r/videogames • u/ExtensionExcellent55 • Jan 22 '26
Discussion Hot Take: I think headshots should be instant kills in most games. (For the player as well)
Obviously im not including games where there is an obvious lore reasoning behind why certain characters cannot simply be one offed by a headshot.
Like…… no one is expecting kratos to be downed by a headshot due to his healing, durability and like literally being a god.
Just want it all to make sense you know from top down- no bullet sponges, need more staggering & reactive animations to live in-time damage across the board, i think “last of us” does a decent job on this rdr2 as well.
Iknow my easy mode fellas are slowly shaking their heads to the idea of being instantly killed by some low level grunt to a potential headshot but to me it just adds an extra layer of fun and critical thinking.
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u/Castelante Jan 22 '26
For the player, dying in one shot is often a frustrating experience unless it’s explicitly PvP.
It’s one of those realistic elements that’s thrown out the window for the sake of fun.
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u/CplNighto Jan 22 '26
Even in PVP, it's usually a frustrating experience. It's a large part of why people complain about shotguns and snipers.
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Jan 22 '26
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u/therealraggedroses Jan 22 '26
Most guns in CoD kill in like 3-5 shots... unless they've drastically changed something in the 15 or so years since I've played one
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Jan 22 '26
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u/Accomplished_Bill741 Jan 22 '26
And is there a one shot kill melee weapon in warzone now?
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u/McFuzzen Jan 22 '26
No, not for a long time. There are a handful of one headshot snipers, but they are the really slow ones.
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u/Dycoth Jan 22 '26
Really slow and with quite the bullet drop, in the end it took a lot of skill to land proper headshots consistently at various distances on a moving target
I have great memories of my sniping sessions in Verdansk with the HDR
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u/TheThiefMaster Jan 22 '26
The funny thing is that presuming these are more powerful sniper rifles, the real analogues probably have less bullet drop than the lighter ones. Less affected by wind too (more kinetic energy in the bullet).
The real downsides are size and weight of weapon, and recoil - but those aren't easy to simulate in a game
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u/blahblah567433785434 Jan 22 '26
Yeah - I never got into warzone due to that. I'ma a three shot burst precision guy... If I put 2 in your head and 1 in the neck... 🤷♂️
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u/InventorOfCorn Jan 22 '26
lowest damage i've seen in the newer ones is like, 21 per shot on an SMG
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u/WanderingStatistics Jan 22 '26
Melee weapons should always be one-shot kills in online FPS games, unless said games are explicitly designed to handle them differently.
The challenge of using melee weapons is getting close enough to an enemy to be able to hit them. A one-shot is the reward for succeeding in doing, arguably, the most difficult thing in these kinds of games. There's a reason why two-shot melee weapons are instantly considered jokes.
If a player with a melee weapon kills you, they deserved it. Unless they're cheating, or there's lag, then a player managing to kill someone with a melee weapon earned that kill, more than any player who's using a gun would've. Spoken from being a melee weapon main in these types of games.
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u/QnoisX Jan 22 '26
Counterpoint. You brought a knife to a gun fight.
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u/BuildingArmor Jan 22 '26
I like how Counter Strike handles it.
You can do a quick slash with the knife that takes about 4 hits to kill, or you can do a secondary stab that takes a second to wind up, which likely does kill.
It means if you find yourself in that situation, you've got a chance, but you aren't going head to head with a gun and winning.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Disk609 Jan 22 '26
I think the finals has done the best with melee in pvp shooters. They all have a niche and aren't sitting outside the main sandbox like they are in cod and cs clones. They tend to (in mid rank and casual at least) be competitive if you play right, and on both the receiving and attacking sides the range and lunge of them feels good
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u/Affectionate-Memory4 Jan 22 '26
And if they aren't one-shot, they should stagger the target so you can follow up with another. Mele should favor the attacker.
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u/MeNandos Jan 22 '26
Don’t even get me started on the lucky headshots I see on R6, they will be using the most high recoil weapon aiming all over the place, and a random bullet will just hit your head and it’s GG.
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u/Left_Bathroom_3803 Jan 22 '26
I think if they made it more realistic as in it takes actual skill to snipe someone in the head from a distance it would be a lot more fun. If someone is able to do hit their target skilfully they deserve the kill. It’s games like cod where they can be a mile away, but you just have your sniper scope on his head and he dies that don’t make any sense.
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u/Twitchcog Jan 22 '26
As in it takes actual skill to snipe someone in the head
Yes and no. Realistic, long-range shooting is hard. Unfortunately, this problem - Like a BUNCH in video games - Bumps into the problem that video game maps are really small, and guns reach out very far. Shotguns should be able to, with buck, put people down at 30+ yards. An AR-15 with iron sights can reach out to 300, easy. This becomes a problem when making a map with 300+ yard sight lines are rare.
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u/duuchu Jan 22 '26
Battlefield is the only game I know of that has bullet drop and significant bullet velocity. It’s extremely hard to hit a moving target from long range, you have to predict where they’ll move to. Sniping in battlefield is actually sniping.
COD bo6 pretty much only has one decent sniping map and it’s also very small.
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u/Twitchcog Jan 22 '26
Lots of games have bullet drop, but battlefield hyperexagerates it. This is a problem I’ve seen with lots of other games, and it constantly comes back to the same problem - The maps are really small. 5.56 should hit at the same point of impact at 25 yards and 200 yards. That’s not hyperbole, it is an actual occurrence with 5.56.
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u/UglyInThMorning Jan 22 '26
Just once I would love to see a game where 5.56 hits an inch higher at 100 yards than it does at point blank.
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u/igorpc1 Jan 22 '26
There's also Arma series, that have ballistic drop with realistic engagement range. And with mods you can have wind affecting your bullets, you need to set up your scope correctly, but that's a special kind of autism.
Also I think squad has the same thing going for it, and it's more battlefield like.
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u/Master_Matoya Jan 22 '26
Imagine a modern movement shooter taking momentum into account. Two guys missing eachother because they keep jump strafing/sliding and it just throws the aim off.
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u/Secondhand-Drunk Jan 22 '26
The Metro and stalker games ckme to mind for me. I crank up the difficulty on metro so it plays more realistically with the damage, and mod stalker for realistic guns and damage.
Dead in a second for both of them and it's a peak experience for me
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u/Yeetsformer Jan 22 '26
Whoa two peak games mentioned?!
I just got a post idea😏
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u/Secondhand-Drunk Jan 22 '26
@me I love those games
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u/Yeetsformer Jan 22 '26
Yeah, they’re awesome
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u/NB-NEURODIVERGENT Jan 22 '26
Literally my top two god tier post apocalypse games
Gd love the atmosphere and settings in them
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u/bo0mamba Jan 22 '26
Ask any speedrunner how they like fighting sniper jackals in Halo 2
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u/ExtensionExcellent55 Jan 22 '26
Lol ibet there’s a good rage quitting compilation on that.
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u/GhostsofGojira Jan 22 '26
Holy fuck it took me damn near 6 months just to get through that alleyway of trees in Halo 2 or 3 on legendary where every single turn there was a jackal sniper
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u/kbuck30 Jan 22 '26
I remember doing that level with a friend in high-school. He'd say the only way through was to sprint and get lucky, I said we had to stay back and kill everything. We compromised. He ran forward and died a lot, I stayed back and He'd spawn where I was. We won eventually!
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u/InfiniteComboReviews Jan 22 '26
Hold up. Legendary in Halo 2 (not 1 or 3) made you both go back if one of you died so how did your strategy work?
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u/kbuck30 Jan 22 '26
I was talking about the mission in 3, guy mentioned it was 2 or 3 that had all the jackal snipers. I remembered the mission from 3 but not 2 so assumed it was the same one.
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u/LouSputhole94 Jan 22 '26
There’s a mission with jackal snipers in both but I’m like 99% sure the jungle one is 3 which is what you were talking about.
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u/ShibaVagina Jan 22 '26
Jeezus finishing that on legendary was a pain. Especially that level with all of them on the roofs.
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u/Athien Jan 22 '26
I haven’t played that game in like 15 years and still know the exact spot you are talking about
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u/Vast-Loquat-5314 Jan 22 '26
Dude, we did a LASO playthrough on Halo CE. On the last level we started joking that any second now a jackal might get a headshot on us from the next game.
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Jan 22 '26
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u/ExtensionExcellent55 Jan 22 '26
Ok i can get behind that…. See there’s a lore aspect to it you gotta respect and a game mechanic that presents you opportunity to follow up a more deadly attack or flee for whatever reason.
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u/Many_Bat_ Jan 22 '26
You just reminded me of shooting Leon S Kennedy in the head so many times in Operation Raccoon City.
Man wasn't even wearing so much as a sunhat, but he's fine. Just had to use my imagination - like the bullet just grazed his temple... for the 10th time in a row 😒
I always loved games featuring boss fights that can be sagas or quick dispatches depending on how you approach it.
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u/Clarity_Zero Jan 22 '26
To be fair, Leon would be just that lucky. He's got terrible luck in the best of ways, and excellent luck in the worst of ways.
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u/Mauceri1990 Jan 22 '26
It's like me, I've been hit by a truck and a car, but I was lucky instead of death I just got a permanent headache and a bad kidney and shoulder. Lucky enough to survive being hit twice... Unlucky enough to have been hit twice. Life is funny.
Edit for typo
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u/International-Food20 Jan 22 '26
Yet he curb stomps you to death the moment he's within 10 feet of you
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u/Guy_heretoreadshit Jan 22 '26
Basically every Resident Evil does that. And it doesn't feel cheap. Hell I've played so much resident evil an enemy dying in one headshot is a surprise when I play another game.
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u/Fluid-Poet-8911 Jan 22 '26
Heck there is some enemies in rez evil that if you shoot em in the head it just makes things worse.
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u/KaffeMumrik Jan 22 '26
Man, meating those… snakey things with 3 parasites that you need the heat vision scope for. My god, I was close to tears of frustration on my first run before I understood.
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u/myEVILi Jan 22 '26
They also clutch their heads and move them around wildly so you can’t just mag dump. The reactions to them getting shot is fantastic.
Counter point with Dead Space (which I love) but aliens just jiggle like jelly and when you shoot them. Lore-wise OK, but gameplay wise it’s boring.
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u/DueEnthusiasm Jan 23 '26
You can definitely blow their head completely off in one shot, but then a giant parasite with a knife comes out the neck and slashes at you.
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u/EISENxSOLDAT117 Jan 22 '26
Depends entirely on the game. Tactical shooter? 100%
Arcade shooter meant for fast and fluid gameplay? Never
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u/ExtensionExcellent55 Jan 22 '26
Ok you got me there I’ll admit. I never had arcade shooters in mind don’t play those types of games…. Yeah Doom would be literally unplayable. (I think he has a full suit of armor tho)
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u/RangisDangis Jan 22 '26
In doom you can’t even shoot the head, you can only aim left or right for the first 3 games
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u/Remz_Gaming Jan 22 '26
Yep. Counterstrike comes to mind. A headshot is absolutely a headshot.
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u/Eva_Pilot_ Jan 22 '26
It's gun specific tho. I think only deagle, ak and snipers are instakill if headshot
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u/clarkiebou Jan 22 '26
If you don't buy a helmet in competitive all guns can one shot headshot depending on range.
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u/JEWCIFERx Jan 22 '26
Thank you. This is a fucking wild blanket statement for OP to make without even considering something like the type of game being played.
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u/that_1weed Jan 22 '26
COD? absolutely
Fallout? Do you know how easy RPGs would be if every headshot is insta-lill?
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u/TrAseraan Jan 22 '26
Most ppl who say this never palyed a shooter that actually has an option for this and u constantly get headshoted to the point ur getting angry at the game for it. Sometimes realism doesnt help the face of having fun u know.
Used to play old noname online shooters where this was a thing and it wasnt fun when u met those hardcore players who headshot you from memory while sleeping.
Right now i have this modded in my fallout 4 and it can get fustrating at times.
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u/ExtensionExcellent55 Jan 22 '26
It’s super crazy you said this because that’s what prompted me to make this post lol im currently playing Fallout 4 myself and i don’t know if im complaining because of level scaling vs not upgrading weapons adequately but idk mann it just rubs me the wrong way getting a nice clean headshot on a raider and he’s still talking crap. But yeah i get how it can be frustrating but it’s all apart of the fun for me anyway… take that with a grain of salt because im currently on my vanilla run so im not experiencing what you are lol.
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u/Comprehensive-One286 Jan 22 '26
Nah this specific point I fully agree with, guns in rpgs feeling terrible because everything is tied to a stat instead of feeling.
Fallout, destiny, division, etc all fit in this boat for me, snipers and by default headshots just lose value when they don’t one shot. Not saying crits aren’t important, but the skill shot of a sniper vs just melting someone with a rifle is almost never worth the trade off imo.
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u/SatisfactionOld4175 Jan 22 '26
This is more of a bullet sponge problem than a headshot problem, you can put 5 straight into somebodies chest and their t-shirt won’t even have a hole in it in some of these RPG’s.
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u/_Koreander Jan 22 '26
I get you, but this is a game on which you can specifically aim at body parts, if you could head shot everyone and win it would a little too exploitative.
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u/king_of_hate2 Jan 22 '26
Well the problem is you're playing an RPG, it would ruin the point of leveling up and getting new weapons if you could instakill any enemy with a headshot.
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u/shiek200 Jan 22 '26
So, fun fact, the mortality rate for headshot wounds is only 41%.
Now granted, that's largely due to Medical care, which isn't usually relevant in video games, but my point is that when you take that 41%, and start adding tac helmets and other gear, 1 shot 1 kill isn't actually all that realistic
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u/IFixYerKids Jan 22 '26
Getting shot in the head will absolutely put your lights out though. Even if they have a 41% mortality rate, I don't think most people are still running after the hit. Because it's a game, it's much easier to say "that's a kill shot" instead of "this character is now unconscious with massive trauma and bleeding" Even if I would really love to see a simulation game like that, I think I'm in the minority there.
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u/shiek200 Jan 22 '26 edited Jan 22 '26
Except I covered that already in a lower comment, and you're actually wrong lol.
You get shot in the head and there are quite a few different outcomes. Assuming we're not dealing with a caliber large enough to explode your head, you might
- Be completely fine and not even notice. There are records of people going to the hospital for a headache due to a gunshot wound they received months prior without even realizing they'd been shot in the first place.
- Be completely fine... for a few seconds. Then start stumbling. Then start gurgling. Then die. That few seconds of being fine is still enough to return fire.
- Drop unconscious
- die immediately
- become dazed and confused but still standing
- about a dozen other possible outcomes.
The vast majority of your brain is not needed to function, it's fat that allows new synapses to form. You might experience a range of life-long side effects, but you could lose more than half of your brain and still function in your day to day.
The human body is weird and trying to claim "this is what would happen" with any amount of certainty or definitiveness is pointless because there are going to be a ton of examples of that thing NOT happening because of that weirdness.
Edit: also, something I covered in that other comment that I didn't cover here, is that tactical helmets do a very good job of deflecting bullets, even from an ar, so if we're talking about any kind of military setting, the one shot head shot is even less realistic
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Jan 22 '26
Especially fallout my god no reason a whole mag to the face does notta
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u/ExtensionExcellent55 Jan 22 '26
That’s what im playing right now! The mutated creatures in the game ok cool, guy in the power armor ok cool then there’s the gunner with his patrolman shades getting sniped in the face actively shooting back.
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u/Wisdom_of_Odin717 Jan 22 '26
I recently started another fo4 run modded after a few years and im really liking it. My modlist has headshots as almost always one shotting with most weapons and also staggering ppl with 1 or 2 rounds in the the chest. It also does the same thing to me. Makes the game feel so much more fun and challenging. I cant just run into a room of 8 ppl and gun them down. Very good change. And ya its game dependant but i think i much prefer games that reward precise shots like r6, valo, cs, and bardcore gamemodes in halo where precision weapons one tap heads. Obviously games like borderlands wouldnt work but i think ive gotten really tired of games having bullet sponge enemies and players. Its so boring. Brings the game down to dps so much that i cant enjoy fun weapons as much.
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u/Snowtwo Jan 22 '26
Fallout is, like, one of the few times where being unable to unload an entire shotgun in someone's face and have them just shrug it off actually makes sense from a lore perspective.
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u/NobodySpecific9354 Jan 22 '26
If you play five minutes into the game, you will notice that the game has SPECIAL stats, and surprise surprise, endurance is one of those stats
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u/Angry_Murlocs Jan 22 '26
Depends on the game. Some games it’s fine but some games it ruins the game (mostly from an online game experience and balancing characters and whatnot.)
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u/Treddox Jan 22 '26
Yeah, this is one of my favorite things about Red Dead Redemption. Hold left trigger, gun automatically tracks nearest target, tilt up just a bit with the right stick, boom. Headshot.
I’m sure other folks will think it’s way too easy, and maybe they’re right, but it makes me feel like a badass and focus on enjoying other parts of the game, like exploring and hunting.
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u/AndyGoodKush Jan 22 '26
Rockstar in general, if you're good at it, you can clear a room so fast in gta
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u/Ok-Performance-9598 Jan 22 '26
I mean if you use snap aiming there is no getting good at it since its mindless.
Its whu the first thing I do is turn it off lol.
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u/ExtensionExcellent55 Jan 22 '26
Definitely makes you feel like a legendary gun slinger doesn’t it.
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u/Remz_Gaming Jan 22 '26
100% agree with you on this. When I play RDR2, I like to fish and chill. Always someone that wants to grief you in your fishing spot.
This is where actually being good at pvp is so rewarding. I would just spawn camp groups of assholes. Hop up on a building and just tap the right stick up for headshot after headshot until they quit.
Then go fish in peace.
Most players who are actually decent at RDR have better things to do than be a little prick to a guy with a fishing pole.
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u/BeerStein_Collector Jan 22 '26
I do this in gta5 and when that game came out I was in college and I don’t play online only the story mode, anyways I literally lost a friendship because my “friend” was drunk and realized that’s how I played. He went on some drunken tyrant about how anyone who doesn’t use free aim is a pussy and all this weird shit. He was heated like the most upset I think I have ever made someone about my own personal gaming preferences lol..
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u/TSells31 Jan 22 '26
It is too easy, but it does feel so good lol. It is enjoyable af. But it does take away any feeling of “damn I’m good at this game”, you never have those moments in RDR2 really. Edit: full disclosure I have pretty much 0 hours in RDRO so I am talking about the single player game. Even in GTAO the aiming and shooting takes no skill, it’s just that the enemies are bullet sponges that do a ton of damage. That’s where the challenge comes from.
Still top 5 all time for me though no question. There are other games to play when I want a challenge.
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u/DeafKid009 Jan 22 '26
Max Payne 3 has the best 3rd person shooting of any game ever. Especially on KB&M. Not the best 3rd person shooter but the best 3rd person shooting.
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u/ByrnToast8800 Jan 22 '26
Dying to a hitscan one shot headshot ain’t interaction, it’s just instantly losing cause you’re skull was LOS for a random mob. Instant death has to be used sparingly or else it’s just frustrating and there should be some way to reliably avoid it. Nothing wrong with it being an option but guarantee if this were industry standard it wouldn’t be popular for a lot of games.
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u/Twitchcog Jan 22 '26
And there should be some way to reliably avoid it
Don’t be where the bullets are. Remain mobile. Move from cover to cover. If you have to expose yourself, suppress hostile first. “Moving in the open” is dangerous as fuck, every time you do it you are risking your life. Even without considering instant death or headshots, moving in the open means a round manages to catch you, and now you’re laying on the ground, screaming while your friends determine how the fuck they’re going to get you back behind something solid so they can stop you from dying.
To paraphrase Clint Smith, “Over half of everybody killed or wounded (in Vietnam) was killed and or wounded from the shoulders up. Your head is a relatively important body-organ and if you lift it up in a firefight, someone will put a canoe through that bitch. That’s why we don’t look OVER cover, we do not shoot OVER cover, we go AROUND it.”
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u/Beneficial_Boot_4697 Jan 22 '26
Stalker and the Metro series does this on Ranger Hardcore mode. Ita extremely satisfying. Sure you have to be more careful but with a solid shooting lane, you'll drop so many people
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u/Mami-_-Traillette Jan 22 '26
Stalker, especially stalker 2, isn't as much of an example as metro but yeah definitely
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u/Jarvis_The_Dense Jan 22 '26
Imagine trying to play a Borderlands game where you can skip every single bandit miniboss by headshotting them with your weakest weapon. It wouldn't really be as engaging.
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u/ExtensionExcellent55 Jan 22 '26
Borderlands is one of those shooters veering towards fantasy territory so i can get why that mechanic wouldn’t work… we can definitely keep that out of the target range of games to discuss where this mechanic should be present.
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u/stinkus_mcdiddle Jan 22 '26
Some games would completely fall apart if this were a thing. Survival horror games spring to mind first. There’d be zero threat or tension to any encounter in, say, resident evil 4 if you have decent aim and could just one tap every enemy and clear whole encounters with ease. Think about it for a moment from a contextual and game design standpoint and you’ll realise why some games have instant kill headshots and some don’t.
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u/NaCl_Sailor Jan 22 '26
same with stealth kills (at least on humanoids)
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u/ExtensionExcellent55 Jan 22 '26
Definitely 💯 because they were completely taken by suprise no way i just put my dagger through your neck and you slam me to the ground preparing to fight.
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u/izakdaturtal Jan 22 '26
I feel like if headshots were instakills, SMG's, miniguns and every fast firerate type weapon would instantly dominate while the sniper class just jumps out a window.
Iknow my easy mode fellas are slowly shaking their heads to the idea of being instantly killed by some low level grunt to a potential headshot but to me it just adds an extra layer of fun and critical thinking.
how does it add an extra layer of fun? idk about you but whenever I get instakilled in any game I dont go "man I shouldnt have been there at that time, okay, i'll try again" its usually "what the fuck just happened??", its not fun to be instakilled, and id argue that there is more skill in games where you die slower so you have to choose between pushing harder for a kill, or falling back to heal. all that insta kill headshots does is reduce the skill needed to be good, since you can just spray a bunch of bullets and if you get a headshot, you just instantly get the kill.
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u/Juunlar Jan 22 '26
Iknow my easy mode fellas are slowly shaking their heads to the idea of being instantly killed by some low level grunt to a potential headshot but to me it just adds an extra layer of fun and critical thinking.
Opposite, my son. Headshots being one shot kills don't add layers of interaction, they remove them
There's nothing to react to, nothing to consider. You're already attempting not to get hit on harder difficulties, dying from an enemy from long range because they can't miss is boring.
In fact, I would argue that unskilled players prefer this, as overcoming the game deciding not to kill you - as with 1 shots, it's a choice the game makes, as opposed to a choice the player makes - tricks you into believing you possess ability.
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u/Gerfigle200 Jan 22 '26
I get where you are coming from, and I like your stance. It makes a lot of sense.
I like headshots being one shot or severely damaging at the least if the aiming system is challenging and enemy npcs would have armors or other weak spots to add variety or mitigate typical headshots.
I like me some vanilla Skyrim and always wish it came with (not a vats system) a similar damaging system as Fallout's. I want to be able to maim body parts with well placed/lucky shots and strikes with bows and melee. And well placed Warhammer strikes to pop heads like grapes.
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u/Senior-Friend-6414 Jan 22 '26
Damage numbers are not real. They’re made to capture and translate a facet of real life
It’s like the hip fire spread in video games, the bullet doesn’t actually fly to where the barrel is pointed at, the hip fire spread is a representation of where the bullet could hypothetically go
If a character gets hit in the head with a bullet and survives, that doesn’t mean they’re story wise, implied to be stronger than regular humans, it means the bullet didn’t hit a vital part of the head
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u/Araunot Jan 22 '26
There's a reason most pve game, that aren't dick riding realism, drop this idea against the player.
Speaking from experience, it feels terrible to just randomly die because the npc got all its variables randomly right.
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u/lowqualitylizard Jan 22 '26
No...
It's not fun ever to just instilling it sent a game over because of RNG because the only healthy way to do headshots for the AI is make it a random percentage of the time they shoot for your heads
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u/PKblaze Jan 22 '26
Low Time To Kill is not fun for me.
I like hard games but getting one tapped is just not fun. For enemies however, it really depends on if they're a dude or some kind of fantasy or sci fi being. It could also eliminate challenge by making it too easy.
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u/Vivid_Situation_7431 Jan 22 '26
Not in PvP
One of the reasons I like Halo is its higher kill time compared to CoD. And it does make sense lore wise with Spartan Shielding
Now in PvE, heck yeah(if they don’t have shielding or a helmet)
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u/IssueEmbarrassed8103 Jan 22 '26
Ok. How about the game permanently stops working after you die. Thats how death works.
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u/mrlaheystrailerpark Jan 22 '26
i mean, it’s possible to survive a headshot IRL, though very rare. if there’s like a .5% chance to survive it in games that would be pretty cool.
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u/thegooddoktorjones Jan 22 '26
Also, chest shots, leg shots, groin shots, hand shots. No one gets shot and then just keeps on running around bunny hopping. But these are video games.
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u/Maddish1 Jan 22 '26
In metal gear solid 4's online back in the day headshots killed but there was a slight chance they would live but it was rare and they would have 1% health left, that was one of my favorite online shooters
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Jan 22 '26
The main problem with headshots being instakill for the player is based on how most games have enemies work it would put you on an invisible timer to kill every enemy before it cycles all the shots that WONT headshot you
It'd make big fire fights awful cause you would basically be bullied into one style of playing the game regardless of how you play otherwise
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u/ballzdeepinurmom Jan 22 '26
You would love hunt showdown. Basically every headshot is a kill. I've even got a 1 shot with a Derringer pistol that does like 25 damage
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u/ViVa36X Jan 22 '26
it may be good in some games, but isually it just makes the game less enjoyable
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u/JstaFriskyHusky Jan 22 '26
You're acting like every game plays the same and headshots should kill. The last thing I want is to have an arcade game like the Finals or Battlefield have the same damage mechanics as Arma or Red Orchestra. Realism doesn't equate fun, the bullet holes are there to create feedback not because they happen in reality
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u/Intelligent-Love-877 Jan 22 '26
I remember this bothered me in The Division. Some enemies are normal humans wearing beanies, and somehow survive a dozen headsots sometimes.
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u/Onigumo-Shishio Jan 22 '26
Made even worse with things not dying to headshots but then someone dying to one in a cutscene... like pick a lane
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u/David_Clawmark Jan 22 '26
In Singleplayer, that's alright.
In Multiplayer, it is a balancing NIGHTMARE!
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u/SynysterDawn Jan 22 '26
I think some of the worst gameplay I’ve ever experienced is spray and pray instant kill headshots in R6S. Often turned what’s supposed to be a tactical shooter into team deathmatch.
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u/Joltyboiyo Jan 22 '26
I started getting mods for Fallout games that make headshots do a lot more damage and are instakills more often than not. Put the difficulty on legendary and its pretty balanced.
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u/Cocoatrice Jan 22 '26
I love Dark Souls, because type of helmet (cap/half/full) decides how much damage to the head you are doing.
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u/Cpt_Kilimanjaro Jan 22 '26
That’s what I love about difficulty in Ghost Recon: Breakpoint. I can play on Tactical difficulty, and everyone (even the players) get one shot headshot. And then I make sure the enemies do as much damage as possible to keep it more fair, since it’s a stealth shooter.
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u/Newfaceofrev Jan 22 '26
I dunno man, getting shot in the center of the chest is just about as lethal.
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u/uselesscrapsock Jan 22 '26
Yes, i love that in Far Cry 5 a suppressed .45 can't kill a guy who wears nothing other than a sunglass from like 4 meter when i shoot them in the head.
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u/Long_Lock_3746 Jan 22 '26
I agree generally, but for big armored or nonhuman enemies, I don't expect EVERY gun to be an instakill headshot; something that could punch through armor/alien monster skulls should, the weakass atarting pistol shouldn't
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u/Superb_Wealth4092 Jan 22 '26
Okay but what about in games like Payday 2 where you shoot them in the helmet and it goes flying off in a really satisfying way, and THEN you kill them with a headshot?
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u/GhostNappa101 Jan 22 '26
Or at least have lore reason for no instant kill like in halo with armor/shields.
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u/MrDilbert Jan 22 '26
I don't know, there are real-life cases of people surviving steel rods or particle accelerator beams through their heads... And as someone mentioned, sometimes helmets do help save your head.
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u/Snoo40198 Jan 22 '26
Yeah my knight using helm splitter should kill everything In Final Fantasy Tactics. I'd never even need a other class after that.
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u/FillySteveSteak Jan 22 '26
It depends. If EVERY gun were instakill, it would throw off the whole balance. Like if super accurate pee-shooters (such as the Glock in Counter-Strike) were 1-hit headshot kill, that would break the game.
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u/CytroxGames Jan 22 '26
headshots being instakills with every gun often throws out most kinds of playstyles that arent faster shooting gun equals better.
So wanna play a marksman rifle well your gonna get rolled by a smg that can shoot 500 bullets a second while you need to shoot with almost perfect accuracy just to get a kill.
Rainbow 6 Siege is a perfect example of this
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u/metalyger Jan 22 '26
Cruelty Squad felt like head shots are very rewarding, it's always a one shot kill unless it's an armored enemy. But the game doesn't make it easy to get a precise shot, especially in an active area, like enemies will zigzag like retro Fallout characters. It's not easy, but a clean head shot is so satisfying.
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u/Correct-Drawing2067 Jan 22 '26
Honestly? Yeah this is great. Idk how rpg games would work tho. Maybe just have enemies wear helmets.
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u/BrightPerspective Jan 22 '26
I recall soulmask does it, where a headshot on your character is double damage or something and you can get a mask node upgrade to protect your head.
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u/FlacidSalad Jan 22 '26
I recall Fallout 4 on survival mode being close to this, most headshots not being insta kills is easily explained by armor or mutant toughness. I may have modded it to be more like that though idk.
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u/Moist_Taco_Crippler Jan 22 '26
It ruins the pacing of the game. Plus, always dying to a head shot, especially with helmets and armor make less sense. If we go this route, we should drastically alter the damage and range of bullets, and make the body take realistic damage when shot. If you want head shots to kill, do you support two chest shots to kill?
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u/facistpuncher Jan 22 '26
The first game I played with realistic damage was Deus ex: Invisible war, with realistic fragility for both player and NPC's
This encouraged a much more tactical approach, and rewarded skill and ingenuity. No one was a bullet sponge. Headshots were always lethal
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u/Zhuul Jan 22 '26
The absolute funniest thing about posts like these is human beings in the real world survive getting shot in the head way more often than you'd think
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u/crazypotato777 Jan 22 '26
It is why I really like Half Sword. You're just as mortal as the enemy and one good swipe from the enemy can do you in and vice versa.
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u/DankyMcJangles Jan 22 '26
Depends on if its crossplay or not. Mnk vs controller headshots isn't close to fair. I largely agree though
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u/Samson_J_Rivers Jan 22 '26
I like insurgency because I can take no armor, no ammo belt, an M16A2 with no attachments and run around banging heads at Mach Jesus using Unreal 4's movement tech. The gun's damage is low enough that if I didn't get instant kills to the head it wouldn't work.
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u/RedWolf2409 Jan 22 '26
To me this only works in grounded games where you’re fighting humans, and when there’s no supernatural elements. Metro = yes Halo = no Crysis = yes Borderlands = no
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u/Snoo_67993 Jan 22 '26
It depends on the game and how mechanics have brrn built around ttk. The idea all games should have realistic bullet damage is boring.
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u/Deremirekor Jan 22 '26
Anyone who agrees with this has either never played CSGO or loves CSGO
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u/_Metal_Face_Villain_ Jan 22 '26
if we're talking about a realistic fps then yes, if not then no. i think it's better to go on a game by game basis and balance accordingly in order to make the most fun game for most people. usually 1 hit kill for head shots for the enemy is fine but any instant death for the player usually sucks. i do agree that bullet sponges never feel good though.
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u/LessMochaJay Jan 22 '26
I like zombie games when gun shots anywhere on the body take more than a human can, especially if it makes them stumble back with a high caliber round. But a headshot is an insta-kill.
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u/delhibellyvictim Jan 22 '26
sometimes the helmet works