It’s not long ago that hipsters were considered the public enemy #1 in cultural circles, boasting about bands that “you probably don’t know” and drinking IPAs instead of water.
Now, I don’t care much for hipsters, but I love a good FPS. The problem is that, much like defining what a great beer is, not everyone agrees on these things.
Whether you are partial to the opinions on storefronts like Steam or aggregators like OpenCritic, it gets hard to sort through thousands of games with scores that often feel arbitrary or married to the zeitgeist around their release.
To help you with that, I picked nine of my favorite shooters that are not everyone’s cup of tea, but are still fantastic games on their own.
Some of them bombed with critics, others with the community, and more than a few failed to please either.Unlike most IPAs, however, you can trust that they are all good in their own way.
The scoring criteria for a game to make this list was falling below 70% or equivalent on Steam or a review aggregator.
9Wolfenstein: Youngblood
Nazi-Bashing With Friends
Wolfenstein: Youngblood
What could have been the triumphant entry of theWolfensteinfranchise into the modern age ended up with middling critic reviews (67% on OpenCritic) and frustrated many fans (45% on Steam).
Wolfenstein: Youngbloodwent against the grain of what made a popular shooter in 2019, and delivered a bold, unique experience that did not go over well with everybody.
The co-op factoralone is enough to ruffle some feathers, as not everyone has a reliable play partner to go Nazi-slaying with.
Wolfenstein Youngblood Review — An Enjoyable Experiment
Wolfenstein Youngblood is hit and miss in a lot of ways, but at the very least, MachineGames has been able to capitalize on the promise of making a fun co-op shooter.
The developers didn’t earn themselves many favors with the weapon leveling business, and the different armor tiers also weren’t exactly a hit.
If those are not dealbreakers for you though, what’s left is one of the most immersiveWolfensteinexperiences out there.
Arkane hit it out of the park with the level design, allowinga non-linear approach that is a breath of fresh air in a shoot-them-all game.
Don’t shy away from the 1980s action film cringe; embrace it instead.
8Spectre Divide
Another Victim of Live Service Models
Spectre Divide
If you’ve never heard ofSpectre Dividebefore, that’s OK. This live service gem launched in September 2024 packing some of the coolest art styles in modern gaming, and thenunceremoniously diedhalf a year later. It’s painful to talk aboutSpectre Dividebecause it’s a bleak reminder of how merciless the gaming industry can be.
Spectre Dividewas an arena shooter that went in hard witha cartoonish aesthetic, a pleasantly slow gameplay flow for its genre, and an innovative core mechanic where you control two bodies at once. It adds some next-level strategic depth, and is just plain fun to play with.
On top of the engaging visuals and mechanics, the gunplay and audio stand out, with weapon handling that would be right at home in some serious-facetactical shooter.
Most negative reviews, landing it in the low 60% bracket on Steam and OpenCritic, focus on expensive cosmetics, long matchmaking times, and performance hiccups. While it is warranted criticism, what ended up killingSpectre Dividewas just a lack of popularity.
Based onSteam player data, the game had over 30,000 players on launch, but failed to ever rise above the 2,000 mark six weeks after that.Spectre Dividemay be dead, but the kind of innovative mindset that led to it doesn’t have to go with it.
7Trespasser
Too Much, Too Soon, Too Good
If I told you that Steven Spielberg and team did aJurassic Parkgame, you’d think it was a slam dunk. Unfortunately, the release ofTrespasserwas a major flop that played a large role in pushing Spielberg out of game development, with an aggregate score of 57% and about 50,000 copies sold.
The more time passes though, the more I can’t help but loathe us as a society for not seeing the brilliance ofTrespasserin time to save it. This PC adventure went in hard on realism, with a no-HUD approach that relied on a fully physics-based engine to shine.
Take a revolver, for example.You aren’t controlling the aim point of the gun inTrespassing, but rather the character’s hand with the gun in it. Pulling the trigger sends a bullet that is simulated coming out of the barrel all the way to impact, rather than using your aimpoint or hitscan.
This kind of commitment to realism would still be impressive today, but remember that this came out in 1998! Rather than just congratulating itself on nerdy details, it also delivered on world-building, with map sizes that still hold up today.
Making a survival action game well before the tech caught up was a major risk that didn’t pay off commercially, but if you likeHalf-Life 2, you’re likely to enjoy sinking a couple of hours intoTrespasser.
6Green Army Men
Ramirez, Secure The Toy Box
Rising Storm 2: Vietnam
Before you get mad that I’m including a DLC here, hear me out: if the Game Awards cannominate one for Game of the Year, then I can add it to my list.
If you grew up playing with toys, watchedToy Story, or played the gloriousArmy Menseries around the turn of the century, you probably have a love for the little plastic army men.
Although ostensibly a DLC forRising Storm 2: Vietnam, often fondly called ‘PTSD Simulator’ for its gruesome depiction of war,Green Army Menis a total conversion deal that replaces the political quagmire of Vietnam with a happy, loving home.
The main criticisms leveraged atGreen Army Menare the different ballistics from the base game, and the fact that the servers are not always populated. These are valid points, but they are hardly worth the 48% score on Steam.
If you may look past that, this is one of themost ridiculous bits of funyou can ever have with friends. Falling off a table after a grenade goes off near you never gets old.
5Delta Force
The Best Things in Life Are Free
Delta Force
Being the new kid on the block in an industry that’s both oversaturated and has plenty of tribalism is never easy. Things get even harder when you dress up as a cult classic.
Team Jade’sDelta Forcehas no real connection with Novalogic’s flagship shooter series, but both share a mix of lukewarm critical reception at 61% and adoration from hardcore fans.
Admittedly, 2024’sDelta Forceis a strange creature.Its modes play out so differently that it feels like you have a few games wearing a trench coat. Once you understand it though, you’ll see that this is the beauty ofDelta Force.
Delta Force: All Black Hawk Down Weapons, Ranked
You will feel right at home with the best weapons in Delta Force: Black Hawk Down.
Warfare mode doesBattlefield 2042but better, Operations isEscape From Tarkovbut in an accessible format, andBlack Hawk Down(which has a 44% score on Steam) isslow-paced hardcore actionon par withSix Days in Fallujah.
You could argue that “well, at least it’s free”, but that doesn’t do the game justice.Delta Forceruns well on most computers while looking fantastic, and offers a polished mainstream FPS experience that just reinforceshow sloppyCall of Dutyhas beenfor the last decade.
4Gray Zone Warfare
Better Run Through The Jungle
Gray Zone Warfare
What’s that quote about delayed games and sucking again?
When it came out in April 2024,Gray Zone Warfarewas begging for a community clubbing. Media previews all complained about poor performance, unengaging AI, and the repetitive gameplay cycle of “fly in, shoot, fly out, repeat.”
The game has come a long way in its first year, but the recent review scores remain mixed at 66% on Steam.
The thing is, this is a fantastic game that’s just deliberately not for everybody. Getting anywhere on foot takes forever, enemies are few and far between outside of towns and bases, and although there are loot mechanics, almost everything you find is worthless.
You have a more condensed selection of the “tactical Barbie”, gun nut aspect that players love, and relatively straightforward mercenary tasks that involve doing other people’s dirty work.
What really makes this game tick is the community aspect. In my many hours on Lamang Island,I’ve raided entire towns with complete strangers, kicking down doors and riding helicopters like we’re in a 1980s action film. The quiet moments may be unremarkable, butGray Zone Warfareis hard to beat when things click.
3Battlefield Hardline
Miami’s Finest
Battlefield Hardline
Running around playing cops versus robbers is the pinnacle of the playground experience.Battlefield Hardlineleans hard into that, except it does so with tons of guns and innovative gameplay mechanics too.
DICE had a rough time withBattlefield 4in 2013, andHardlinewas its attempt to get that momentum back. The game was a major change in tone and gameplay from previousBattlefieldgames, and a move this big was never going to please everybody, earning mixed reviews from players and critics alike.
Battlefield Hardlineis chaotic, but in a way that feels refreshing.New game modes like Rescue and Hotwire complement the classic Conquest, and make good use ofBattlefield’s groundwork to change things up.
The campaign inBattlefield Hardlineoccasionally feels disjointed, but it works out in the end as a compelling tale of a police officer working on drug enforcement in Miami. While it never reaches the highs ofBattlefield 3, it remains one of the most remarkable campaigns in the franchise.
2Medal of Honor: Warfighter
Tier One Gaming
Medal of Honor: Warfighter
A terrible launch regularly kills new games, butMedal of Honor: Warfighterholds the distinction of killing one of the most popular shooter franchises with its failed 2012 debut. And yet, I regularly catch myself coming back to it.
Sure, the storytelling is occasionally corny and tries to take a non-linear approach that is not properly structured. The game got a lot of heat for being too linear or plain, but that’s not its fault per se.
Players and press in the early 2010s were in love withCall of Duty’s bombastic sequences and plots, so a story about traveling around the world running small-time operations to disrupt explosive shipments from a single terrorist group was “meh,” or 53% in terms of aggregate score.
Hindsight is 20/20, of course.Call of Duty’s megalomania would eventually turn the franchise into a sweatier version of Fortnite, leaving fans of grounded FPS titles orphaned.
Medal of Honor: Warfighterhad tangible problems and missions, and many of them were executed to perfection. Running a hostage rescue in conjunction with Philippine special forces while a typhoon rages on the island of Basilan is one of the most unforgettable gaming experiences.
Other highlights are the undercover foot chase through a market in Pakistan, and the intense car chases that plug in mechanics from Need For Speed.
Embrace The Trench Life
Some players love to wax lyrical about the supposed great divide between gaming journalism and the gaming community. Most of the time, it’s waffling on about issues that have little to do with gaming, but every now and then, you get a situation likeVerdun.
The WW1 trench shooter came out in 2015, earning a 57% rating from major critics who called it an “unintuitive slog” marred by “poor execution.” Spend some time over on Steam, however, and you’ll find thatVerdunreviews have sat above 80% for its entire life.
The most likely explanation for this is simple: much like stabbing a conscript with a bayonet while under heavy artillery fire,Verdunis not everyone’s cup of tea.
What makesVerduninaccessible is what makes it great, which is a steadfast commitment to making war realistic.You don’t get many heroic cinematic moments, but there’s also no gratuitous gore for the show.
As you sit in an enemy trench hearing the guy you shot in the gut scream for minutes on, it just hits you how monumentally horrible all of it is. Much likeThis War of Mine,Verdunis a game that needs to exist, lest people living in peaceful areas forget the human face of war.
