Two very popular PvP multiplayer genres in gaming, Fighting Games and Hero Shooters, both have a lot of differences, yet are strikingly similar in the sense that they're all built around a large cast of diverse characters with unique abilities and movesets, with most of the skill being learning how each character behaves and maximizing their abilities to gain the advantage.
Fighting games of course, need no introduction. The classic vs. multiplayer genre that's been a staple of gaming for decades. Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Super Smash Bros. Guilty Gear, Dead or Alive, Soul Calibur. All franchises that people have either played or at least heard about. A lot of the fun of Fighting games can be found with learning a specific character, and practicing hard with them to master their moves. Sometimes its just fun to pick a character at random and just mess around to see what they can do. Of course, fighting games are also notorious for having a pretty high skill ceiling. With the exception of Smash Bros., character moves are typically executed through intricate and sometimes difficult to input button combos and directions on the controller, which can make it a bit daunting to newcomers at first. Still, fighting games are always exciting to both play and watch.
But for those who prefer an easier to play, and more team-based atmosphere, there's Hero shooters. A relatively new sub-genre of shooters that had its blueprints established in games like Team Fortress 2. But it was the breakout success of Overwatch that really brought the genre to life, with more recent games including Valorant, Marvel Rivals, and Gigantic. Hero Shooters are team-based shooters (first or third person) that have you pick a "Hero" from a specific class (DPS, Healers, Tanks, etc.) and has each team fight over various objectives. Usually either capturing a point on the map, or escorting a payload to a specific location (Sometimes both).
Hero shooters are similar to fighting games in that the challenge of mastering the game comes from picking a character and studying their attributes in order to use them to your advantage, with both basic moves, and a super cool ultimate ability. And if you have a proper team, then each class makes up the core components of a fighting game character (DPS are your attacks, Tanks are your blocking, and Healers are your defense). But hero shooters distinguish themselves in a number of ways. For one, you can usually swap characters out mid-match after dying. Learning to main multiple characters is a good idea in fighting games, but it's especially encouraged in hero shooters, as you'll often need to change up your strategy and team composition whenever your opponent has the upper hand.
Also unlike Fighting games, character move-sets don't require fancy thumb work on the controls to pull off. Every character ability is instead executed with a single button press and their use is limited by a cooldown system. So the skill with hero shooters is instead focused on precision aiming, knowing how and when to use different moves, and learning to synergize with a team.
So between these two genres, which do you typically have more fun with?
