RESEARCH FILE

The two companies I have chosen to research are:

Avalanche Studios

and

Gearbox Software

I have chosen these two companies for my research primarily because they have made games that are in my top 10 of all time such as Just Cause 3 and Borderlands 2.

Avalanche Studios, founded in March 2003 (22 years ago) is a Swedish video game developer and publisher based in Stockholm Sweden. Since its inception, it has established 2 other subsidiaries that being Expansive Worlds and Systemic Reaction. It was founded by Linus Blomberg and Christofer Sundberg, as of now the CEO is Stefanía Guðrún Halldórsdóttir

They are best known for their open world action adventure style games. These types of games often involve a large map where the player is free to do whatever they want.

I think that a gameplay aspect that Avalanche has pushed forward in the gaming world is the destruction physics in a few of their games. Just Cause 3 in particular can look like a movie sometimes with the sheer amount of object that can be destroyed.

The Just Cause series overall was I gigantic success for Avalanche. It has made them millions in revenue and gathered a loyal fanbase. Mad Max from 2015 was another massive hit which sold very well and was critically acclaimed.

A notable failure of the company was Generation Zero. At launch the game was buggy and unfinished. This was fixed later but it still left a mark on the game’s reputation that I think it will never recover from. Even though I personally loved this entry, Just Cause 4 is often considered a failure by many. Even though the game did introduce new features most players felt that the execution was not the best when compared to the other games in the franchise.

Founded in 1999 by five developers in Texas, Gearbox Software is a game development company responsible for making a number of popular franchises that are have garnered a massive fanbase. The key people are president Steve Jones and Dan Hewitt as the CEO.

Gearbox is best known for making first person looter shooter RPGs that being the Borderlands games. They typically involve running around, defeating enemies and bosses for a chance to get better items which can be used to fight even more powerful enemies.

The company has really pushed the genre forward in terms of the writing especially the humor. I’m mainly talking about borderlands, as it made me laugh many times when I played it.

The Borderlands franchise was Gearbox’s greatest achievement. The Brothers In Arms series was also quite successful but it didn’t have the same effect that the Borderlands had on people.

• Crusaders of light and magic – Dynamic shadows

• Far cry – Realistic Wind physics and procedurally generated destruction

• Messiah- Tessellation

• Red Faction – Destructible environments

• Descent – First polygon orientated 3D game

• Hitman – Ragdoll system

• Beyond Two Souls – Motion capture at a mass scale

• Star Wars Dark Forces – First FPS where you can look up and down

• Quake 3 – Curved surface geometry

• Doom – First 3D game

This might not be the first time soft body physics were used in games, but it is one of the most detailed and most impressive implementations of them as no other game comes close to what BeamNG drive can simulate.

Every model has an invisible skeleton attached to it which is connected with beams and nodes, all with realistic weights and masses. This allows for an extremely intricate flex and deformation system which can accurately show what would happen to the model in virtually any scenario. This ends up resulting in a scarily close depiction of what would happen in real life.

I am not entirely sure what games might have take inspiration from this game but some games that have that same sort of energy are ones like Wreckfest, Teardown and TABS (Totally Accurate Battle Simulator). These two also have physics based destruction and wreckfest especially has very similar soft body physics present.

In the future, I hope this level of destruction becomes more common across the industry and it gets scaled up to include more than just vehicles. At the moment even the most high end computers can’t handle that many things going on but I could imagine that in 10 or 15 years, technology will be good enough to a point where you can destroy an entire city without even breaking a sweat. Probably the closest thing that exists to that currently is a VR game called Megaton Rainfall where the destruction physics in it are pretty good with some limitations but for a 2017 game it has aged pretty well. I think a mixture of that and BeamNG drive would look absolutely awesome.

Valve is one of those companies that you know will basically always make something good, the portal franchise is no exception. I specifically picked the sequel mainly because I played through this game start to finish a few times so I roughly know what I’m talking about.

The storytelling in Portal 2 is amazing, it's very subtle in the way that a person that only plays the game without paying attention would miss. These details reveal more about Aperture Science and the story itself which feels very rewarding when you put everything together. Valve always does this masterfully but I couldn’t help but mention it here.

Apart from environmental storytelling, the dialogue is also very well written along with the characters themselves. They make the world feel so alive which just adds to the already immersive atmosphere.

In terms of inspiration, there are fan versions of games that add their own take on Portal. I’m sure there are IPs that have definitely took inspiration but I can’t exactly list them.

All of this results in an extremely loyal and dedicated fan base which do much more than just playing the game. People have and are making recreations of the characters like Wheatley and GLADOS, uploading videos to Youtube about the game and still actively talking about it on social media platforms like Discord and Reddit. My close friend plays this game almost religiously so I think that shows just how much of an impact it had on people even after all this time.

Ever since its release, Helldivers 2 has shown how powerful the community of one game can be. This game has a very interesting mechanic that not many other multiplayer games contain, your actions actually count in the game world. There is a constant galactic war that the player is participating where each mission they drop into ends up having a consequence which can be either good or bad. This ends up having a strange feeling of urgency where they feel like they need to help or the enemy will advance which is amazing for both player engagement and the community itself.

Conversations often go off the game and onto sites like discord where people plan and talk while playing. Couple this with a good narrative and humor and you get fans which will make literal replicas of armours and dress up as a helldiver. I have already seen quite a few videos on the internet with hundreds of people at conventions and events dressed as characters from the game which is just so cool to see. I think it's something to do with the fact that helldivers aren’t really superhuman or anything, they are just people like us, so I think it makes it easier for someone to imagine being one of them as opposed to other works of fiction.

The game thrives on working with others as certain objectives and weapons (stratagems) are made easier to complete/use through teamwork. There is also friendly fire so you and your teammates really need to be careful around each other so you don’t accidentally kill one another.

I’d say a game that is on a similar caliber as Helldivers 2 is Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 and not only because you also kill bugs in the thousands. This might be slightly unfair as it is part of the Warhammer 40k franchise, which was already quite a popular IP before this but it definitely made a lot of new fans that got into it because of this game.

A parasocial relationship is a term used to describe an individual who has developed an emotional bond to a person who is not aware of their existence. This form of attachment most commonly happens towards celebrities, internet personalities and fictional characters.

In gaming communities, parasocial relationships are very common as people idolise youtubers, streamers and game characters.

I’d say that this can be good for some people as it can help with temporarily curing loneliness and mental health. This isn’t a permanent fix but it does help somewhat.

This all sounds very good however, there are many negatives involved with these types of relationships. The individual can become obsessed with the person which can escalate to harassment and toxicity. If they become infatuated, it can begin to harm their personal life as they can start to neglect themselves and their responsibilities.

People like streamers are very aware that they have fans like this so some of them exploit them as they know they can get away with it. From scams to shady sponsorships they will do almost anything to squeeze as much money as possible from these people. Not every streamer is like this but there is a worrying amount of them that do.

Titanfall 2 has quite a few things that distinguish it from other FPSs.

In both single and multiplayer, the player has access to a pilot and a titan. The pilot is much more mobile at the expense of durability and weapon power while titans are the complete opposite with them being bipedal tanks which are powerful but slow. This really shines in the multiplayer modes where PvP feels much more special than something like COD. It has the same sort of feeling that some of the older Battlefield games which also have much more variety in terms of gameplay.

In terms of how much of an impact the game left on the genre, the game was definitely overshadowed by Battlefield 1 which released at about the same time as Titanfall 2 so its potential got partially wasted as it got lost in the hype. However, the next installment after this was a spin-off, free to play battle royale by the name of Apex Legends. This game was extremely popular at release and at some point it even topped player count charts for a while. Apex has been going down hill for a while now but it's worth noting the juggernaut it was between 2021 to 2023 with an all time peak of over 600 thousand concurrent players on steam and probably hundreds of thousands of console players that weren’t accounted for.

The future of the FPS genre and gaming as a whole will probably go in one of few directions. VR technologies get good enough and affordable to a point where more FPS games are being sold and played on VR than on other platforms. I’m not sure whether this is a good thing or not but I guess it could lead to a new revolution in the genre which makes uses for this hardware that were not possible before. This is unlike the next outcome which is where fully AI made games will flood the market. This is bad for any game genre but I think it would be very detrimental to FPS because AI would probably be able to copy them much easier than more obscure genres. This is probably not happening anytime soon and so far it looks like AI companies are just digging a deeper hole for themselves with the amount of money they are burning through, which might even result in this massive AI bubble actually popping. Time will only tell what happens but I don’t think people should be concerned about AI destroying creativity and the internet anytime soon.

Third Person Shooters are a sub-genre of 3D shooters where the player character is visible on screen. The camera’s POV (Point of View) is often over the character’s right shoulder. Because of this view, the game is often designed to allow for more interaction between other characters and the environment which also means that cutscenes and cutaways are very frequent. Another unique thing about this genre is that even though it's called a third person shooter, most allow the player to go into a first person perspective during moments where they might need to be more precise of focus on something specific.

For my three landmark games I have chosen:

1. Helldivers 2 (2024):

> Colossal game launch (third highest selling game in 2024)

> Multiple awards (mainly for art and music)

> Massive community

> Big controversy (PSN account requirement)

2. Spacewar! (1962):

> The world’s first third person shooter

3. Star Wars: Battlefront II (2005):

> Introduced large-scale battles (very ambitious for 2005)

> Multiplayer and Singleplayer mix made the game much more replayable

> Authentic use of the Star Wars IP set a standard for licensed games

"Spacewar!" Case Study

While not really looking like any modern TPS, this is often considered the first one as you still control the player character or in this case, a spacecraft from a top down, third person perspective.

Released In 1962 and primarily developed by Steve Russell, it involved 2 spaceships battling it out in space. One player controlled the ship called “the needle” while the other one controlled “the wedge”. The goal was to destroy the other player’s ship before they destroy yours while also attempting to avoid the gravitational pull of the sun that was in the center of the screen.

This game has been put on the list of the 10 most important video games at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. and was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame by The Strong in 2018. This really shows just how influential this single game was to the third person shooter genre and the games industry as a whole.

Even after a decade of its creation, it was still the most popular game on computers. It’s spread led to people modifying and making many improvements to it. This is probably one of the first instances of mods being made for a game.

The original might have not been made as a commercial game but it massively helped start the titan that is the video game industry.

“Star Wars: Battlefront II (2005)” Case Study 

Not to be confused with the reboot from 2017 with the same title, Battlefront II was the sequel to the first Battlefront that was released a year earlier in 2004. While not really adding to much, it perfected many game systems and made quite a few new additions but that's not why I chose this as a landmark game. Its very ambitious approach is what sets it apart from others.

The game allowed for massive multiplayer battles (up to 24 on PS2 and a default of 32 on consoles/PC) on large maps with access to a large arsenal of weapons and vehicles. For 2005 this was rather impressive considering the technical limitations at the time. Also, no other game at the time compared to battlefront II in most aspects especially the large lobbies along with the combination of ground, air combat and mixture of hero battles made the battlefield so much more chaotic.

In March 2024, the game was re released in a collection alongside the first Star Wars: Battlefront which both received updated graphics and better multiplayer which increased the servers cap for up to 64 players in one lobby.

The overall reception of the game was pretty positive both in terms of critics and the general public. Its remembered as a masterpiece of its era and even today, most fans consider this the true battlefront experience instead of the versions made later by EA/Dice which just shows how much of an impact this game left on certain individuals. Of course, not everyone believes this but a majority of people agree that back when it released, it was amazing and still is very fun.

A thing worth mentioning would be the authentic way that the Star Wars IP was used which set a proper standard for any licensed games for the future. Everything inside of the game is almost just like in the movies and it must’ve been a really cool feeling to play as your favourite character back 2005.

“Helldivers 2” Case Study 

One of the newest third person shooters released that has received universal acclaim and many awards.

It's a cooperative shooter where you play as Helldivers who are elite shock troops that are deployed into hostile territories to spread managed democracy. Helldivers are expected to be completely loyal to Super Earth and be able to give their life for it when necessary.

With it being a live service game, the community is one of the most important parts of the game. Quite a few important points within the running plot were made because of the community.

A rather big controversy that happened was shortly after the launch of the game was Sony making an account on the Playstation Network a mandatory thing. This made an overwhelming majority of the player base very angry as people in over 177 regions were blocked from playing the game they paid for.

This decision was eventually reversed but the damage was already done.

Bibliography 

The Strong National Museum of Play (2025) SpaceWar! - the strong National Museum of Play. https://www.museumofplay.org/games/spacewar/. 

Wikipedia contributors (2025) SpaceWar! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacewar. 

Wikipedia contributors (2025b) Star Wars: Battlefront II (2005 video game). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_Battlefront_II_(2005_video_game). 

Star Wars Battlefront II - IGN (2022). https://www.ign.com/articles/2005/11/03/star-wars-battlefront-ii. 

Lipscombe, D. (2023) '2005 Star Wars Battlefront 2 is still a masterpiece after all this time,' GAMINGbible, 13 October. https://www.gamingbible.com/news/2005-star-wars-battlefront-2-is-a-masterpiece-after-all-this-time-493315-20231013. 

TheXyloGuy (2018) 'Is Star Wars battlefront 2(2005) really as good as people remember? Or is it just nostalgia?,' r/StarWarsBattlefront, 1 January. https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7nfmkt/is_star_wars_battlefront_22005_really_as_good_as/. 

Wikipedia contributors (2025) Helldivers 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helldivers_2 

Script For Presentation 

Intro

There Is quite a lot of games that exist, these fall into many hundreds of genres, some broad, some more niche. However, one which I think is very important to gaming is the good old Third Person Shooter Genre.

Why have I come to such a conclusion you may wonder? Well, it mostly comes down to the fact that an overwhelming majority of my all time favourite games are in fact, Third Person Shooters. But I think that there are a lot of other people who also would also agree with me.

It’s such a versatile genre that can be so simple yet complex at the same time which is why I will be covering three examples, going from the very first ever, to one of the latest releases. These are: Spacewar!, Star Wars: Battlefront II (2005) and Helldivers 2.

Question 1

Game 1, SpaceWar!

Let’s go back in time to the 1960s and look at what is commonly considered as one of the first Third Person style shooter games. “SpaceWar!”. 

While it might not look particularly impressive by today’s standards, back then this game was absolutely revolutionary. Remember, games were in their infancy; limitations in hardware and very slow adoption meant that they were seen as more of a gimmick or toy by most people.

Released in 1962 and mainly developed by Steve Russell during his time at MIT, it was a 2 player game where each player controlled a ship and attempted to destroy each other before the other player or the sun (it's actually very deadly if not paying attention) scrapped them. This basic concept proved to be quite addictive and even after a decade, it was still one of the most popular games on computers.

Something to note is that the game was fully open source, meaning that anyone could modify it to their liking. I’m pretty sure this the very first instance of video game modding so not only was this the first third person shooter, but it also was the first to have a modding community.

If you are not convinced on this games legitimacy as a landmark game then maybe the fact that two institutions put it into their lists of the most important video games might change your mind. These would be the list of the 10 most important video games at the library of congress in Washington and the World Video Game Hall Of Fame by The Strong.

Game 2, Star Wars: Battlefront II (2005)

Moving ahead in time to the early 2000s (it's a big jump I know but this is where it really started to pick up in pace). Imagine you’re a Star Wars fan in late 2005 and it's barely been a year since “Star Wars: Battlefront” released and then you hear the sequel is coming out. Personally, I would’ve been shocked.

It was obvious it took a year to develop, however it was still better than its predecessor in virtually every single way. Pandemic Studios added lot’s of additional content, a single player campaign and most importantly, better multiplayer.

Although, games like Battlefield 1942 were similar in to Battlefront II, I still think Battlefront II is superior to them because of the perfect blend of both ground, air and vehicle combat that is just perfect. Oh I almost forgot to mention the heroes. From what I could read online, an overwhelming majority of the people who played this loved the hero battles that could be waged on here. The massively multiplayer effect is definitely there even if it's really only up to 64 players (on PC) in one server. It really makes you feel like you’re in a massive battle in the star wars universe.

Game 3 – Helldivers 2

This is a true masterpiece, in my opinion at least. Helldivers 2 is one of those games that you know had the developers going insane over it during development but it all ultimately paid off with it being one of the best selling games of 2024 and winning a multitude of awards. I personally have played for around 115 hours at the time of writing this and I only got it somewhat recently.

The galactic war mechanic is the main eyecatcher for me because your contributions to it, no matter how big or small, help. It gives this sense of accomplishment and weight to your actions because it has actual consequences within the game and sometimes even in real life. A perfect example of this would be when there was a ‘major order’ in which players could choose between getting anti-tank mines early, or saving a children's hospital. Surprisingly, they chose to help the children, and the developers actually donated thousands to the Save the Children charity in real life.

This along with many other events show how the genre is evolving beyond just pure competition. It's actually affecting our real world in meaningful ways which clearly shows how far gaming has come in terms of its long term impact on society.

Also beyond all this, the fact that the game engine Helldivers 2 uses (Autodesk Stingray) stopped getting updated by Autodesk yet Arrowhead still decided to push through still astounds me as it's a miracle that this game even works.

Question 2

Moral panic is something a lot of games have gone through, Helldivers 2 though has had to endure much worse though. This is because of the social commentary that it covers and the various controversies that make this a perfect example.

A rather recent one would be a when the Charlie Kirk assassination happened and on one of the unfired rounds that were discovered after the shooting had the engraving “Hey fascist! Catch! ↑→↓↓↓”. The combination of arrow symbols is the same input for calling the eagle 500kg bomb stratagem. As you could probably guess, there was a lot of buzz in the Helldivers 2 community to a point where the official subreddit r/Helldivers had to be locked temporarily. It’s possible that the individual responsible for killing Kirk might have been partially influenced by the game itself but that's just a theory. A game theory you could say.

The ironic thing about this though is that the engraving labels Charlie as a ‘fascist’ while simultaneously referencing an in-game authoritarian regime that is deliberately portrayed as absurd and without many morals right after. Players are expected to unquestioningly sacrifice themselves for a propagandised system which the game itself critiques through constant satire. This highlights how easily satirical elements in media such as games can be misunderstood or completely stripped of context to either blame or justify an action.

Question 3

Each one of the case studies I’ve done, has influenced me quite a lot, even if some did it a bit less than others.

What Spacewar! has taught me is that sometimes core mechanics are much more important than visuals, because you could have the prettiest sunsets and raytraced reflections but if there’s nothing to do, why play the game?

Battlefront II is more for inspiration than anything. Its an example of how to both  immerse the player in a game world and how scale it up while combining multiple gameplay systems into one cohesive experience.

Finally, Helldivers 2 has had the biggest influence on me both personally and creatively. I adore the idea of your actions having consequences where both the players and developers mold the world around them, instead of just one party handling everything. The game itself is a technical masterpiece even though it was developed on a game engine that stopped being supported.

1. Although not always factual, Wikipedia has been a very useful source for my research. Its free, doesn’t require any accounts or subscriptions and is constantly maintained by thousands of volunteers with the latter being very important as I know that most entries are up to date. I have obviously used other sources to verify the authenticity of the information given as I know that sometimes there can be things written down that are not true or very sensationalised.

2. As I was writing my script, I tried making sure that it was informative but not too packed so it wouldn’t get too boring. I also made sure to talk to the audience (the lecturer in this case) directly instead of just reading out paragraphs in a monotone voice. I wanted to originally put some jokes in but I quickly realised that my line delivery is not good enough to make them actually land well and be funny.

3. My way of research could definitely be improved as I didn’t do enough of it to get a higher grade unfortunately. The main problem I have is that I just don’t do enough research. This is probably partly due to my motivation or rather the lack of it and also my awful time management but those go hand in hand. This problem is quite difficult to solve as its more so my mindset that needs fixing instead but I could attempt to try and improve it even just a bit so I can get more done.

1. Doing this project has helped me realise I need to focus more on research in future projects like the FMP. It has also taught me that I usually leave things till the last minute. Maybe next time I should at least try and spread the work over a larger period of time instead of doing a bit of work at the beginning and then quickly finishing it right before its due.