The greatest FPS mode of all time is endangered

FLAG STOLEN. FLAG DROPPED. FLAG STOLEN. FLAG DROPPED.

So sang the anthem of capture the flag, a cornerstone mode of the multiplayer FPS that has persisted for over three decades. The mode is almost as old as the genre itself, but it was first popularized by the Threewave CTF mod for Quake by Dave “Zoid” Kirsch. It was impossible to be an FPS fan of the ’90s or ’00s without a version of these words burning a permanent hole in your brain. Though the frequent updates from the announcer could be tedious, hearing them now elicits nothing but joy.

Two teams. Two flags. Two bases on opposite ends of a map. It’s a dynamic game of close shaves, stalwart defenses, and upsets. There is no image more powerful in multiplayer gaming than a flag dropped mere feet from its destination—proof of a late hero who braved enemy lines and almost made it home.

I try not to throw around “perfect” lightly, but CTF really earns the superlative. Every FPS mode falls somewhere on a spectrum of casual and competitive. Way over on the casual end is team deathmatch, a timeless classic that I also consider perfect. On the other end is bomb mode—the apex of sweaty, tactical, and endlessly repeatable objective play.

CTF is special because it does both, and it does them extremely well. At times, heisting the enemy flag is a gripping team effort that rewards coordination, stealth, map knowledge, and pure skill. Other times, the objective blurs into the background of a lobby that’s more interested in blowing each other up.

It’s normal and natural for not everyone among a lobby to be locked in on the objective, and CTF is happy to accommodate. There are other great objective modes that work with minimal participation—king of the hill and Battlefield’s conquest come to mind—but they tend to work because the goal is as simple as standing in certain spots for a while. You can participate in conquest by accident, but playing CTF takes intention. It’s a playstyle all its own, and in fact, the best flag carriers can harness a disorganized lobby. All it takes is a small splinter group, or even just one fearless individual, to sneak into a base and get out with the flag before anyone notices.

It’s a format that’s only as sweaty as the people playing it—it’s poker night, it’s pickup basketball. It’s social, it’s competitive, but only so serious. Doesn’t that embody what the FPS genre used to do so well? Before matchmaking made strangers of us all, the multiplayer FPS was a place. Servers were hangout spots with friends, regulars, and established house rules.

Where did CTF go?

CTF was the perfect pastime. So it’s a shame that the mode has become a rarity. Look around at the popular shooters of today and you won’t find many flags, but it’s understandable why: CTF was born from the arena shooter, a genre that’s been effectively dead for a long time. The mode’s waning presence coincided with the rise of multiplayer service games built around single modes with purpose-built maps. Hero shooters, extraction shooters, and battle royales don’t offer the variety that was once expected of a Quake, Tribes, or Halo.

Similarly, Counter-Strike 2 and Rainbow Six Siege are so hyper-focused on bomb that alternate modes tend to die on the vine or not exist in the first place. Even Call of Duty, an enduring bastion of mode variety, doesn’t always make room for CTF. The last time it appeared at all was as a late-season arrival in Modern Warfare 3 (2023). The last time it was included as a core launch mode was 2017.

You could build a whole game around CTF, but you won’t get much love for trying to bring back a classic, as the developers of Last Flag and Highguard learned just this year. And it’s been like this for a long time now. Tribes: Ascend, whose CTF mode stood out for its speed and difficulty, got its last update in 2016.

No, I reckon CTF needs to be one great option among many to truly thrive, and there just aren’t many folks making shooters like that anymore. The one popular FPS where CTF is still prominent is Team Fortress 2, which swaps flags for intelligence briefcases. I think every day I’ve ever played TF2 has involved at least one embattled round of 2Fort—a legendary venue for CTF whose discreet tunnels and swiss-cheese interior were built with the mode in mind.

But when I think of CTF, I think of Halo. You can still play it through the Master Chief Collection or Halo Infinite as a core Arena mode, and I suggest you do, because I don’t believe there has ever been a more successful marriage of game and mode. It’s large, spacious maps make flag runs intense, and the measured movement speed of players means you usually have plenty of time to react to a stolen flag before it scores. I don’t know if Halo was the first game to do this, but I also think it was genius to make the flag carrier have to actually carry the flag. Not only are teams encouraged to guard the vulnerable carrier, but the flag itself becomes a deadly and memorable last-ditch melee weapon.

Halo accommodates CTF at every scale and permutation. You can be a stealthy infiltrator who picks up active camo and disappears the flag along with it. You can barge in and Terminator your way into a possession. But the inclusion of vehicles is when Halo really shines. You’ll never feel closer to total randos in a shooter than you will after joining a three-person Warthog crew, raiding the enemy base, and burning rubber with your buddy white-knuckling the flag in the passenger seat.

But hey, I’m turning 30 this year, so of course my ideal version came from the mid-2000s. For other perspectives, I suggest reading this fun r/gaming Reddit post in which dozens of people just start naming CTF games they dug. The thread has 98 comments, yet just 12 upvotes, which feels appropriate for our underappreciated mode. CTF doesn’t enjoy the spotlight anymore, but for many, it never got better.