The Return of the Single Death Game Mode

Cometus dashed into the room as plasma rounds perforated the wall behind him. He instantly rolled into a crouch and softly lobbed a 'cooked' locus grenade into the doorway behind him as he turned. The STB operative following him was stopped in his tracks and torn to bits by the explosion. Burnt flesh, bits of armor and other organic matter splattered the doorway. Scratch Three. There were only five members of Senator Bennacus' merc protection detail remaining. Cometus waited anxiously for a moment with his rifle pointed at the site of the explosion, but the doorway stayed empty. "Fuck." he thought to himself. He had been sloppy and tripped an alarm when he tried to quietly eliminate the first merc. Now he was in a brawl with a team of heavily armed professionals he had clearly underestimated. Worse, he only had about ten minutes before their reinforcements got here. The senator and five mercs in ten minutes? Six dead people was no problem, but he had lost stealth and the element of surprise. This was a back-alley fight now, and it wasn't going to be a cakewalk.




Has the FPS landscape become dominated by the bland, overdone respawn mechanic? Wouldn't a slower paced, more careful game provide more variety to the run-and-gun-respawn-rinse-repeat we are currently saddled with? Couldn't FPS benefit from more variety and less zerg-like tactics and what is essentially accuracy by volume or soldier spam? We say yes. While few other developers have the substance to innovate, CCP seems to be the exception. While EVE lore tells us that  mercenaries and capsuleers are effectively immortal, clones aren't always available on site and at your location.....and this is where our premise lies.


Imagine the excitement of a pressure-filled match where one death meant respawning in a clone worlds away and ultimately, failure. There are plenty of contracts where one operative, a small group or a striketeam of elite soldiers may be a more effective alternative to a full company of armed soldiers. And while mercs and capsuleers may be immortal, people like Tibus Heth, Souro Foiritan and other notable NPCs are not. How epic would it be to accept a contract on the life of someone like Tenerhaddi Dykon, enter into an PVE game mode of extremely high difficulty complete with bodyguards, alarms and other obstacles to try and eliminate one of the Minmatar Seven Leaders? The same could be done with protection contracts and even escorting VIPs. This could also be brought full circle by allowing both sides of a contract to be accepted, so one player corporation is hired to protect an NPC while the other is hired to eliminate them. While respawn can be mixed in as well, the addition of single-death and PVE could be just the thing that allows Dust to appeal to a broad audience. Here are some of the other ways single death modes can play a role:

Gladiator Arenas - A true home for a single death game mode if there ever was one. It would be exciting to see Mercs battle in maze-like environments or even begin a contest unarmed and have to acquire weapons on the battlefield.

Assassin Contracts - As detailed above, these can be solo PVE, small group PVE, or even PVP if both sides of a contract are accepted by player organizations. We envision these as careful, precision oriented assignments where the antagonist faces the environment [via alarms, patrols and protection details] and tries to remain undetected until he can eliminate his target. Run-n-gun combat only works to the assassin's disadvantage because then a single or small group of assassins faces the prospect of facing a shorted time frame when detected [i.e. a 20 min mission would be reduced to 10 min] taking on multiple opponents at once, and being overwhelmed by respawning forces if they are unable to complete the mission in the shortened time frame.

Escort Missions - These are another contract type that could be small group PVE, PVP or even normal respawn mechanics. The goal is to get the VIP to one of multiple extraction points safely. The important part here is that the VIP being escorted has only a single life and their death results in the failure of the operation.

Convoy Missions - Another contract type that screams respawn and PVE where the objective is protect a static convoy from a horde of enemies or other antagonist. Here the item being protected has a 'single life' or finite amount of damage it can absorb. This could be protecting ships being boarded, stopping drones or troops from attacking shipments or even protecting assets during transit and really provides more variety to player experiences.

Scout Assignments - We described these earlier here http://tinyurl.com/c8zn6yj this is another slower paced gametype where stealth and the acquisition of intel is the goal, not all-out combat. This is a PVE experience where lightly armed soldiers will be overwhelmed by the environment if detected. These mission types could involve entering a facility to steal intel, photograph experimental prototypes or merely providing maps to the employer on how a facility is protected or arranged. Maps of enemy facilities could be very valuable in New Eden as they have several combat applications.

As always, we'll continue to attempt to help promote and publish ideas that help establish, enhance and grow the Dust 514 community as much as we can. Have any ideas that need sharing? Would you like to join our staff as a writer? Be sure to contact us at magww@live.com