So “boomer” just means anything that’s older than the person viewing it now? Boy they’ve sure killed off any power that word ever had lol
Certified zoomer here to explain. This boomer games tag is not about old games. It’s about games that match what a boomer thinks of as an FPS (as viewed probably by a zoomer). The top 3 most popular games are made in 2020, 2023, and 2023.
Basically if the game play for the game was the style of a pre 2000 shooter it would qualify for the tag. But it could have come out yesterday.
Boomers didn’t and still don’t think of video games at all unless they’re trying to moralise it and outlaw it.
Jack Thompson Is the perfect example of a boomer and their relationship with video games.
“Boomer” has changed meaning to “old” which I view as fine. Like the popular phrase “okay boomer” started out intentionally aimed at actual boomers and now it just refers to an outdated opinion or view. I don’t think anyone who says “boomer shooter” thinks that boomers played these.
It’s about games that match what a boomer thinks of as an FPS.
Can you give me an example?
I can’t think of anything in the last three years that have massively changed what an FPS looks like.
A game like Tarkov stands in drastic comparison to a game like Quake. Compare the weapon selection (many guns for one role vs distinct but limited) or gameplay loop (enter zone->loot->fight to extract vs spawn->kill->die)
Quake, Battlefield 4, Rainbow 6 Siege, PUBG, and Tarkov are all FPS games but they’re drastically different in design.
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Duke Nukem is the quintessential boomer shooter.
Thanks to v0.19, you can’t hide your deleted comments from me!
TIL millennials are boomers
So arena shooters Ala quake and unreal basically.
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And Doom(2016)
Nah because it covers stuff like Duke or Shadow Warrior, which are large sprawling campaigns on, for their time, large open maps.
It’s literally just all FPS games from before like 2003 and those that look like those generations of graphics.
The “boomer” in “boomer shooter” refers to the style, not the release date lol. Most games with that tag are actually pretty new. They’re just shooters that are mechanically similar to old shooters like Quake and Doom, so you’re typically gonna have a mix of these traits:
- A wide range of weapons with unique uses (think rockets, railguns, shotguns, machine guns…)
- Chapters that you can complete in any order but the levels in them are completed linearly
- Colored keys to open colored doors
- A level-end screen when you reach the end of a level that tells you your completion time and what % of items/enemies are left
- And my favorite part, a lot of them have advanced movement techniques, which are usually identical to Quake (if not Quake 2/3) like bunnyhopping and rocket-jumping
I recommend Dusk or Ultrakill if you wanna try a really good (and cheap) boomer shooter that came out in the last few years.
Boomer shooter is a real genre that has defined qualities. If you did even a cursory Google search you would see that.
Just because something doesn’t make sense to you at face value doesn’t mean it’s arbitrary/makes the term toothless. You’re just uninformed.
Is Left 4 Dead a Boomer shooter?
I remember shooting Boomers point blank and triggering hordes…
well played lol
Honestly, yes.
It’s shooters in the style that Boomers and Gen X (but no one ever addresses Gen X) played. Like Doom, Wolfenstein, etc. Sure millennials played them too, but they weren’t the target age demographic.
Cultic is a good modern boomer shooter if you want to try one.
Boomers did not fucking play Doom in any numbers, they were in their 50s.
They were playing minesweeper and tetris and solitaire if they played any computer games.
Ain’t no Boomers playing Doom, Quake, or Wolfenstein back in the 90s. These games were directly aimed at the Gen-X and early Millennial generations. And by god, did we ever play the shit out of them.
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Ok booner
Boomer is a state of mind.
Boomer.
That’s a very boomer comment.
Boomer.
Always has been. Nobody was saying “okay boomer” to senior citizens. It was always to Gen X and now it’s being applied to Millennials. If you have songs on your playlist from the 2000s and don’t watch tiktoks, you’ve become a boomer.
Okay boomer was an insult for the baby boomer generation, now it’s being used for anyone older. Both are acceptable.
Yeah it was originally shit like “you sound like a 60 year old trump supporter who hasn’t gotten with the times”. It was “I’m not going to bother fighting with you, so I’m going to treat you like the uncle i only deal with on thanksgiving”
Just before okay boomer caught in “shut up boomer” was a bit of a thing.
Ah, so it means anyone who you disagree with who happens to be a few years older than you… So it’s pointless?
No they don’t have to be older. If I had a friend who was a year older than me and I said “battle passes, looter shooters, and tik tok are dumb” he could call me a total boomer.
It’s about someone harnessing an older perspective.
Sounds like it’s just become a synonym for a curmudgeon.
Or neither are, depending upon your view of bigotry.
Bigotry requires prejudice, boomers aren’t clumped together, just called out when the situation requires it.
Calling someone a Karen isn’t bigotry so why would boomer?
, said every “I don’t see color” White Nationalist I’ve ever met.
Funny, are you being prejudiced against people who use boomer and Karen and clumping them all together…?
That’s mighty bigot and hypocritical of you.
Context matters, if someone uses the term correctly and not prejudiced against an entire group, why shouldn’t that be allowed? There goes supporting my drag queen friend and gay associates I guess, can’t call them gay apparently.
You think we were saying “okay boomers” to people barely a few years older than us?
It was always about baby boomers, the entitled generation.
It was always to Gen X
No it was definitely to Baby Boomers, then it morphed into an insult that you direct at anybody acting like a boomer/giving off Boomer energy (hence calling Gen X/Millenials/any non-boomer out with “ok boomer”)
As the exact target audience for classic shooters (ion fury is gooooooood))
Idk, I find this term lighthearted and endearing, maybe it makes finding that exact kinda game finally easier
Yeah I love the term. It’s funny, unique, and you know exactly what they’re talking about.
I always preferred the term “Arena Shooter” but it may have more specific meaning than any game that vaguely has elements popular in fps games of the 90s that I think “Boomer Shooter” is usually trying to communicate.
I mean… I wouldn’t really say Doom or Duke Nukem or whatever were arena shooters, though? Something like Quake 3 certainly is, but I feel like anything that vaguely has a map that you progress through instead of having a round of a fixed length / kill count in a smaller space doesn’t scream “arena shooter” to me.
Doom had multiplayer over lan that I would say fits in that definition. For me personally arena shooters are more about movement speed and how weapons/health are managed as power ups to be found and managed as a recourses. I don’t consider multiplayer to be a requirement for the genre basically.
Doom multiplayer is kind of arena shooter, I’ll agree. Something like Quake 3 or Unreal Tournament fits the term much better to me. Genres are pretty arbitrary, though.
I had to look it up because I thought it was about “making boom and shoot”.
Also it’s a bit weird because I don’t know any boomer who played a shooter. Actually I don’t think I know any boomer who played video games, others than mobile word games.
The only people I know who played shooters in the 90’s were Gen X kids like me.
Anyway, I guess I’m a grumpy old man now but it’s a bit annoying that “boomer” has become synonym with “old people” and “millennial” with young people, while Gen X are close to retirement and millennials are clearly no longer young.
You guys get to retire?
Check out a YouTuber named Civvie 11 if you haven’t already. He covers so many good and bad boomer shooters from old school to mkdern while going pretty deep into their history.
Also, dont sleep on turbo overkill. It’s everything right and then some about the genre.
thanks for the suggestions, but turbo overkill looks a little to too doom 2016 for my taste
Doom is Gen X if anything. Boomers are pongers.
Age 35+
Boomer
Age 1-34
Millennial
Literally A Baby
Zoomer
Cool. I don’t really care about the name if it means that finding games that I like gets a little bit easier.
“Back in my day, we could only render 3 polygons at a time, and by god, we were grateful!”
Am I the only one that actually doesn’t mind the term boomer shooter? I find it hilarious and accurate for the most part.
It’s just a harmless joke, most boomers never actually played DOOM and it’s not even used in a pejorative manner.
I know it’s not meant to be pejorative so I really don’t take offense except I’ve been playing video games since pong in the early 80s so they’re talking about me. I’m only 53 and no freakin’ boomer.
GenX shooter… ok maybe. Gex shooter … GX shooter…. Something like that. I don’t know of a single boomer playing games. I know there are some I just don’t personally know any.
It’s too bad they’re an entire generation off. But whatever tag line gets them the most sales, right?
Are they seriously calling arena shooters that? I’m mad. This should be generation X shooter!
I dislike the term, but I think Arena shooter implies multiplayer whereas a Boomer Shooter is a modern, retro inspired single player shooter
I don’t think an arena shooter necessarily has to be multiplayer (but they’re mostly only fun when they are)… but it heavily implies that the maps are… arenas. Smaller areas that you backtrack through constantly with no “end”. Matches probably end by a condition like a timer or kill count or something. That said, I think we use “arena shooter” to distinguish games like Quake 3 from CoD (with some differences like weapons being on the map and players spawning with the same barebones kit)… but arguably CoD isn’t that far removed from something like Quake 3 (which I know is heresy and they play very differently, but the fundamentals aren’t so different).
millenial shooter
I agree with the other guy, I’ve always thought of “arena shooter” as describing the multiplayer aspect. IMO, “boomer shooter” is a good way of distinguishing the game from being more similar to Quake’s multiplayer vs singleplayer
Arena shooter is descriptive of certain mechanics. Armor/weapons with tinted spawns on the map, usually some kind of bunny hopping, but that’s not mandatory, and often portals/verticality.
I’m talking about quake, unreal, warsow, xonotic, etc…
I think what you guys are on about are games like doom, Wolfenstein, Duke nukem and so on. Not so much quake but single player.
Why are you mad? How is this affecting your life?
It’s not that deep bro.
hey, now i can finally have an easier time looking for Retro-style FPS.
assuming the games are tagged correctly.
I skimmed through the list and it’s pretty accurate. If you’re interested in the genre, I’d recommend trying the Quake 1 remaster. Ultrakill is also very good if you want something newer.
i thought boomer shooter ment anything that had explosions every 30 seconds to keep the tweens attention.
It’s games like Quake, which does have it’s fair share of explosions but it’s mostly about emulating what games like Quake had to offer. Like high skill-cieling movement and/or combat.
Makes perfect sense. Boomer as in old school, and it conveys these games are action “boom” packed.
Does it mean a shooter for boomers, or do you get to shoot boomers?
Pills here!
Finally, a tag for me.
So is it shit like og DOOM or is it shit with explosions. Or both?
Watch civvie11 on youtube. He kinda specializes in boomer shooters and slav jank.
It’s more like Quake than DOOM in terms of shooter mechanics (but the levels are very similar to both). They usually have rocket-jumping/bunnyhopping and stuff. IMO, the high skill-cieling movement and/or combat is integral to living up to the OG boomer shooters like Quake and Unreal
How long until someone re-skins boomers onto a shooter?
That kinda sounds like something s serial killer would do…Ed Gein…
Damn. I’d play all those games, too.
