Deathmatch (video games) facts for kids

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Deathmatch, also known as free-for-all, is a popular way to play in many shooter games, like first-person shooter (FPS) games, and even some real-time strategy (RTS) video games. The main goal is to "frag" (which means to kill) other players' characters as many times as you can. A deathmatch game usually ends when a player reaches a certain number of kills (a frag limit) or when a set amount of time runs out (a time limit). The player with the most frags at the end wins!

Deathmatch grew out of competitive ways to play in multiplayer games. You can see similar ideas in game genres like fighting games and racing games, but deathmatch brought this intense competition to other types of games.

How Deathmatch Works

In a typical first-person shooter (FPS) deathmatch, players connect their computers or consoles together. This can be done locally, like in the same room, or over the internet. Each player sees the game world through the eyes of their character.

Players control their characters using different systems. On a computer, you usually use a mouse to look around and aim, and the mouse buttons to shoot. The keyboard helps you move your character and do other actions. Game consoles use hand-held "control pads" with buttons and joysticks for movement and actions. Players can often talk to each other during the game using microphones or by typing messages.

The game creates the virtual world and characters very quickly, making the action look smooth, like a movie. Different game consoles have different hardware, so the game's quality and performance can vary.

Deathmatches have different rules depending on the game. But usually, it's every player against every other player. The game starts with each player appearing (or "spawning") in a random spot on the map. When you spawn, your score, health, armor, and equipment are reset. You usually start with zero score, full health, no armor, a basic firearm, and a melee weapon. Players can often join or leave the game at any time.

A "player" can be a human controlling a character or a character controlled by the computer's AI (called a "bot"). Both human and bot characters look similar, but in many modern games, you can choose a different "skin" (a different look) for your character. Human and bot characters usually have the same abilities, health, armor, and weapons. For new players, bots might seem like real opponents. But skilled players can often tell the difference because bots don't have human intelligence, even if they have super-accurate aim. Some games, like OpenArena, even tell you if an opponent is a bot.

All normal maps have "power-ups" scattered around. These can be extra health, armor, ammunition, or more powerful weapons. Once a player picks up a power-up, it will usually reappear after a set time in the same spot. The time it takes to reappear depends on the game and the item. In some deathmatch modes, power-ups might not reappear at all. Some power-ups are super powerful, and controlling them can be key to winning. The player who collects the most powerful power-ups often has the best chance to get the highest score.

The main goal is to kill other players as many times as possible. Each kill is called a "frag." You can get frags by directly attacking others or sometimes by using the map itself to cause damage. To get the highest score, you need to frag opponents repeatedly and quickly. The game might have a time limit, a frag limit, or no limit. If there's a limit, the player with the most frags wins when the game ends.

Your "health" shows how wounded your character is. In most games, being wounded doesn't slow you down. You won't bleed to death either. Your character dies when your health reaches zero or less. If your health goes very low into negative numbers, your character might even explode into pieces (called "gibbing") in some games.

When your character dies (gets fragged), you usually lose all the equipment you picked up. The screen doesn't go black; you often see the game world and the score list. You can usually choose to "respawn" (come back to life) instantly or stay dead for a moment.

"Armor" helps protect your character by reducing the damage you take. The more armor you have, the less your health goes down when you get hit. Some games consider where your character was hit, while older games might not. In most games, armor doesn't make your character move slower or feel heavy.

Game physics are often a bit unrealistic. For example, you might be able to change your direction a little while jumping in the air. Some cool tricks come from how game physics work, like "bunny-hopping" (jumping repeatedly to go faster), "strafe-jumping" (jumping while moving sideways to gain speed), and "rocket-jumping" (shooting a rocket at the ground under you to jump super high). These tricks let players move faster or jump higher by using the game's physics in clever ways. Rocket-jumping, for example, makes you jump higher but also hurts your character a little. The specific tricks you can do depend on the game's physics.

When a player dies, their lost equipment (usually not armor) can be picked up by any other player, even the player who just respawned, if they get to it first.

Modern games let new players join after a game has started. The maximum number of players depends on the game, map, and rules. Some maps are better for small groups, while others are great for many players.

If a game has a frag or time limit, a new game will start shortly after the current one ends. During this short break, players can see the score list, chat, and often see an animated overview of the map. Some games let players say when they are ready for the next game. New games might be on a different map from a list, or always on the same map.

Many games have ways to send messages. A "broadcast" system announces public events, like who died and how, or if a player joins or leaves. It might also show how many frags are left or other important messages. Text messages from other players are also shown here. A "private message" system only shows messages to specific players. For example, if you pick up a weapon, you might get a private message confirming it.

Most modern deathmatch games show a lot of "graphic violence." This means you might see characters being killed, some blood, screams, or even bodies exploding. Some games let you turn down or turn off the amount of gore. However, remember that these games are usually set in fictional worlds. Characters can "respawn" (come back to life), and they often have superhuman abilities. For example, they might survive many close-range machine gun shots to the head without armor, or jump incredibly far and fall from great heights without injury. These unrealistic parts help remind players that the game is not real.

This description gives you a basic idea of deathmatch based on popular games like Quake, Doom, and Unreal Tournament. But remember, there are many variations, and rules can be changed in different games.

History of Deathmatch

The exact origin of the term "deathmatch" in video games is a bit unclear. Many people say it was first used by game designer John Romero and programmer John Carmack when they were making the multiplayer mode for the game Doom. Another early game, World Heroes 2, also used the term around the same time, but it referred to dangerous parts of the game's arenas, not the game mode itself. However, some gamers say the idea of players repeatedly killing each other and respawning was around even before these games.

According to John Romero, the idea for deathmatch came from fighting games. The team at id Software often played games like Street Fighter II during breaks. Romero said that playing these fighting games helped them create the "deathmatch" idea for their shooter games.

Games that had similar gameplay before Doom didn't use the term "deathmatch." But it became very popular with games like Quake and Unreal Tournament. MIDI Maze, an FPS game for the Atari ST released in 1987, is often suggested as an early example of deathmatch gameplay before the term was widely used. Sega's 1988 arcade game Last Survivor also featured eight-player deathmatch.

Some games use different names for deathmatch, even though the idea is the same. For example, in Perfect Dark, it's called "Combat Simulator", and in Halo, it's known as "Slayer".

An early example of a deathmatch mode in a first-person shooter was Gun Buster by Taito in 1992. It allowed two players to play together in missions and had an early deathmatch mode. Two players could compete against each other, or up to four players could play in a team deathmatch (two teams of two players).

Early Ideas Behind Deathmatch

Some people think that in 1983, Drew Major and Kyle Powell played the world's first deathmatch with a game called Snipes. This was a text-based game that later inspired Novell NetWare. However, multiplayer games where players competed across different screens existed even earlier, like Spasim and Maze War from the 1970s.

There's also early proof of the term being used for graphical video games. On August 6, 1982, Intellivision game developers Russ Haft and Steve Montero challenged each other to a game of Bi-Planes. This 1981 game let multiple players control fighter planes and repeatedly shoot each other down until a limit was reached. When a player was shot down, they would respawn in a fixed spot and be protected for a short time. This contest was called a "deathmatch" back then.

Different Kinds of Deathmatch

Team Deathmatch

In a Team Deathmatch, players are divided into two or more teams. Each team has its own score based on how many frags its members get. Sometimes, shooting your teammates (called "friendly fire") can cause damage. If it does, players who kill a teammate usually lose points for themselves and their team. In some games, they might even be killed as punishment or removed from the game if they do it too often. The team with the highest frag count at the end wins.

Last Man Standing

In a last man standing deathmatch (or a battle royale game), players start with a certain number of "lives" (or just one in battle royale games). When they die, they lose a life. Players who run out of lives are out of the game for good. The winner is the last player left with at least one life.

Deathmatch in Strategy Games

In real-time strategy games, deathmatch can mean a game mode where all players start with a lot of resources. This lets them skip the slow part of gathering resources and jump straight into big battles. Destroying all enemies is the only way to win in this mode. Other strategy game modes might have different ways to win, like controlling a certain area or building a special structure.

How Deathmatch Changed Over Time

Doom

The first-person shooter version of deathmatch started with Doom in 1993. It had a set of rules called "Deathmatch 1.0" that couldn't be changed.

• Items like health, armor, and ammo did not reappear after being picked up. Weapons, however, stayed on the map even after someone picked them up. This sometimes meant players ran out of ammo if they survived for a long time.

Within a few months, these rules were updated to "Deathmatch 2.0" (in Doom v1.2). These new rules were optional, meaning the game administrator could choose which set of rules to use.

• When an object was picked up, it disappeared from the map.
• Objects would reappear 30 seconds after being picked up. Special power-ups that gave big advantages (like invisibility) would reappear much later, or not at all.

A famous power-up in many games is the "soul sphere." Even if it has a different name or look in other games, the idea and what it does remain the same.

Corridor 7: Alien Invasion

Corridor 7: Alien Invasion, released in 1994, was one of the first FPS games to:

• Include multiple types of characters, each with their own weapons.
• Have maps specifically designed for deathmatch.

Rise of the Triad

Rise of the Triad, released in 1994, had a big multiplayer mode that introduced many new deathmatch features:

• It brought the Capture the Flag mode to FPS games, calling it Capture the Triad.
• It was the first FPS to have a scoreboard that you could see during the game.
• It allowed players to customize multiplayer games a lot, changing things like gravity or how long weapons stayed on the ground.
• It was the first FPS to have voice macros (pre-recorded messages) and let players talk using microphones.
• It had a unique point system that gave different points for different kills (e.g., a missile kill was worth more than a bullet kill).

Hexen: Beyond Heretic

Hexen: Beyond Heretic, released in 1995, was the first game to:

• Feature multiple character classes, each with their own unique weapons. Some items also worked differently depending on which class used them.

Quake

Quake, released in 1996, was a very important FPS deathmatch game:

• It was the first FPS deathmatch game to let players join a game already in progress.
• It was the first FPS deathmatch game to have AI-controlled players (bots), though these were created by the community, not part of the original game.
• Quake made "rocket-jumping" very popular.

A famous power-up in Quake and many games after it is the "quad damage." This power-up, even with different names or looks, gives you four times the damage for a short time.

Unreal

With the game Unreal (1998), some widely accepted improvements were added:

• Spawn protection (usually 2–4 seconds): This is a short time when a player is invincible after respawning. It stops other players from easily killing someone who just appeared and might be a little confused or unarmed. Spawn protection usually ends if the player uses a weapon.

Unreal Tournament

Unreal Tournament (1999) added "combat achievements tracking," which meant the game kept track of many different statistics, such as:

• How accurate you were with each weapon (percentage of shots that hit).
• How many kills you got with each weapon, or how many times you were killed by a certain weapon.
• Headshots (killing an enemy by hitting their head with powerful weapons).
• Consecutive kills: When a player gets another kill within 5 seconds of the last one. This can lead to titles like Double Kill (2 kills), Multi kill (3), Ultra kill (4), Megakill (5), and MONSTERKILL (6).

Quake III Arena

Quake III Arena had a different way of tracking combat achievements in deathmatch, giving awards for special tricks:

• "Perfect!" – Winning a round without getting killed.
• "Impressive!" – Hitting two enemies with one shot or hitting with two shots in a row from the railgun (a powerful, long-range weapon).
• "Humiliation!" – Killing an opponent with only the melee (close-combat) gauntlet. The killed player also hears this announcement.
• "Accuracy" – Hitting more than 50% of your shots.

Last Man Standing Changes

The Last Man Standing (LMS) version of deathmatch is quite different from regular deathmatch. In regular deathmatch, it doesn't matter how many times you die, only how many times you kill. In LMS, the most important thing is "not to die." Because of this, LMS games had to deal with two issues that weren't a problem in regular deathmatch:

• "Camping": This means staying in one spot, often a protected one, and using long-range weapons like a sniper rifle. In regular deathmatch, campers usually get fewer frags because close-range combat is faster. But in LMS, camping can help you stay alive longer. Unreal Tournament 2003 tried to fix this by showing other players who was camping and how to find them.
• "Staying dead": After dying, players usually see the game results and have to click a button to respawn. In regular deathmatch, if a player stays dead, it's not a big deal because the goal is to get kills, not avoid dying. But in LMS, a player who stays dead after their first death could wait until almost everyone else is gone and then respawn to win. To prevent this, Unreal Tournament 2003 automatically respawns a player right after they are killed in LMS.

See also

In Spanish: Deathmatch para niños

• Player versus environment
• Player versus player
• Battle royale game