Rocket Jumping - A Forgotten Mechanic

 Which one of you has played a late 1990s to early 2000s fps? I bet some of you have. Games like Quake, Halo, tf2, all these games have a mechanic that is most commonly known as "rocket jumping". Rocket jumping is the act of using the knockback of an explosion (usually from rockets) to propel yourself into the air for a boost in reaching high places or gain speed at the cost of a portion of your health.

Rocket jumping is an incredibly satisfying mechanic. It is one where both the upside and the downside are within the core mechanic. The upside allows more movement options. It allows you to reach places not possible, it makes movement faster and can be used with other mechanics to combo a playstyle. The downside prevents abusable spam and encourages game sense as the lost health could be a difference between losing and winning a fight. Along with that, using it as an escape tool is one of the biggest risk reward systems as using it could either save your life or ensure your death depending on the situation and your skill.

Nowadays, rocket jumping is a relic of its time. Less and less games are implementing it due to the origin of the mechanic as a bug in coding and the environment games are in right now. But if you want to introduce more movement into a videogame and realism isn't a problem, then I highly recommend implementing the mechanic in your game.