FPS games, any reason to not include a "Sprint" button?

When designing an FPS game, particularly a PvE game with dumber enemies, it seems like sprinting can near universally be a super valuable tool for the base character controller.

  • Sprinting adds accessibility to larger maps, and can make traversing larger distances less boring. This can allow better tuning between "combat walk speed" and "exploration run speed"
  • PvE shooters can quickly become a "walk backwards and shoot" simulator. Sprinting adds a lot of player agency to this simple idea, and gives the player a tool to sacrifice damage for excellent kiting. It gives you a decision between fight and flee. A tool for intentional space creation.
  • Sprinting also gives a sense of "push and pull" to the movement. In sacrificing damage, and also locking yourself out of abilities, you get speed which you can transfer into momentum. This push and pull can make the movement feel genuinely good, where normal walking feels "unnoticeable" and "unobjectionable" at best.

So with all of that being said, it's hard to imagine a good reason why a PvE shooter shoudn't include a Sprint button. And yet, we have games like Left 4 Dead, pre-reach Halo, countless classics without such a feature.

So my questions to all the design-minded people are as follows:

  • Can you identify distinct benefits to a game's design for not having a sprint button?
  • How do you feel games without a sprint button have effectively tuned their combat to work well? How does it differ between games with fast melee enemies (Left 4 dead) vs slow and ranged enemies (Halo)?
  • How do you tune the challenge and engagement of situations where the enemy is either too slow or too fast for "run backwards and shoot"? (Like when the enemy overwhelms you, or when the enemy can't get near you)
  • Does your advice change for games that have mechanics like rocket jumping, double jumping, bhopping, etc? Movement-centric games, where "good feeling movement" is a design pillar.

Thanks for reading and any advice is much appreciated