There is no blueprint for creating the best FPS games that you should play today. Some of our picks offer fantastic single-player campaigns that we're still thinking about decades later, others offer incredible social spaces where you can hang with your buddies, and there's a fair few on here that will draw out your competitive nature.
We've focused on core first-person shooters here, so you aren't going to find games like Deathloop and Fallout 4 – excellent experiences which otherwise integrate action, adventure, and RPG systems to support their core mechanics. For more of those, you'll want to find our ranking of the best shooter games on the market. Otherwise, you should keep scrolling to find our pick of the 25 best FPS games that you can (and should) be playing right now.
25. Splitgate
Developer: 1047 Games
Platform(s): PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X
One of the most original FPS games of the current generation is also one of its most fiendishly addictive. A snappy and ultra-slick shooter, Splitgate answers the question: “What would happen if Halo and Portal had a baby?” Well, not only would the tyke have a seriously twitchy trigger finger, but it would also behave far better than you would ever think.
With an impactful arsenal that matches the Master Chief's armoury at its best, Splitgate's frenzied free-to-player multiplayer mayhem always feels satisfying. Yet it's the additions of those portals that add a layer of strategy and bristling chaos to what's already becoming an iconic FPS. There is a reason the Slitgate servers are typically swamped; everyone who starts can't put it down.
24. Valorant
Developer: Riot Games
Platform(s): PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S
Riot Games' attempt to take CS:GO's competitive FPS crown. It's like a mix of Valve's twitchy shooter and Overwatch's over-the-top heroes. It is, at its heart, still a tactical FPS in which positioning is king, and you die in one headshot, but every class has flashy skills and abilities that can turn the course of a round. Some of them let you leap high in the air, others ping enemy positions, while ultimate abilities can damage enemies through walls and clear out entire areas.
Valorant is more colorful than CS:GO, but the clean visuals prove that the emphasis is on substance over style. Its short stint in Early Access and jump onto new platforms such as PS5 and Xbox are testaments to how much polish Riot put into its design and how balanced its maps and heroes are. Both will only improve over time.
23. Back 4 Blood
Developer: Turtle Rock Studios
Platform(s): PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X
A modern take on Valve's classic Left 4 Dead, Back 4 Blood is one of the biggest third-party boons Xbox Game Pass has received in the last year or so. While solo play only offers bog-standard zombie-slaying thrills, the action is oh-so elevated by a fantastic co-op mode that delivers equal measures of camaraderie and chaos. As we mention in our Back 4 Blood review, the B-Movie charm and smart card system deliver dollops of slapstick and strategy to a game that makes you cherish every last gasp dive to that safe room… whether you make it there with your spleen intact or not.
22. Battlefield 1
Developer: DICE
Platform(s): PC, PS4, Xbox One
Battlefield 1 is a WW1 shooter that showcases a terrifying amount of carnage. It's got all the familiar BF modes that we've grown to love, including Conquest, Rush, and Domination. But this game adds the formidable Operations mode that takes the push and pull of war to new heights. We point out in our Battlefield 1 review that the game works so well as a multiplayer shooter because of how finely it's balanced - there's no class, weapon, or tactic that gives an unfair advantage over others.
By their very nature, WW1 weapons lack true precision and make up for this via brute force and close-quarters effectiveness, so this really levels the playing field online. The maps are brilliant, too, and they constantly change as the bombardment of explosives and ruined vehicles scar the landscape. Overall, it's an immense package.
21. Dusk
Developer: New Blood Interactive
Platform(s): PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4
Plenty of modern FPS games capture the feeling of playing Quake or Doom for the first time, but Dusk is the smoothest, the fastest, the goriest. It's like the best of the '90s but with a few modern-day twists that make it stand out, like detailed reload animations and inventive level design. Maps are varied and keep you guessing: one minute, you're in a spooky old farm, clearing out barns with a shotgun, the next you're in a science lab that twists back on itself, the walls becoming the floor when you turn your head.
Like the best old-school shooters, it's simply bloody good fun. Beefy weapons turn enemies into a fine red mist, and you zoom through levels as if on roller skates, only pausing to line up the perfect shot. It's topped off by a metal soundtrack that refuses to let you quit.
20. Half-Life 2
Developer: Valve
Platform(s): PC, PS4, Xbox One
It may be old enough to drive and gamble a young Gordon's student loan fees under a bus, yet despite its age, Half-Life 2 still has a touch of G.O.A.T. status. This is an all-time shooter masterpiece. Whether you played it on a cutting-edge rig on a debuting Steam in 2004 or first sampled its City 17 delights courtesy of Valve's brilliant Orange Box bundle, the core of Half-Life 2's greatness remains unblemished.
There is a reason we gave a near-perfect score in our Half-Life 2 review. Few other shooters before or since show such a level of masterly pacing. From the extra chilling Cold War opening vibes of that iconic plaza to the zombie-mangling Gravity Gun fun of Ravenholm, Half-Life 2 shuffles between thematic genres with unerring grace. He may never say a word, but Gordon Freeman's actions carry more weight than pretty much every Call of Duty character combined.
19. Far Cry 6
Developer: Ubisoft
Platform(s): PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X
It may not be one of the best Far Cry games in the series, but Far Cry 6 is still a superior shooter. Does it still lean heavily on a lot of well-worn Ubisoft tropes? Obviously. Yet look past the dinky dachshund sidekicks named after a Spanish sausage and the typically assured, if samey stealth, and you'll find an FPS that feels like a much-needed turning point for Far Cry.
New additions like the Supremo Backpacks open up creative new avenues for both sneaky and explosive chaos, further enlivening Far Cry's already intoxicating power fantasy. Better yet? With the introduction of freedom fighter Dani – who you can actually see, listen to and emote alongside in third-person cutscenes – Far Cry has finally given us a protagonist who's actually worth rooting for. And all it took was half a dozen entries. As we mentioned in our Far Cry 6 review, when it comes to sandbox shooters, few do madcap spectacle better than this FPS.
18. Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition
Developer: People Can Fly
Platform(s): PC, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
Never has a game so intelligent tried so hard to look like an idiot, or been so screamingly funny with it. On Bulletstorm's surface, you'll find a brash, knowing, don't-give-a-fuck attitude, sitting on a layer of the most gloriously creative cursing you've ever heard in a video game. Beneath, you'll find one of the densest, most detailed, widest-branching FPS systems ever devised.
The genius of Bulletstorm lies in its Skillshots. Imagine if a new Tony Hawk's game served up tricks but replaced every Ollie and kickflip with increasingly gruesome ways of mangling mutants, and you're pretty much there. Boot a dude in the balls, then kick his head off. Launch some men into orbit with an alt-fire rocket, then pick them out of the sky like they were clay pigeons. Sadly, we'll probably never see such a brash, bright or commendably crude FPS like this again. You can learn more about this gem in our five-star Bulletstorm review!
17. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered
Developer: Raven Software
Platform(s): PC, PS4, Xbox One
When it comes to the best Call of Duty games, this one had the best campaign ever made… and it's not close. Dragging the series kicking and screaming from the bloody trenches of WWII, Modern Warfare re-energized an FPS juggernaut with a perfectly paced campaign that's been copied by countless other military shooters since.
Kicking down doors with the iconic Captain Price in an electrifying, rain-lashed tanker infiltration. Watching in horror as your character gets vaporised by a pesky little mushroom cloud. Holding your actual breath as a sniping duo scuttle through the grassy fields and empty playgrounds of Pripyat in the all-timer of a mission, 'All Ghillied Up'. The original Modern Warfare is so good you could throw every other COD at it, and the remastered 2007 FPS would still boast more memorable moments than the entire series combined.
16. Borderlands 3
Developer: Gearbox
Platform(s): PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch
How to describe Borderlands 3… you could say it's the underlying principles of the first and second Borderlands wrapped up in a more pristine shell. Or you could call it World of Warcraft: The First-Person Shooter. With its heavy emphasis on loot, loot, and more loot, Borderlands 3 drowns players in a sea of guns with varying abilities and stats, conveniently color-coded by rarity. The colorful characters break away from the traditional "fighter, wizard, rogue" archetypes, and each hero is memorable in their own right.
As we mentioned in our Borderlands 3 review, it doesn't quite have the character of Borderlands 2. We miss Krieg. Oh, Krieg, you crazy barbarian poet. And none of Borderlands 3's villains fill us with anger the way Handsome Jack did. But in terms of shooting and looting, preferably in co-op, it still stands as the zenith of the Borderlands formula.
15. PUBG: Battlegrounds
Developer: PUBG Corp
Platform(s): PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X
PUBG is the game that spawned the battle royale craze. Technically, it wasn't the first battle royale game, but it popularized the staples of the genre we all recognize: randomized gear spread out on a big map; a starting plane from which players parachute; and an ever-shrinking play zone. A lot has changed since it first came out, and now it's more polished, with a variety of maps that cater to all play styles, and it's free-to-play at a baseline.
On the biggest maps, you might go long stretches without seeing another player, and it's that pacing and the lethality of the realistic bullet physics that set PUBG apart from the crowd. You can play with a squad of friends and experience why this is one of the best multiplayer games around, but it's always those nail-biting, stealthy solo moments that stick with me.
14. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Developer: Valve
Platform(s): PC, PS3, Xbox One
The seemingly everlasting king of Steam's most-played charts is an FPS every inch as iconic as Half-Life 2. Ever since its debut as an expansive Half-Life mod, the Counter-Strike series has constantly stayed on top of the competitive shooter scene. And though CS2 is now the de facto way to play this Terrorists vs. Counter-Terrorists FPS series on PC, it originally started life as a modernized port for consoles.
CS:GO is all about tension: there are no respawns during rounds, so once you die, all you can do is watch and anxiously hope that your team detonates/defuses the bomb or rescues/retains hostages successfully. Each map is meticulously crafted to allow for myriad tactics, and the lovingly modelled guns in your expansive arsenal all have minutiae in their firing rates and recoil. As we point out in our CS:GO review, this game sticks with you, and hopefully, its legacy continues on in CS2.
13. Wolfenstein 2: New Colossus
Developer: MachineGames
Platform(s): PC, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
This Nazi murder sim is smarter than it sounds. The guns are big, loud, and turn members of the Third Reich into bloody pulps, and the more bullets you pump out, the better. The ability to dual-wield any two weapons also makes New Colossus feel different from other old-school shooters. Most impressive of all is the narrative.
You get to know more about the series' broken hero, BJ Blazkowicz, than ever before through an origin story that's not afraid to get dark, and a talented cast somehow manages to pull off a tale that pirouettes between the serious and the absurd. This title is a must-play when it comes to our list of the best FPS games, and you can read our Wolfenstein 2 review for more details if you fancy picking it up!
12. Counter Strike 2
Developer: Valve
Platform(s): PC
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has been one of the best Steam games for quite some time, and pulling it offline was always going to be a risk for developer Valve. The studio has replaced its enduring FPS with Counter-Strike 2, a free-to-play shooter which brings a fresh coat of paint to well-developed foundations. While the action is incredibly familiar, there's no doubt that CS2 remains one of the best competitive arena shooters around.
11. Metro Exodus
Developer: 4A Games
Platform(s): PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X
A shooter that's truly driven by its story. The Metro series is known for blending stealth and shooting in oppressive environments filled with ravenous mutants that want to rip your throat out. Exodus is built from the same DNA, but finds a new level of polish and ambition. From Moscow, you take a train through the Russian wilderness, stopping off in desert towns, snowy tundras, and military bases, each filled with secrets to find and enemies to blow to bits.
You conduct missions alone, and venturing from the safety of your party is nerve-wracking. Thankfully, you have an armoury of inventive, upgradable weapons to keep you safe, from crossbows to revolvers. Back on the train, you'll get to know the endearing cast, who will make you genuinely care about protagonist Artyom's fate. As we mentioned in our Metro Exodus review, if you're looking for pure action, Exodus's careful pace might turn you off, but the cross-country travel gives you a constant sense of progress.
10. Superhot
Developer: SUPERHOT Team
Platform(s): PC, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
Time only moves when you move. That's the elevator pitch for Superhot, a cerebral FPS from an independent studio out of Poland, and it's a perfect distillation of what makes Superhot so intoxicating. And all that slow-mo obviously helps, too. Cooler than Keanu in the original Matrix taking the ice bucket challenge, this effortlessly slick FPS is as much a puzzler as it is a shooter.
While the act of pointing and pulling the trigger is simple enough – it's hard to miss when you're moving slower than a tortoise in treacle – the order you take enemies out is an entirely trickier issue. Many levels must be completed with Swiss watch-levels of precision, and killing a dude at the wrong time can make the whole slow-motion house of bullet-strewn cards tumble. That's the central appeal of Superhot: it's an FPS that's as clever as it is cool. Read our Superhot review for more slow-mo details!
9. Apex Legends
Developer: Respawn Entertainment
Platform(s): PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Andriod, IOS, Nintendo Switch
The battle royale for those who want to go faster. Your movement is as important as your aim in Apex Legends: you can parkour across roofs, shimmy up ledges, and slide down hills, scrabbling for positional advantage. The character classes and their abilities make Respawn's shooter feel unique in the genre. One hero can see trails of enemy footsteps, another creates portals, and another can clone themselves to bamboozle their opponents.
In a squad of three, which is how it was designed to be played, you can combine these abilities inventively to outfox enemy teams. The two maps are bright and varied, with plenty of ways to help you take the high ground, and Respawn is constantly tweaking the formula with new weapons and heroes. If you haven't played it since the early wave of enthusiasm, it's time to return. Seriously, there's a reason why our Apex Legends review has a perfect five-star score.
8. Black Mesa
Developer: Crowbar Collective
Platform(s): PC
It's what you get when you take one of the most beloved shooters of all time, Half-Life, revamp the entire disastrous ending and add prettier visuals. Black Mesa is fan-made (and Valve-approved), but you wouldn't know it: every room is crafted with the kind of care you don't see from many AAA teams. This is more than just a remake of a classic – it's a complete overhaul that brings one of the greatest shooters ever and one of the greatest protagonists, Gordon Freeman, into the modern era.
Everything you love about Half-Life remains. You'll shoot headcrab zombies, alien monsters, and human soldiers with an array of weapons, from a beefy shotgun to the prototype energy Gluon Gun, which melts enemies in seconds. But it's the new additions that stand out. In the original Half-Life, the Xen locale was lifeless. Here, it's bursting with color, and every craggy rock and bizarre clump of plants is rebuilt from scratch. It's far bigger and feels like a completely different game. Half-Life is finally whole.
7. Titanfall 2
Developer: Respawn Entertainment
Platform(s): PC, PS4, Xbox One
Stupidly good, that's what our Titanfall 2 review says anyway. The weightlessness that comes with perfectly mastered wall-running makes you feel like you're doing some sort of deadly ballet, letting you sail past your foes at impossible speeds, catching them unawares. The unforgettable BT-7274 and unbridled creativity dominate Titanfall 2's campaign, whether it involves you switching between decades in the blink of an eye, walking through a moment frozen in time, or simply ripping other Titans apart when you step into titanic bot boots of BT-7274.
Rewarding you for using the environment to your advantage, you can feel the moment when you start thinking differently, realising the possibilities a map offers. The physics-twisting Quake-like mechanics of its multiplayer mode strengthen an already sensational shooter package. But it's that remarkable campaign that makes Titanfall 2 such an enduring shooter. Let's cross BT's colossal droid digits so that we eventually see a Titanfall 3.
6. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege
Developer: Ubisoft
Platform(s): PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
Rainbow Six Siege has quietly become one of the best Tom Clancy games around, combining the intensity and replayability of Counter-Strike with the unique abilities and personality of Overwatch. But, as we point out in our Rainbow Six Siege review, the real star of Siege is the impressive destructibility of your environment: walls and ceilings can all be destroyed, so you need to smartly choose which flanks to cover and which walls to reinforce, lest someone blast through them with sizzling thermite.
You and your squadmates choose from a variety of highly skilled Operators, each with their own specialities that can complement each other for a rock-solid team comp, though your propensity for sneaking and aiming a gun are what matter most. Every round becomes a tactical, incredibly tense game of cat-and-mouse, as one team protects an objective while their opponents try to scout out danger and survive a breach.
5. Halo: The Master Chief Collection
Developer: 343 Industries
Platform(s): PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X
This is the ultimate serialized tale of John 117 and the go-to choice for players looking to find all the best Halo games in one place. Halo: The Master Chief Collection is all but unrecognizable from the Spartan car crash that launched in 2014. After years of server fixes, technical tweaks and graphical upgrades, this is now the definite way to experience golden era Halo.
Whether experiencing the best second level in all of the shooters in the original Combat Evolved or blasting buddies in PvP on Halo 3's all-time classic Guardian map at a blistering 120 frames per second on an Xbox Series X, Halo has rarely felt more essential. We're tickled (Needler) pink Chief got the redemption act he deserves. You can read our Halo: The Master Chief Collection review if you want to learn about any more details and features!
4. Half-Life: Alyx
Developer: Valve
Platform(s): PC
If VR headsets were issued at birth, there's a chance Half-Life: Alyx would be our favourite FPS of all time. Sadly, the barrier for entry to enjoy this virtual reality wonder at its very best is loftier than the off switch on a Strider. Even if you merely 'settle' for experiencing this perfectly paced, incredibly atmospheric shooter on a Meta Quest rather than Valve's painfully expensive Index, you're still looking at dropping a huge chunk of change for a ten-hour game.
And yet, the absolute highest praise we can heap on Alyx? We'd seriously consider paying the price of a PS5 or Xbox Series X to play this one sensational shooter. Not only is it one of the best VR games on the market, but the shooting controls make you feel like you are the star of your own action movie. You can read our Half-Life: Alyx review for more information!
3. Doom Eternal
Developer: id Software
Platform(s): PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch
Though we didn't exactly shower it with praise at the time of writing our Doom Eternal review, in retrospect, this really is at the pinnacle of the FPS genre. This is everything that the genre is about, distilled into one glorious roar. It's also a remarkably elegant experience in motion, especially for a game that makes you garotte a demon every 17 seconds. Like Mario 64 or Mirror's Edge, Eternal feels flawless when you tap into its joyous rhythm.
Every gun feels perfectly tuned, each level impeccably paced, while every monster dragged screaming from the depths of Hell has clearly been designed to coax just the right measure of aggression out of the Doom Slayer. Amazingly, it's brilliant on pretty much every modern platform, too. Whether you're playing on an OG Xbox One, ripping Cacodemon eyes out at 120 frames per second on a cutting-edge PC, or yanking spines on the impressively assured Switch port, Doom Eternal kicks ass whatever your choice of format.
2. Call of Duty: Warzone
Developer: Infinite Ward, Raven Software
Platform(s): PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X
Arguably, the best of the best battle royale games. For years, three games had a stranglehold on the genre: Fortnite, PUBG: Battlegrounds, and Apex Legends. But Call of Duty: Warzone has blown it wide open by twisting every element of the genre into something that feels exciting but accessible. The new stuff: when you die, you get one shot to respawn by taking on another dead foe in a 1v1 fight. You get cash from completing contracts spread across the map, hunting down enemies, searching for chests, or defending an area.
Then there are the old, comforting bits: the ever-shrinking play zone, a flawless “ping” system to flag items for your teammates, and vehicles to transport you to distant circles. It's like the greatest hits of the genre so far, all backed by Call of Duty's tried and tested low-recoil gunplay. As we point out in our Warzone review, you can play it solo, but jumping in with friends in Duos, Trios, or even the chaotic four-soldier squad mode is where the real fun is found.
1. Destiny 2
Developer: Bungie
Platform(s): PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
No one expected Destiny 2 to be as good as it is. And we really, really love this game, if you couldn't tell already by our five-star Destiny 2 review. Instantly making the first game look like a set of prototypes, this title improves in every area. Actually, scratch that. It evolves, taking the seed of the first game's MMOFPS idea and building a whole new, entirely richer, deeper, and broader experience around it. But that is only the start.
With a simplified, streamlined levelling system running through every one of Destiny 2's vastly expanded activities - from story-driven side-quests to multi-part Exotic Questlines, to treasure hunting and tactically reworked Crucible PvP – every single thing you want to do, however, you want to play, will push you forward. And then there's the far more freeform approach to load-outs, further energized by more creative and expressive weapon design. Even better, with the dawn of Destiny 2 New Light, you can access a lot of the action for free, while regular die-hards can pay for The Witch Queen: the best Destiny expansion ever.
After more hits? Check out our lists of the best RTS games, the best survival games, and all the new games heading our way.
