Pokemon Snap is one among many in the On-Rails shooter genre. Star Fox and House of the Dead are other notable examples. But what happened to them? Why are there no more being made?
In this video, I take a look at some of the best games in the genre and see if I can figure out why on-rails shooters just aren’t being made anymore. And you might just discover your new favorite game…
Transcript:
Children, take a seat while I tell you a tale. A tale of innovation, triumph, and unfortunately for our hero, further innovation.
Action and violence has been at the core of video games since the beginning. Even in Super Mario Bros, you were crushing well-meaning animals beneath your boots and punching your transmogrified peers into pieces. You were playing as Mario, but you were still distanced from the action. Mario was the one doing the acts of violence, you were a mere observer. I’ve heard stories of people seeing Super Mario Brothers as their first video game and thinking it was a cartoon. It’s easy to distance yourself from the violence you’re causing when you have a character to shove the blame onto.
But what if… you were that character?
What if you physically moved your head and looked down as a Goomba was stomped into a pile of pixels? What if you lifted up your arm cannon and shot missiles at Ridley?
First-person gameplay was the dream for quite a long time. And you didn’t really see it a lot, compared to side-scrollers or top-down games for a few generations.
But that changed when the 5th console generation rolled around.
Polygons were all the rage. And with polygons, came fully modeled worlds. And with fully modeled worlds, the player would naturally want to explore them. But we quickly run into a problem.
Before I get to that, let me present you with an example. People have been pining for a fully 3d open world Pokemon game for literal decades. It’s the first thing you’d think of after playing the practically prehistoric Pokemon Red and Blue versions, “Man, it’d be great if I could see a Pokemon walking around in the bushes, and decide if I want to battle it or sneak past it.” Players were always thinking of ways they could sidestep what the developers programmed and do what their first instinct was.
On the face of it, a fully 3d Pokemon game in the vein of the handheld entries seems like a no-brainer. They always sold like hot cakes, just imagine if they innovated the Pokemon franchise like what Super Mario 64 did for Mario.
Now hold on. That might sound cool, but what would that look like? To answer that, we need to look at the changes the Mario franchise made when going from 2d to 3d. It feels like Super Mario 64 is a natural continuation of Super Mario World, but they actually changed a lot. Most notably, the challenges take place in a dozen or so levels, compared to the 72 levels of it’s predecessor. They did that to reduce workload and storage space.
Each star in 64 takes roughly the same amount of time to complete as a level in Super Mario World. Imagine if each star in Super Mario 64 had it’s own distinct level. Think about what that would require out of the development team. Or rather, think about what they save themselves from doing by reusing non-linear levels.
They don’t have to plot out new levels for each star. They can have better world building. The player will become more intimately familiar with each world. And most important to this discussion, it drastically cuts down on storage space.
By having the player return to the same world over and over, it saves on the sheer amount of bits taken up by level data than if each star had it’s own level.
The storage space of Nintendo 64 cartridges were abysmal compared to it’s ever-looming rival, the PlayStation 1. The PlayStation 1 used Compact Discs, which could hold up to around 700 megabytes. A Nintendo 64 cartridge could hold up to 64 megabytes.
I think the Nintendo 64 didn’t see a lot of RPGs because of that. Final Fantasy 7 was supposed to come to the 64, before Square Enix made a deal with Sony and put it out on the PS1. And it came with THREE discs. So that’s an upper end of 2.1 gigabytes compared to Nintendo’s upper end of 64 megabytes. Final Fantasy 7 as we know it would just not be possible on the Nintendo 64.
Let’s loop back to Pokemon. Pokemon Crystal is just about 30 hours while Final Fantasy 7 is 37 hours. My point being, mainline Pokemon games are long. I don’t think a mainline Pokemon game of that length would be possible on the 64. The Pokemon series is something that gets harder to develop for as time goes on.
The games stay roughly the same length, but the amount of assets you need to create for each game goes up with each new mainline installment. Storing each Pokemon’s model up to that point would create a lot of problems with only 64
Megabytes of storage. And you aren’t just storing Pokemon models, you’re storing human character models, environment models, textures, audio, all kinds of stuff. Plus 3d technology was in it’s infancy at that point, Gamefreak might not have been comfortable working with 3d yet. In fact, they didn’t develop a single game for the Nintendo 64. HAL Laboratory developed most of the Pokemon games for the system.
But what about those games? How did they fit Pokemon games onto the Nintendo 64? Obviously, by branching out from the typical RPG formula. There were games just about battling, a game where you have a pet Pikachu, and a game where you take pictures.
Wait what’s that all about? Taking pictures? There’s no battling or anything? Nope. You just sit in a cart on a predetermined route and take pictures of Pokemon that do the same thing every single time on one of seven courses. It’s a spin-off, so of course it plays different than the mainline entries, but it’s interesting that they stuck you on a predetermined track instead of allowing you to roam around these levels on foot. I wonder why they could have done that…
You see where I’m going with this right? Pokemon Snap was an adaptation of the Pokemon experience to a console that probably couldn’t handle what traditional Pokemon games are. It was developed in a way similar to Super Mario 64. Nintendo and GameFreak knew doing the third generation of Pokemon for the Nintendo 64 might be unfeasible from a business perspective, so they sought to provide alternative ways to enjoy the Pokemon world on the platform.
I’m fascinated with how they specifically did it in Pokemon Snap. They developed a fully 3d world, like something in Super Mario 64, but they pushed you along a track, not allowing you to explore what’s behind those trees or see what’s just past that rock formation.
Thinking about it from a developer’s perspective, it’s a genius idea. The player gets all the benefits of being immersed in a 3d world and the developer can focus on really polishing a certain path of the level. If you weren’t in a vehicle and could just walk around, the workload would increase dramatically. You’d have to make sure the collisions on every piece of geometry is perfect, program an enjoyable movement system, and make sure the level looks good from every single angle. Knowing HAL and the quality of games they put out, they’d probably go above and beyond. They’d have to program a bunch of Pokemon interactions with the player character. Think about how weird it would be to walk up to a Mankey and him just stare you down. He’d have to attack you or something to make it feel like it’s a believable world, and not just a museum for you to take pictures in.
Keeping everything on-rails allows for developers to keep scope in check in a time period where making 3d games was tough.
And thus, we’re introduced to the hero of our story, the on-rails shooter. Admittedly, these games existed long before Pokemon Snap, it just depends on how loose we’re willing to get with the definition. Is House of the Dead an on-rails shooter? Of course. Is Space Harrier an on-rails shooter? Definitely. What about Wild Guns? Well, depending on who you ask, I’m sure you’d get a few people saying sure.
My point is, on-rails shooters became really big on consoles when the 5th generation hit. And it’s because it was a compromise between the traditional design of 2d games while taking advantage of a 3d world. Designers could focus on making a core experience enjoyable and polished and players could become immersed in a world only possible with this brand-new technology.
Panzer Dragoon was lauded for it’s great gameplay and intriguing story. That’s a game that would just not have the same magic it does if the levels were free-roamable. The graphics were also extremely impressive and showed off the potential of 3d worlds in games.
Star Fox 64 is another popular on-rails shooter. It’s in the top 10 best selling Nintendo 64 games of all time. It was quite innovative for it’s time, it offered branching paths, and even a few free-roaming sections where you fly around a pretty big arena.
And how could I forget Rez. It actually came out around the start of the 6th generation, but it’s too important to not talk about. Rez is a game unlike any other really. It is an on-rails shooter, just like Star Fox or Panzer Dragoon, but it’s also kinda… I don’t know how to say this without sounding like an idiot, but it’s spiritual in a way.
It’s one of those games that lulls you into a trance. Where the visuals, audio, and controls all merge together and evoke a feeling of cohesion that you don’t see in a lot of games. The closest modern game I can think of to compare it to is Thumper. Both in that and Rez, you stop processing what you’re doing as playing a game and it evolves into experiencing something more conceptual.
Does that make sense? Ah, whatever. I tried my best.
On-rails shooters dominated gaming for a while. They were on home consoles, personal computers, and especially arcades for a decade or two.
But nowadays, the genre is practically dead in the AAA space. The 7 top-selling on-rails shooters on Steam are filled by remakes/remasters and uh… Gal-Gun.
What happened to the genre? Why did developers abandon the on-rails shooter?
Simply put, technology got better. Let’s think back to why on-rails shooters blew up in the first place.
They were so prevalent because of practical reasons. Developers didn’t have to craft 3d worlds that looked good from every angle, they just had to make it from one perspective. There’s no way to see the backside of this rock in the game. They don’t have to put a bunch of effort into making sure the rock looks good from all angles, they just have to polish it on the side the player sees.
One reason that played a very large part in this is performance. If the opposite side of the rock has no texture or collision, that’s just a tiny bit more power that can be allocated towards rendering things the player CAN see. Of course, this particular rock doesn’t mean much, but when you can optimize assets throughout the whole level like that, you can really make it run real well.
On-rails shooters died out because technology outgrew those limitations. Performance margins were incredibly low on consoles like the Nintendo 64. So developers had to choose between making a heavily detailed world or bringing down the average detail per object to make up for the fact the player can move around of their own accord.
Once the 6th generation rolled around, developers didn’t need to make the compromise between free-roaming and highly-detailed objects. They could do both. Even during the 5th generation, you could see developers messing around with free-roaming 3d environments AND a highly-detailed world. Metal Gear Solid and Goldeneye are both great examples of this. Metal Gear Solid didn’t sacrifice asset detail for performance, and while Goldeneye definitely had performance problems, Rare was comfortable in pushing the limits of what players expected from a 3d game.
It’s a genre that outlived it’s usefulness. Project scope increased as team size and development time increased and the on-rails shooter was left behind. It’s interesting to note that most of the series I listed as some of the best are dead. Star fox, Space Harrier, House of the Dead, Panzer Dragoon, they just stopped making these games. I’m surprised that developers didn’t even try to modernize the series I listed. You could make an open world Star Fox game. Hell, Ubisoft kind of already did with Starlink, but it’s still not really a Star Fox game.
I guess that’s the hard part isn’t it? You have to maintain series identity while pivoting to a whole new genre. It might seem like it’d be easy to make a Star Fox game with modern open-world game design sensibilities, but there’s a lot more to it than just putting an Arwing in a big open map.
Pacing is extremely important in on-rails shooters. There’s not a lot of down-time, at least compared to other shooty games. Think of the amount of downtime in Star Fox 64 compared to any traditional open-world game. You’ll spend a lot of time walking to objectives or teleporting around, but there’s none of that in Star Fox 64. It’s non-stop action. And that non-stop action is reflected by the play time. It’s a short game. But it’s punchy. It sticks with you. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey isn’t a “punchy” game. It lingers. It all melds together. I couldn’t describe any of the bosses in that game, but I could describe the bosses in Rez.
Gamers and developers alike are obsessed with games that linger. Because that means you got your money’s worth, right? It’s better to spend $60 on a game that lasts you 60 hours than 10 hours, because that means you got more hours of enjoyment. Of course, this isn’t actually the case, but it feels like that’s where we are when Ubisoft puts out lengthy open-world game after lengthy open-world game that all contain similar systems.
It feels like if Activision announced they were making an on-rails Call of Duty, there would be mass outrage. People’d be asking, “Why can’t I walk around myself?” And as much as it pains me to say it, I think I’d be on their side.
What would they gain from making an on-rails Call of Duty? It could theoretically save on unnecessary asset creation costs, but would that translate to more engaging on-rails content? I can’t imagine it would.
First-person shooters feels like the logical evolution of the first-person on-rails shooter, and if I’m being honest, I can think of any reason to go back.
But all of that isn’t to say that no on-rails shooters are being made nowadays. New Pokemon Snap is coming out soon and you’re still riding on a pre-determined track. They easily could have allowed you to walk around and take pictures, but the pre-determined path is core to the idea of Pokemon Snap. To a lot of people, it wouldn’t really be Pokemon Snap if you could walk around a level and take your time. The fun is trying to take the best picture you can before you move past the Pokemon you’re looking at.
Will we ever see a new Star Fox game? Will Panzer Dragoon see the light of day, beyond simple remakes?
It’s hard to say. I don’t know if the on-rails shooter is something that’s in demand right now. I think if a AAA developer wanted to make an on-rails shooter, it’d be some weird open-world hybrid. Maybe have a world that you can run around in, but when you enter a level, you move forward at a set pace.
It’s one of those genres that developers just don’t wanna mess with anymore. And it’s sad, because the death of the on-rails shooter brought the death of many a beloved series.
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