Multidirectional shooter is an umbrella term for a variety of Top-Down/Isometric/Overhead shooter video games, with progression approach and controls schemes changing throughout the years and platforms. It is considered by some as a sub-genre of Shoot 'em up games but other just view it as a direct overhead version of shooters in general.
Similar to many early arcade games, this style was simplistic and originated from spaceship shooters, but slowly created a new style. Sometimes auto-scrolling, open-ended levels, sometimes in a maze, this sub-genre is usually presented in an overhead, isometric or top-down perspective and differs itself from others due to its multi-directional shooting controls, the idea of a character moving in a solid plane generates different movement controls than most Shoot'em ups and the level itself usually has more emphasis in the way the player traverses throw it. Earlier examples of this sub-genre are Alien Syndrome, Ikari Warriors, Smash TV, Space Dungeon, SAR: Search And Rescue, Robotron: 2084, Total Carnage, Loaded.
These games in the 90s PC market had the advantage of mouse and keyboard controls while the new dual joystick controls in the 5th and 6th gen consoles started a new trend so-called "dual joystick shooters" all taking advantage of the newly established technology to move and aim at the same time. Examples include Cannon Spike, The Red Star, Assault Android Cactus, Helldivers, Halo: Spartan Assault, Alien Breed, Renegade Ops.
History[ | ]
Nintendo's Sheriff (designed by Shigeru Miyamoto), released in 1979, was a run & gun multi-directional shooter that featured dual-stick controls, with one joystick for movement and the other for aiming, and a large number of enemies shooting many bullets, paving the way for dual-stick shooters such as Robotron: 2084 and later Geometry Wars. Nintendo also released Radar Scope (also designed by Shigeru Miyamoto), which introduced a three-dimensional third-person perspective, imitated years later by shooters such as Konami's Juno First and Activision's Beamrider.
SNK's second scrolling shooter Vanguard was also released that year, and it was both a horizontal and vertical scrolling shooter that allowed the player to shoot in four directions. It was also an early dual-control game, similar to the later multi-directional shooter Robotron 2084, but using four directional buttons rather than a second joystick.
1982's acclaimed Robotron: 2084 was one of the most influential on subsequent multi-directional shooters. That same year, several early vertical-scrolling run & gun shooters were released, including Taito's Front Line, an early military-themed multi-directional shooter to have players control foot soldiers rather than vehicles, Taito's Wild Western, where the player character on a horse must defend a moving train from robbers.
Also in 1982, Konami's Tutankham combined maze gameplay with multi-directional shooter gameplay, giving the game a more action-adventure feel.
In 1986's, Sega's Alien Syndrome brought up to two players running and killing aliens in a space ship. Heavely inspired thematic wise by the movie Alien (1979) and by the gameplay of the arcade game Gauntlet.
In the 6th generation of consoles as the dual joystick controls became the norm multiple games in this genre that came out at that time implemented the let joystick to move the player's character and the right joystick to point the gun (and sometime shooting as well). This popularized the term "dual joystick shooter".
In late 2010's the genre became more current in the computer game indie scene, usually also merged with other genres as Survival, Rogue-likes or Action RPGs.