PC games come in a variety of entertaining forms. For example, strategy games—both turn-based and real-time—challenge your tactical prowess. Puzzle games scratch a similar itch, but typically with twitchy, block-dropping, or item-shifting challenges. The shooter, on the other hand, is an incredibly popular genre that tests your ability to keep blasting until you see your enemies reduced to pulp.
Shooters typically come in two forms: first-person or third-person. First-person shooters are often more immersive gaming experiences, as the game you play unfolds from your perspective. The demon-slaying Doom (2016) and its sequel, Doom Eternal, are standouts in that sub-genre. Third-person shooters simply look cooler, because you can see your on-screen avatar’s full body as it navigates the battlefield. PlatinumGames’ Vanquish is a perfect example of this, as you can witness Sam Gideon jetting across the warzone in ability-enhancing power armor.
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How Do Shooters Fare on Steam Deck?
Valve’s Steam Deck gives you access to the enormous Steam library on a capable, portable, and surprisingly convenient device. Purists may argue that shooters are best experienced with a keyboard and mouse, not a controller (or the Steam Deck’s touchpads). Fortunately, you can use those input devices if you have a Steam Deck Dock.
There are thousands of Steam Deck Verified and Playable games, so you are bound to find quality shooters to play on the Linux-powered handled. Verified games feature a green checkmark on the store page, meaning the game is assured to run well on the Deck. Playable is denoted with a yellow button, meaning it needs some light tweaking to get it running smoothly. Note that games requiring an online connection aren’t ideal for on-the-go play, unless you have a dedicated Wi-Fi-signal in the vicinity.
Recommended by Our Editors
Are you ready to start blasting? Here are some of our favorite first- and third-person shooters.
There’s nothing quite like gunning down freakish monsters with buddies in online co-op action. Aliens: Fireteam Elite puts you in the boots of a hardened Colonial Marine who’s tasked with rescuing survivors and investigating a xenomorph outbreak on a Weyland-Yutani colony.
You undertake various missions, while also searching for loot and valuables to improve your marine’s build. The game supports three-player online co-op play, but you can also play solo if you prefer. By blending 1980’s action, memorable movie visuals, and engrossing combat, Aliens: Fireteam Elite creates an addictive game loop that’s hard to put down.
Apex Legends blends battle royale gameplay with distinctive hero characters, called Legends, to create a unique and ferociously competitive, squad-based first-person shooter. 20 three-person squads battle it out for supremacy, pushing each character’s unique skillset to the limit to come out on top. The play area shrinks in size over time, forcing you into engagements to avoid the lethal outskirts. Apex also accommodates duos and solo play. Apex is free to play, and is monetized through cosmetic loot boxes similar to Overwatch’s system prior to Overwatch 2’s launch.
Battlefield V doesn’t drastically alter the first-person-shooter field, but what’s in this package is quite good. The EA DICE-developed game features a gorgeous World War II scenario and lightning-fast gameplay that’ll keep you running and shooting for hours on end.
Battlefield V encompasses all the hallmarks of a modern first-person shooter by including respectable singleplayer content (War Stories) and fresh takes on multiplayer gameplay (Grand Operations). Firestorm, the game’s squad-based battle royale mode, supports up to 64 players, putting the series’ signature environmental destruction on display in glorious fashion.
With Borderlands 2, developer Gearbox Entertainment and publisher 2K Games return to the comedy-filled warzone. If you played the original Borderlands, you understand how this first-person shooter operates.
You play as a Vault Hunter, a treasure hunter looking for an alien vault on a barely colonized planet. Throughout the guffaw-filled adventure, you collect hundreds of different guns, each with its own unique stats and attributes. The heavy metal lets you mow down a seemingly unlimited number of robots, mutants, and Mad Max-style raiders.
Expect more with Borderlands 3. More guns, more monsters, more characters, and more shooting. With this shooter, you can play alone or with a party to undertake missions, earn cash, and gain experience.
The core gameplay loop is the same as in previous games, but with rebalanced elemental alignment for weapons, new movement abilities for characters, and improved cover mechanics for avoiding gunfire. Character balance is overhauled, too, so you can customize the signature ability to take into battle.
The Call of Duty franchise has been all over the place in recent years, with a focus shift from WWII campaigns to space adventures to battle royale action. Although Call of Duty has strayed from its roots, the Infinity Ward-developed reboot of the seminal 2007 title grounds the first-person shooter series.
Modern Warfare has the tactical single-player and robust multiplayer modes one expects from a Call of Duty title, but successfully strips away all superfluous elements. That’s not to say that Modern Warfare lacks cool features. New to the game is a rewards-based morality system that ranks your ability to properly discern innocent people from legitimate threats in the singleplayer campaign.
Valve’s free-to-play Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (AKA CS: GO) is one of the most iconic titles of its generation. Buoyed by a strong FPS heritage that includes the original Counter-Strike and Counter-Strike: Source, CS:GO is a fast-paced first-person shooter from 2012 that still holds its own against contemporary titles.
Sure, CS: GO is starting to show its age in certain areas, particularly in regards to the somewhat dated visual design, but the incredibly active community offers a highly competitive esports scene.
The original Dead Space was a brilliant experience inspired by Resident Evil 4 and the grotesque, space-horror film Event Horizon. Electronic Arts’ remake is an extremely faithful reimagining of the 2008 original, with some excellent quality-of-life changes that elevate it above what the original game offered.
Arm yourself with a Plasma Cutter and take aim at horrific undead abominations. The gimmick is to dismember them: headshots won’t stop what’s already dead. Blow off limbs and viscera with an assortment of unorthodox engineering tools, and stem the mutant tide onboard a derelict spaceship.
Play as a Guardian, an immortal warrior who travels the vast reaches of space to take down intergalactic threats both new and ancient. This multiplayer-focused shooter blends rich character progression, class-based combat roles, and loot-grinding to create an addicting game loop that keeps you coming back for more. MMO-style dungeons and raids give you plenty of content to chew through with friends, and PvP modes let you test your mettle against other players when you need a break from blasting aliens.
No, this isn’t the classic, genre-defining 1993 original. This is Doom, the numberless 2016 series entry that exceeded many gamers’ expectations. You once again play as the armed-to-the-teeth Doom Slayer who battles Hell’s minions on Mars. As a result, goat-legged skeleton men, flying, flaming skulls, and other monstrous hordes assault you from every side.
Featuring gory, frantic, demon-blasting gameplay and a blood-pumping heavy metal soundtrack, the id Software-crafted Doom blends old-school design with modern know-how to form a satisfying, unholy concoction.
Doom 2016 reimagined the landmark shooter by adding more weapons, more demons, incredible stage design, and an awesome heavy metal score. Doom Eternal, that game’s sequel, turns things up to eleven.
In Doom Eternal, demons have invaded and conquered Earth, so your player-character, the simply named Doom Slayer, must drive back the monstrosities. Although Doom Eternal introduces more story elements than Doom 2016, particularly the Doom Slayer’s origins, that isn’t the main draw here. Doom Eternal has one true focus: killing demons in increasingly gory and brutal ways.
Featuring satisfying stage-navigation options, numerous secrets to unearth, and a new 2-vs.-1 multiplayer Battlemode, Doom Eternal is a worthy follow-up to one of the best contemporary shooters around.
Xbox Game Studios’ Gears 5 is the first main game in the beloved third-person shooter series to ditch the “of War” suffix, but don’t get it twisted: This is a Gears of War through and through.
A direct sequel to Gears of War 4, Gears 5 continues the Coalition of Ordered Government’s (COG) battle against the alien Swarm. Gears 5’s captivating storytelling, solid shoot-and-cover mechanics, and excellent graphics far outweigh its merely average multiplayer modes. Still, Gears 5 is an easy recommendation for both series vets and newcomers.
Halo: Combat Evolved is the game that sparked a beloved Microsoft franchise and put the original Xbox on the map. It reimagined the first-person shooter (FPS) genre for consoles and popularized many of the controls and functions that such games would use for decades afterward. Halo received an enhanced remake in 2011 for the Xbox 360 (Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary) that featured updated graphics and a toggle function that lets you swap between Classic and Remastered visual styles.
As part of the new Master Chief Collection, the updated Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary boasts 4K graphics, ultrawide monitor support, and other features you’d expect from a contemporary PC game. It’s an outstanding remastering, one that only suffers from niggling audio and visual issues.
Halo is one of the most iconic shooter series to appear in the past few console generations, one that delivers fast-paced action, excellent sci-fi drama, and addicting multiplayer gameplay. Sure, Call of Duty and Battlefield have their doggedly committed fans, and Doom may very well have reclaimed its first-person-shooter crown with 2016’s release, but Halo and its sequels (particularly Halo: Reach) have a special place in many hearts.
The newly remastered Halo: Reach—a part of the Halo: Master Chief Collection compilation that bundles and updates every mainline Halo release, sans Halo 5—represents the first time the shooter has appeared on PC. The game now offers 4K graphics, ultrawide monitor support, and other expected PC-related extras that weren’t in the Xbox 360 original. The cumbersome UI and annoying audio issues do detract, however.
Halo Infinite doesn’t radically shake up the familiar Halo formula, but developer 343 Industries’ gameplay changes make the newest series installment worth a play. This time out, Master Chief navigates open-world environments, uses a grapple hook to snag enemies, and starts a relationship with a new, AI companion.
The well-designed first-person shooter also features a strong (and free!) multiplayer component, gorgeous cut scenes, and unlocked frame rates for silky smooth gameplay. The only real downside is the questionable battle pass.
Shooters don’t always need to be dark, gritty, or ultra-realistic affairs. Cartoonish fun has its place, too, and Blizzard Entertainment’s Overwatch 2 is a great example of that. Featuring colorful levels, multiple game modes and team-based synergy, and lore-drenched characters with vastly different play styles, Overwatch 2 is a thoroughly enjoyable first-person shooter that’s filled with cheer and mechanical variety.
Overwatch 2’s release marks the end of the original game. There is notable rebalancing here, but the moment-to-moment gameplay is just as fun as the first game. A new monetization system adds a questionable amount of grinding to the mix, as do the expensive, new cosmetic purchases.
Hot on the heels of Resident Evil 7’s success, Capcom released another bombshell title: a remake of the beloved PS1 classic, Resident Evil 2. This game modernized the iconic title with updated controls and mechanics, and added excellent visuals, sound, and shooting action. Still, it remained amazingly faithful to the original game.
In Resident Evil 2, you tightly grip your gun and carefully walk the Raccoon City Police Department’s halls as you blast the living dead and hideously mutated monsters spawned from a massive underground lab leak. This remake is the perfect marriage of old school challenge and modern action, so it deserves a place in your shooter library.
One of the most influential action-shooters received the Capcom remake glow-up. Resident Evil 4 paved the way for third-person shooters by marrying responsive controls, context-sensitive actions, and rewarding melee options. The result is a shooter that still holds up to this day. Capcom took this winning formula and rebuilt the gameplay from the ground up in the RE Engine, while rewriting the story to be more coherent and a little less campy.
Resident Evil 4 Remake isn’t as genre-defining as the original, but it is still a superb shooting experience that tests your aim and reactions, while offering the pulse-pounding thrills you can expect from this legacy horror franchise. Strap in, reload your Red 9, and dome the prehistoric parasites that haunt rural Europe’s forests.
Resident Evil 7 was a refreshing change of pace for the tired franchise, as it delivered first-person horror/action in a new and unique setting. The eccentric cast of antagonists, tense atmosphere, unique defensive gameplay mechanics, and tight shooting produced a stand-out title for the series that was greater than the sum of its parts.
The plot is simple: You visit a Louisiana bayou to rescue your wife. Things quickly escalate when you learn that her captors are inhuman psychopaths, and their residence is overrun with mold-riddled freaks. Shoot, hide, and puzzle-out solutions to find your bride and make it out of the swamp alive.
Village is a direct follow up to Capcom’s refreshing Resident Evil 7, and it puts you back in Ethan Winters’ shoes for another first-person romp through wacky and horrific settings. Village incorporates RE4’s faster-paced action, producing a larger game with greater tension and much more combat than RE7.
It retains a first-person camera, but the Winters expansion adds a third-person mode to shake up the gameplay formula, and includes an additional story chapter featuring a new playable character. Village never goes full action-hero mode like RE5 and 6 do, and retains much of the survival horror charm that made the classics, and RE7, thoroughly loved by fans.
Many shooter developers are happy to release games that maintain the status quo. Superhot Team, the creative squad behind Superhot, is not. No hyperbole: Superhot is the most innovative shooter to come along in some time.
The first-person shooter injects puzzle elements and a bizarre meta-narrative into quick, bite-sized servings of computerized violence. On the surface, Superhot may come off as a short, simple title that features mediocre graphics, but the game’s addictive, time-pausing mechanic will keep you coming back to get more stylish kills.
Titanfall 2 lets you use superior parkour skills to navigate the map and blast goon squads to bits. The game also lets you pilot a massive, walking tank, called a Titan, to shred threats to ribbons. As a pilot, you have excellent movement abilities and a grappling hook to easily move around a map, but you are also fairly squishy and vulnerable when you’re not moving. Titans, on the other hand, are heavily armored machines that feature outstanding firepower, but they’re decidedly less mobile.
The interplay between movement and Titan-piloting makes the combat unique and thoroughly engaging in the solo and multiplayer modes. Come for the buddy-cop single player story, stay for the engrossing multiplayer.
Merriam-Webster defines motion as an “act, process, or instance of changing place.” That meaning also perfectly summarizes Platinum Games wildly creative Vanquish, a third-person shooter in which static play means a quick death.
Exquisitely designed with movement in mind, Vanquish’s kinetic, jet-powered action adds visual flair (now remastered in 4K) and a wonderful sense of movement as you wreck mechs, vehicles, enemy troops, and super-powered bosses in a near-future setting. If Battlefield and Call of Duty have turned you off from shooters, Vanquish’s unique power-armor take on the genre may be the title to make you strap on your in-game guns.
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