A videogame is a game runned by a digital device and played through an interface.
"Thank you, random dude on the internet, for stating self-evident things like that" you'll say. Fair enough. But have you thought of the implications of such things ? For instance, with a classical game or a toy, like Mikado or Jenga, the game's fun for the precise moment the structure collapses. Then, you have to tidy the game, which is lame.
What I want to demonstrate is a videogame is different from a board game or a toy BECAUSE of its digital essence. Things like destruction, big areas, expensive things, complicated mathematics or even physics laws aren't a problem in videogame.
In The Finals, when you shoot a rocket on wall, it is detroyed. Simple. Square. Clear. Fun. It seems simple, but which game does that ? Battlefield, from which The Finals devs come from. And which other game ? Red Faction. Minecraft. And a few others. Even very famous series or very wealthy AAA produtions most of the time do not feature destruction while featuring explosive devices in their gameplay : you cannot destroy a wall neither in Call of Duty neither in Halo, neither in Gears of War, even if you have rockets, grenades, missiles or even nuclear warheads. Yet, you know what ? Destroying a wall is fun.
This is a universal rule that has and will forever be true in videogame design : destruction itself can make a game because it is a videogame specificity you can only exeperience in an actual videogame. Think of Destruction Derby, which gameplay is simply "Vroom vroom one onto one other until we cannot vroom vroom anymore" : it is still fun nowadays.
On top of this very solid foundations, you simply have to trust your design and feature a little bit of virtuosity in your game and level design. Destroying things is fun, but it is also important thanks to the game's structure, based on timing and coordinated attacks. Destroying things create chaos, which is a great opportunity to create some subsystems to feed this chaos, like a player-class system, a local environmental modifier systems operating through equipement and barrels (which means level design) or a victory condition solely based on timing which leads to silly moves and pretentiousness. All of this relies on solid shooting mechanics served by a "I am forced to mention it because wow"-tiers sound design.
The final is... Clear. Simple. Fun. The only downsides of it are because of it's PvP structure, which comes with a lot of not-so-fun tryhard mindsets, a META oriented playerbase reliying on boring healing mechanics and a two-time based objective loop rewarding only on the very end of the progression while it should reward the first half as well. All in all, very few issues that won't prevent you from having fun. Watch out though, I think the skill of the playerbase is currently skyrocketing and won't stop until a glass-roof is reach, so you better play it right now if you don't want to be obliterated in a few seconds for your 20 first hours.
"Thank you, random dude on the internet, for stating self-evident things like that" you'll say. Fair enough. But have you thought of the implications of such things ? For instance, with a classical game or a toy, like Mikado or Jenga, the game's fun for the precise moment the structure collapses. Then, you have to tidy the game, which is lame.
What I want to demonstrate is a videogame is different from a board game or a toy BECAUSE of its digital essence. Things like destruction, big areas, expensive things, complicated mathematics or even physics laws aren't a problem in videogame.
In The Finals, when you shoot a rocket on wall, it is detroyed. Simple. Square. Clear. Fun. It seems simple, but which game does that ? Battlefield, from which The Finals devs come from. And which other game ? Red Faction. Minecraft. And a few others. Even very famous series or very wealthy AAA produtions most of the time do not feature destruction while featuring explosive devices in their gameplay : you cannot destroy a wall neither in Call of Duty neither in Halo, neither in Gears of War, even if you have rockets, grenades, missiles or even nuclear warheads. Yet, you know what ? Destroying a wall is fun.
This is a universal rule that has and will forever be true in videogame design : destruction itself can make a game because it is a videogame specificity you can only exeperience in an actual videogame. Think of Destruction Derby, which gameplay is simply "Vroom vroom one onto one other until we cannot vroom vroom anymore" : it is still fun nowadays.
On top of this very solid foundations, you simply have to trust your design and feature a little bit of virtuosity in your game and level design. Destroying things is fun, but it is also important thanks to the game's structure, based on timing and coordinated attacks. Destroying things create chaos, which is a great opportunity to create some subsystems to feed this chaos, like a player-class system, a local environmental modifier systems operating through equipement and barrels (which means level design) or a victory condition solely based on timing which leads to silly moves and pretentiousness. All of this relies on solid shooting mechanics served by a "I am forced to mention it because wow"-tiers sound design.
The final is... Clear. Simple. Fun. The only downsides of it are because of it's PvP structure, which comes with a lot of not-so-fun tryhard mindsets, a META oriented playerbase reliying on boring healing mechanics and a two-time based objective loop rewarding only on the very end of the progression while it should reward the first half as well. All in all, very few issues that won't prevent you from having fun. Watch out though, I think the skill of the playerbase is currently skyrocketing and won't stop until a glass-roof is reach, so you better play it right now if you don't want to be obliterated in a few seconds for your 20 first hours.