Valve: modern shooters "pander" to players rather than helping you improve

Attention, fans of recent first-person shooters: you're a bunch of mewling, commitment-averse brats who can't so much as get up in the morning without QTE prompts, a medical pack cache and an online FAQ. But don't worry, Valve intends to knock you into shape. Famed skill-driven shooter Counter-Strike is coming to Xbox 360 next year, and it means business.

The Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team feels many of its competitors offer players too little incentive to sharpen up. "A lot of shooters, instead of giving people encouragement to improve, will just pander to them never being better," lead designer Ido Magal told OXM in an interview you'll read in the Skyrim-dedicated issue 78, on sale now. "And I kind of appreciate that but at the same time it can be demeaning to people who want to get better.

Click to view larger image Accordingly, the developer has sternly resisted the temptation to bolt on certain latter-day mechanics, chief amongst them Call of Duty's ironsights view. "We don't say, 'Well we need iron sights because everyone else has iron sights.' If they could figure out a way for them to make sense, we'd add them, but right now we think iron sights just make people move slower because they'll be afraid to put their gun down."

Valve has, however, made a few concessions to namby-pamby popular taste in the form of a new Casual mode, which removes the in-game currency used to buy weapons and gear. At the other end of the skill spectrum, Global Offensive features two modes created by hardcore Counter-Strike fans, Arsenal: Demolition and Arsenal: Arms Race.

"I appreciate other shooters, but when it comes to making Counter-Strike we identified its strengths, and we're focussing on those," Magal concluded.