IllFonic’s Nexuiz isn’t made by an open community nor is it free. It lacked an identity, but the community soon gave it one by creating weird levels, modes, and weapons that id Software and Epic wouldn’t dare to attempt. So what was Nexuiz then? It was a difficult-to-pronounce game made by some FPS fans who blended the dual-function weapons of Unreal Tournament with the close quarters combat of Quake. Tracing IllFonic’s Nexuiz back to its origins leads down a rabbit hole of community schisms, legal conflicts, and forum threads filled with resentment. The name was originally attached to a Quake-inspired freeware game released in 2005. In some ways, Nexuiz itself is an established arena FPS series. Nexuiz (PC, PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade ) But instead of paving a path away from military shooters, Nexuiz only puts one more nail into the arena shooter’s coffin. It’s a traditional arena FPS, but that’s a bold and novel concept when the genre has all but died over the last decade. Unreal Tournament III is five years behind us, Quake Arena Arcade has been forgotten (for good reason), and The Punisher: No Mercy stands as a reminder of how wrong things can go in this sub-genre.Įnter Nexuiz. These games convinced us to buy mice more expensive than our phones, propelled bedroom slackers into eSports stars, and kept our parents’ phone lines busy day in and day out. Before Valve and Infinity Ward stepped in and shook things up, we PC gamers were more than content with Quake III and Unreal Tournament. Sorry if this is a bit rambling and incomprehensible, I wrote this at around 1AM after a few matches of Nexuiz.No time to reload, no need - this was the attitude of arena first-person shooters in the ’90s. It's altogether a different game, not one I like, but ones that others like. Many of the weapons were also either tweaked or completely reworked, mostly giving the game a more sort of 'casual' feel, which doesn't draw from the same demographic as Xonotic does, despite them branching from the same game. This makes maps smaller, but the maps already had to be smaller to accommodate for the missing laser, which results in pretty damn small maps. This lowers the entry level and general skill ceiling, as any player can get an automatic Strength, infinite ammo, or invincibility, which boils down to simple luck of the draw. Nexuiz has 'random mutators' which dynamically change the game. This considerably lowers the skill ceiling right out of the gate, as part of the skill involved in Xonotic is learning to work the laser to engage and move around. The laser was basically their answer to rocket jumping, as a low-damage high-knockback weapon that also could be used on the self. The laser has completely been removed in Nexuiz. There are a few key differences between Xonotic and Nexuiz: Then, through some details I'm not exactly clear on, the rights somehow got sold to Illfonic to make the game now known as Nexuiz, and the developers of the original Nexuiz made their own little fork/remake known as Xonotic. The gist of it is that Nexuiz used to be an open source arena shooter based off of the Quake engine, one that I happened to enjoy quite a bit. For the uninitiated, Nexuiz and Xonotic are intertwined in a very close way.
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