Just when you think there's no room for shooters to innovate, here's one where your health is literally your framerate

FPS Quest 2025 Trailer - YouTube

Just when you think there are no worlds left for the first-person shooter to conquer, some mad lad goes and makes one where your health is literally your framerate. Spotted by PCGN, FPS Quest is an upcoming FPS that's all about, uh, your FPS. That is to say, it's an FPS where the framerate you experience is directly tied to the damage you take. Peppered with bullet holes? Enjoy a crisp 10 frames-a-second, no matter your monitor and GPU.

Want more frames, and thereby more health? Try swapping out your 3D-modelled gun for a 2D sprite, try hacking apart the level geometry, try futzing with the whole thing so much you eventually break the game.

It genuinely seems quite clever. For instance, one of the upgrades visible in the game's promo bumpf amps up your frames by 10 fps. How? By yanking out all the columns in the game's map, effectively obliterating most—perhaps all—of your available cover.

It sounds like you can eventually screw with the game so much that the whole thing becomes downright broken: "remove too much, and the world becomes more dangerous, confusing, or outright absurd." It reminds me a little of Double Fine's Hack 'n' Slash—the old adventure game that lets you literally mess around with the game's code to solve—or obviate—its puzzles.

Shooting a skeleton in a featureless room. — (Image credit: Fairlight Games Industry)

Of course, Hack 'n' Slash didn't quite live up to the promise of its premise—you were really just altering variables rather than getting truly down and dirty with the game's inner workings. I understand why: it'd probably be too complex—and too prone to completely breaking—to give players too much access. Perhaps FPS Quest will strike a happy balance?

One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.