With the loot shooter The Division 2, the battle royale Call of Duty: Warzone, and the new tactical shooter Valorant, MeinMMO author Maik Schneider is currently having more fun than ever in shooters. Check out why our shooter expert is doing so well right now.
It feels like never before were so many people online as during the current Corona crisis, including lockdown. Those who remain largely unaffected by the crisis, i.e., not fearing for their lives or existence, are craving fun and entertainment.
3 shooters were able to benefit from the current circumstances, as they either brought new content just before the mandated “social distancing” or were released during the lockdown:
- The Division 2 released the “Warlords of New York” expansion on March 3
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare released the BR spin-off Warzone on March 10
- Valorant launched into closed beta on April 7
When I played all 3 games in one day, I noticed something strange. A feeling of completeness that slowly crawled up from the input devices into my reward system and provided a strong boost of happiness hormones over and over again.
I realized that I had found something very special with this mix. With these 3 games, I can cover almost everything I desire as a gamer.
Why exactly these 3 titles?
After many years of gaming, I have almost completely dropped all reservations about new games. I am a broad-spectrum player who has been playing everything from sports games, to crazy indie titles, to sprawling strategy games for a long time. However, shooters usually take precedence over everything else.
But if a game wants to keep me engaged for a long time, it needs some very specific characteristics:
- Multiplayer mode – Absolute must-have
- Complexity – I want to delve deeply and discover something new even after many hours/days of gameplay
- Challenge – It can get tough, and I’m happy if it gets really tough
- Progress – The game should provide me with a certain progression over a long time, whether in-game or with my skills, it doesn’t really matter
If a game can offer me all of that, the chances are good that I will stick around after the initial flirtation. This happened to me with The Division 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Instead of the regular multiplayer of CoD MW, I now mostly play Valorant, and the Warzone added a damn strong battle royale.
What do the 3 games offer? The Division 2, Valorant, and Warzone pursue completely different solutions in terms of gameplay. This way, I get almost everything my gamer heart desires from the three. I can
- scoop up tons of loot with Division 2 and think long about builds.
- chase my pulse to alarming heights in the last circle in Warzone.
- sniff competitive clan air again with Valorant.
In fact, there is only one thing I am still missing – building unnecessarily large bases. Or even creating entire worlds, like my MeinMMO colleague Sascha Asendorf, who spent more than 2,000 hours recreating the WoW capital Stormwind in Minecraft.
The Division 2 – The Loot Shooter without End
Division 2 convinced me almost from the very first moment. I find the theoretical build crafting and then going out to hunt the right parts in practice great. Even though it was a real pain to get to the right items until the introduction of loot targeting, I stuck with it and even started writing about The Division 2 here at MeinMMO last September.
Since then, I have not missed any community streams and closely follow the development of the loot shooter. Despite its current quirks and problems, I view the development of the service game positively and am curious to see how the developers will advance Division 2 in 2020.
The combination of the depth of the game, good co-op options, challenging content, and prospects for more improvements and content keep making me gladly take a round through Washington or New York. As a cherry on top, the third-person shooter offers a brutally difficult 8-player raid and perhaps the next one already in June.
Call of Duty: Warzone – Finally found the right battle royale
I searched a long time for a battle royale that really takes me in. But it didn’t click for me and my team in any of the genre’s offshoots so far:
- Fortnite is cool, but somehow strange.
- Apex Legends was fun briefly, but it wasn’t the right fit either.
- And PUBG is just PUBG.
Through the MOBA Smite, we even stumbled upon Realm Royale, where you use magic wands and turn into chickens in the knockout phase.
But with Warzone, almost everything fits. The speed, the (mostly) clean mechanics, and my friends are into it too. In addition, I already knew the best weapons from Modern Warfare. Regularly, we rack up our victories and push each other to peak performance. Even Destiny colleague Phillip Hansen is now regularly playing Warzone, and we’ve already managed to secure a win together.
Since the start of the “battle royale” hype, I’ve been waiting for Warzone and currently enjoy playing it a lot.
Valorant – With the team to victory
I give the title a few early accolades, as it is still in beta. However, Valorant now fills a gap that I will definitely close with the full release. Namely, regular clan wars and smaller organized matches.
I really like the gameplay, a mix of Counter-Strike and Overwatch. I avoided Counter-Strike for a long time and never really warmed up to it. But with the broader gameplay options, thanks to the agents’ abilities, Valorant is exactly the right tactical shooter for me. Already during my long time with Destiny 1, I loved the PvP thanks to the capabilities that the abilities brought to weapon combat.
In Division 2, it’s all about the build; in the battle royale CoD: Warzone, you often need a good dose of luck, but in Valorant, it’s all about strategy and skill. Here, it goes bang-bang, win or lose. I am already assembling my team and am excited about the big release, which will probably take place sometime in summer.
There’s still plenty of time to improve, build one or the other damage build, and go all out in Verdansk. Which game I start usually depends on the available teammates.
But at the moment, I always have something to play and so much fun as never before in shooters.
