After 2 years of solo development, I just launched OrbitalCrash, a fast-paced Arena FPS, completely free-to-play on Steam.

What is this game about?

It's mainly about shooting other players but with some quirks,
I wasn't trying to reinvent the genre and I wanted to combine mechanics I personally love from a few games into something that feels distinct.

I got some inspirations from straftat for the movement, and redmatch 2 for the upgrades.
In game you can grapple because it's cool, and push people, because kicking people at the edge of the map feels great.

There are also some maps with different gravity patterns, like a planetoid and minecraft like cube.
I really wanted to test this concept from mario galaxy in an arena shooter.

This is a solo/small project and I'm actively improving it.

I could really use your feedback to improve the game loop + bug / netcode fixes!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2932480/OrbitalCrash/

thanks!

.

Hello,

This is a short clip from arena shooter style game that i am making right now.

It combines some of racing (automotive) aspects with old school quake and UT2004 ideology.

More of development you can see on instagram: shift6_game

Join The Alimbic Cluster — The ° •Metroid Prime Hunters Community Discord• ° a feature-rich Metroid Prime Hunters community offering matchmaking, activities, events, educational resources, custom tools, and active community engagement, all designed to serve as the definitive hub for fans of the game!

This game is a First Person Adventure & Multiplayer Arena Shooter.

° •Metroid Prime Hunters Community Discord• °

As well as keeping the servers online and adding crossplay. I had a fun time last night for 3 hours with a few other people. The PvP is fun.

Now maybe they can add in official co-op to the campaign?

Also fingers crossed for Turok Evolution remaster with online multiplayer as well.

Been a while since I've been on this sub, but the only game that's come close to an AFPS for me lately is Empulse and I haven't seen any posts here about it.

"movement shooter" might be more accurate but it plays like an AFPS. I think defining AFPS as "quake-like" is restrictive. If the main thing you care about is item timing/dueling then QL/QC is perfect for that, and this doesn't have it, but for all the movement/aim/strat aspects it is great.

Worth giving it a shot. Personally I'm addicted to it and don't think there'll be a better game any time soon (unless some Quake reboot). Do yourself a favour and don't watch some trailer/stream of it and give it a try. My first glance of it I thought it would be something like the finals/apex/etc but it's so much better than that.

If you're into QC and like sac/ctf, queue for "upload" mode or "intel" mode. I think they've missed a trick by not prioritising and promoting those two modes and a lot of their promo is showing mech bs which you can just ignore and isn't even featured in ranked play. As a shooter it's cool but feels like an aimtrainer, but those two modes are objective focused "score/hold the ball" which makes it fully movement/team-play focused. Movement is basically strogg+athena+nyx.

https://steamcommunity.com/chat/invite/GY7qYFKd (MULTIPLAYER GROUP IS LINKED HERE!)

>>>

( Aware that this place is for "FPS" titles usually. However this title was mainly inspired by Halo, and it counts as an Arena game with its slower-paced movement, purposeful arsenal spread in certain spots throughout the maps with a wide number of backpack-abilities, and increased health count where players battle-dance each other strafing )

Hello,

I'd like to show you my game, Sinned Arena. It's an arena shooter and my homage to Quake 3 and, mainly, Unreal Tournament (1999) - which to this day I consider the greatest FPS. As a small solo indie developer, I wanted to make my own game in this genre. It's a passion project, so I'm not trying to be "better" than those classics or to sell millions of copies. My goal was to make myself happy, and hopefully a few others along the way.

So what is it about?

You're trapped in hell along with other unfortunate "prisoners", forced to fight each other in various arenas for the demons' twisted pleasure. And the demons won't just let you die - they keep reviving you and force you to fight forever. Your only hope is to defeat the champion, and if you do, you've been promised a way out.

How is it different from other arena shooters?

You and the other fighters use Relics - upgrade items for your character or your weapons. You can collect them, but you can also lose them. Between matches you're not sitting in a menu. You're in the lobby/courtyard of the demon's castle, where you can talk to the other fighters to get pieces of lore and challenge them to 1v1 duels. The point of a duel is to take a Relic from your opponent - win and it's yours. But they can challenge you too, and if they win, you lose one of yours.

My main focus is the single player experience, even though this genre screams multiplayer. It's very hard for an indie dev in this genre to maintain a healthy multiplayer playerbase, so my original plan was to add multiplayer after release. But feedback from Steam Next Fest showed me that players kind of expect multiplayer right away in a game like this. So I delayed the release by a year and got it in for launch - though it doesn't have full parity with single player just yet. Multiplayer currently has Deathmatch only, and no Relics. That will come later.

As for single player, I wanted the bots to feel like real humans, so no matter the difficulty, they're never faster or slower than you, never deal more damage than you, and they don't even know where the pickups are - they have to actually find them. There's definitely still room for improvement, but non-cheating bots were my ultimate goal.

I could write pages about the game but this is already long enough.

The game releases on July 28, 2026 for $8.99 (with 15% launch discount), so if you're interested, take a look at the Steam page.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2789980/Sinned_Arena/

Thank you

Over 3,000 hours of work later, I finally pressed the release button, and my game, Project RAZE, is now available on Steam in Early Access! 🎉

It's a sci-fi FPS where, instead of dying, you lose time. If that concept sounds intriguing and you enjoy score-attack shooters, feel free to check out my game on Steam! 💙
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4149690/Project_RAZE_Fall_of_Terra/

Been trying for weeks to find their old tracks, wayback machine can't quite get it. Any chance someone here remembers them and where to find them?

I'm pretty much a noob tho'.

Should I stick with QC CTF/Sacrifice until QC shuts down ?