I was watching LGR’s Unreal Tournament 2004 video and in terms of amount of available content and the sheer size and scale of the maps, it makes the multiplayer of every single Halo game on the 360 look quaint by comparison, and UT2k4 came out a year before the console even launched.
LGR complained that Unreal Tournament 2003 from the year before only had 37 maps, which is crazy considering most multiplayer shooters on the 360 had maybe 10 maps with additional map pack DLC costing like 20 bucks for 3 maps
I do remember UT2004 and the maps were definitely gigantic; enough space to create any type of gigantic terrain you could ever want. Heck, even the original UT99 had gigantic, fantastic maps.
PC games have always had much bigger player counts too. In Halo, 8v8 is considered a “Big Team Battle”
I remember back in like 2002/2003 playing 32vs32 team objective mode in Return to Castle Wolfenstein, BF1942 modded servers could go as high as 64vs64
Removed by mod
WW2 online (mmo fps) had 1000 player servers in 2001 I think. I remember trying to play it and having an awful experience though. Planetside 2 on the other hand was quite fun.