Esports, or Electronic Sports, has been changing society’s perception of the gaming industry. The efforts and training of players are gradually being recognized positively; they can even become national symbols if they achieve significant accomplishments and positively impact society.
Take, for example, the Astralis team in CS:GO, which serves as a bright example for the youth about dedication and hard work, regarded as a “national treasure” in Denmark. Or there’s Faker from Korea’s League of Legends, the “Demon King,” who is not just an ordinary gamer but has also earned immense respect from stars in the entertainment industry.
Naturally, Esports also needs innovation to develop further. If we previously saw a shift from real-time strategy games (with classics like Starcraft and Warcraft) to MOBA and FPS games (DOTA2, LoL, and CS:GO), currently, we have yet to see any game or name that carries enough weight to replace the “old and quality” titles mentioned above.
The name that has been highly anticipated to achieve this is PUBG; however, the game itself faces many development issues. The first alarming sign was the departure of Brendan Greene – the creator of PUBG – leaving the project without his creative touch. The game seems to lack any innovation over the years. Additionally, the depth of PUBG’s gameplay is entirely absent, offering nothing interesting for players to explore.
Furthermore, rampant hacking and cheating have led dedicated PUBG players to abandon the game. Hacking is not the sole reason PUBG is struggling; another battle royale game, Apex Legends, has faced a similar situation.
Another representative of this genre, Fortnite, is not developing in an Esports direction at all; Epic Games seems to want it to be purely an entertainment product with grand in-game events.
An incredibly promising genre is Autobattler, which rose to fame with DOTA Auto Chess in early 2019. However, this type of game suffers from issues where luck affects the final results too much, resulting in it having tournaments but remaining at the level of minor events. The closest contender aiming to bring an Autobattler game into Esports is Riot Games with their plans to host the Teamfight Tactics World Championship; however, the journey ahead is still long.
VALORANT is the next name anticipated to bring a fresh breeze to the Esports scene. Even the way Riot Games designs gameplay and other elements points towards a tense competitive game, which is essential for an Esports title. We hope that Riot’s shooting game will not follow the same path as PUBG or Apex Legends, succumbing to rampant hacking and fading away.
