"Relatively" large scale objective based gameplay (16v16) with a focus on "casual" over "competitive". While TF2 does have a competitive scene and even a competitive mode an overwhelming majority of the playerbase don't touch it. Because the game was never designed for it, this means the balancing is off there is a huge list or "banned" weapons in competitive because they make serious play impossible, the game was never made to be taken seriously, however they did the best they could to jerry rig in a mode to shut them up.
wiki.teamfortress.com
Has overwatch ever banned a hero from competitive play for years because it breaks the balance? Thats a huge diffrence in design and balance philosophy and its why TF2 allows matches with 12 pyros on the team not just one (unless is snorefest highlander competitive that no one plays) they are however allowed in the main game because they are insanely stupid/fun to fuck around with.
People still play the objective of course, but there's always this knowledge that your engaging because it's fun and at any time you could drop that and fuck around with the enemy team. You get this in Chivalry 2 funnily enough, where players will just randomly stop in the middle of a sword fight to do stupid shit, because there are enough players to allow for this to happen and still win a game, casual over competitive makes a huge diffrence in the design of the rest of the game, from the weapons to the map design and loadouts of each class, you can be far less restrictive.
That push for hyper competitive design is why hero shooters work the way they do, that's why there is infinite ammo only reloads, because the game is designed so you can constantly move forward, it's why abilties have cooldowns instead of being a limited supply item, they took anything that had the potential to slow the game down and removed and stream lined it. Hero shooters are unique because they take the design philosophy of a MOBA which looked at the RTS genre and trimmed all the fat off it to the Class based shooter. It's not the same game because its a completely diffrent genre when playing it, its why a MOBA is not an RTS.
TF2 is still unique and played to this day because it hasn't really had a competitor, everyone has focussed on trying to make their title the next big esport for so long now that the old class based shooter has essentially been replaced. TF2 is only unique because its compatriots in the genre just are not there anymore and everyone else is creating hyper competitive F2P games to try and attract the sweatlords.
As for this game in question... 3 v 3 v 3 v 3... well that's just screaming competitive once again, small teams, big plays, just like everything else. There are so many many games that are begging for the attention of these players, its like they don't realise that there's a huge opening for a game that let's you fuck around now and again. The large scale casual class shooter has an opening, but no one seems to be interested in taking it.
I'd rather be seeing more of this... its far more rare.
