Before we knew what to name them, we called them “Doom clones.” id Software’s seminal work sparked a phenomenon when it began to circulate as shareware 20 years ago, and since then shooters have propagated through mods, experimentation, LAN parties, co-op, eSports, and big-budget masterpieces. Guns and enemies are their bread and butter, but we don’t think of our favorite shooters as outlets for simulated violence. We celebrate the way they test our minds and mouse reflexes, the personal stories they generate, the captivating worlds they’ve founded, and the social spaces they provide for lighthearted bonding or hardcore competition.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Developer: Infinity Ward
Marking the start of the age of scripted shooters, CoD4’s campaign is still a blast even if it isn’t that interactive. It jumps between different playable characters in an escalating global conflict, from raiding an enemy ship in the prologue, to the unforgettable ‘All Ghillied Up’ flashback sequence. Modern Warfare still has a small active multiplayer base, too.
SWAT 4
Developer: Irrational Games
Enemies aren’t enemies in SWAT 4—they’re suspects, and they’re innocent until they try something stupid. Unlearning your instinct to shoot first is an initially uncomfortable but ultimately rewarding experience in SWAT 4 because it’s one that demands playing deliberately—dealing with civilians commingled with bad guys takes coordination in a way that’s comparable to Arma. That’s doubly-true in SWAT’s five-man co-op, where the mechanics for gathering information (like a fiber-optic camera), securing rooms, and breaking down doors come to life when paired with voice communication. SWAT 4 still isn’t available digitally, but you can pick up a hard copy on Amazon for a measly $12.
BioShock
Developer: Irrational Games
Its greatest asset is its setting, and what Rapture provides from its ruined eden are enemies that are hysterical, tragic figures. One encounter with a Splicer or a Big Daddy can arc from curiosity, to sympathy, and then swing into full-on fear and violent panic. One of the best things Irrational does is imbue its monsters with terrifying sound design: the psychotic speech of Splicers, the fog horn drone and steel steps of the Big Daddies. The claustrophobia and anxiety Rapture throws at you gives you permission to fight recklessly, tooth-and-nail with powerful plasmids and upgraded shotguns as a way of getting revenge on the horrors that haunt you throughout BioShock.
Arma 2: Combined Operations
A platform for teamwork wrapped around high-fidelity simulation. Arma has the utmost respect for your ideas, and the self-authored war stories that arise from its open-ended systems and miles-wide sandbox are why we continue to evangelize it. It’s one of the few games that actually lives up to marketing itself as a shooter where you can approach a tactical problem in twelve different ways. Modders continue to be its lifeblood, building anything they can: comprehensive sound packs, huge islands, serial killer scenarios, medical systems, realistic wind modeling, Star Wars vehicles, advanced radio systems that simulate distortion over range, and at least one groundbreaking zombie survival sim.
Far Cry 4
The other games in the Far Cry series have plenty to recommend them, but Far Cry 4 is the latest and best. It properly buys into the big and silly, letting you raid bases on elephant back, hang glide, and dangle from gyrocopters. It’s the best use of the open-world formula that Ubisoft pretty much applies to all its big games. As a shooter, it’s fantastic fun, but it’s these extra tools, and how easy it is to find yourself thrown into an absurdly fun and chaotic set-piece, that make this one of the best FPS games around
Counter-Strike
Developer: Valve
Global Offensive has become our go-to version of the game, but the longevity of CS 1.6 is astounding. Against two better-looking iterations of itself, 1.6 is still the standard for most of the competitive community, though a portion is shifting over to CS:GO to compete for tournament money. The weapon balance and map design is what stands out most. CS pioneered the concept of precisely-timed jousts that occur at bottlenecks at the start of each round, and their implementation in Office, Inferno, Dust 2, Nuke and other timeless creates a set of expectations about positioning for players to plan around.
Battlefield 3
Developer: EA DICE
Ignore the campaign, of course—the good in Battlefield 3 is in its traditional giant multiplayer battles, which are like carnivals full of skill games. At one booth, you pilot a wobbly toy helicopter while everyone else tries to shoot it down. At another, you darting around corners blasting pop-up targets. At yet another, you bop soldiers over the head with tank shells as they pop out of cover. Our favorite is the sniping booth, where you peer down a scope and lob bullets at ant-sized moving targets, watching as white hot stars arc, and arc, and—hold your breath—fwap. Big points for hit, but you’ll spend most of your time aerating the dirt, so you get a consolation prize for helping your team by spotting. It’s the most fun we’ve had sniping in a multiplayer shooter, with Arma 2 being a less-accessible exception.
Battlefield 1942
Developer: DICE
Capturing one base or scoring one fantastic kill is enough satisfaction for an entire Battlefield 1942 match, because it’s not about your kill/death ratio, or even winning. It’s about the little tactical victories and failures—when a plan works or bombs—and the absurd war stories they create. It’s a simulation of the battles had by model airplanes and plastic soldiers on bedroom floors, a place where it’s OK to play hide-and-seek in bunkers, drive jeeps into tanks, or lie prone on the wing of a flying A6M Zero, fall into the ocean, and spend the rest of the match swimming because suicide would ruin the fun.
Half-Life 2
Developer: Valve
A decade later, Valve’s best single-player game is still the standard for how action and storytelling are paced in first-person. Without burdening the player with interface or resorting to anything that disconnects your eyes from Gordon’s glasses, HL2 unravels effortlessly between compelling combat and sci-fi that’s grounded in relatable characters. As a shooter its guns hold up well—the plasticy pop of the basic pistol, the hollow clink and three-two-one fuse of the spraycan-shaped grenades, scavenging for sawblades to feed the Gravity Gun.
Doom 2
Developer: id Software
Classic Doom feels great. Its movement is fast, but not uncontrollable. Its levels are complex, but not confusing. Its enemies are demonic, but not so tough as to be unaffected by a couple of shotgun blasts. And it’s been further elevated by its modding community. More than 20 years later, they’re still going strong. You’ll find new weapons, new campaigns and total conversions that let you be everything from a pirate to a cartoon square.
Arma 3
Arma 3 is about scale and detail together: it’s not just a snapshot of a battle, it’s the whole thing. It’s the realistic reloading, the helicopters that almost require real-life helicopter pilots to control them, and the damage you sustain from taking an enemy shot. No other firstperson shooter offers what Arma does, with the same high production values. And as Bohemia gradually builds on the base game with more environments – Tanoa, 100 square kilometres of jungle landscape, is arriving next year as DLC – it becomes a fuller simulation of war.
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