The best FPS games on PC 2023

Halo Infinite

Nothing quite beats the feeling of mowing down foes with your battle rifle, tearing across the landscape in a Warthog, or slicing through enemies with your Energy Sword. Halo Infinite masterfully (sorry) captures the nostalgia and feel of the classic Halo games while keeping it fresh with innovations like a grappling hook and open-world gameplay.

Our Halo Infinite review praises the delivery and emotional weight of Master Chief’s journey across the single-player campaign. There’s also plenty of fun to be had in multiplayer – Halo’s formula of arena-shooter style matches, lengthy gunfights, and Halo Infinite weapon spawns is a refreshing contrast to other FPS multiplayer modes out there.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Call of Duty’s latest installment revisits the modern day; a soft re-boot of 2009’s game of the same name, the single-player campaign is a globe-trotting experience that takes you from Amsterdam to the desert of Al Mazrah. Our Modern Warfare 2 review says it best: “Modern Warfare 2 is still packing the same punchy gameplay as its 2019 predecessor.”

Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer offering is bigger than ever, with a re-vamped weapon platform system, and even a third-person game mode for those who like to know what’s around every corner.  You know what you’re getting with a Call of Duty game – a solid package with some fun maps, incredibly satisfying gunplay, and one of the best war games all-round.

Warzone 2

Warzone 2 builds on the game that not only redefined the FPS genre but the battle royale game as well. Set in the fictional Al Mazrah, Warzone 2 tasks you with one mission – eliminate your opponents and be the last squad standing. Using the same fantastic gunplay as Modern Warfare 2, Warzone 2 is an exciting, tactical experience that rewards situational awareness nearly as much as it does shooting people in the head.

Squad up, drop in and get to work. Complete contracts and clear strongholds to gain money and a personal loadout of weapons you curate yourself using the extensive gunsmith feature. You can even mess with your enemy’s psyche using the new in-game proximity chat. It’s hard to argue against Warzone 2 – it’s a comprehensive FPS game that also happens to be free to play, so you don’t really have an excuse not to try it. If you aren’t a fan of making custom setups, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with our best Warzone 2 loadouts guide.

Quake (2021)

First released in 1996, Quake is undoubtedly one of the foundational cornerstones of the FPS genre. In recent years, plenty of so-called “boomer shooters” have popped up, designed to evoke the same retro charm, labyrinthine levels, and high-speed shooting found in iD Software’s classic 3D games.

Nothing quite compares to the original, but if you missed out on Quake when it first came out, Bethesda released a remastered version of the game during QuakeCon 2021, complete with beautifully updated graphics and even new episodes to play through. Quake’s gothic, medieval dark fantasy setting has never looked so good – but rest assured, the gameplay remains unchanged; time to practice your strafe-jumping.

Black Mesa

Black Mesa is a remake of Half Life 1, created entirely by fans using the latest Source engine. It took 15 years before Black Mesa reached its 1.0 release, but it finally happened in 2020, and it was well worth the wait. The remake is a reimagined version of the classic single player campaign, eliminating any dated puzzles and combat sequences to create a succinct experience. The developers even created their own expanded version of the Alien planet, Xen, the final section of Half Life 1 that was reportedly cut short by Valve. If you haven’t experienced the Half Life and you want to see what you’ve missed out on, Black Mesa is the best way to relive this classic FPS.

Doom Eternal

Doom Eternal takes the gameplay loop of the 2016 smash hit, and as our Doom Eternal review explains so well, ramps everything up to 11. The developers could’ve easily pumped out a sequel that played largely the same as Doom 2016, but they chose to take each core mechanic to another level. Every aspect has been improved, from the number of weapons you have at your disposal, to the movement options that increase the pace of the game.

With all of this extra power comes stronger enemies, equipped with their own set of strengths and weaknesses for you to exploit. You could play Doom 2016 using just one weapon if you really wanted to, but Doom Eternal punishes players for sticking to the same game plan. Unless you kill enemies using the range of tools at your disposal, you’re always going to be low on resources.

Borrowing elements from the best action games, Doom Eternal transforms into a lightning fast shooter that makes players think creatively as they wipe out hordes of Hell’s worst creatures. There’s a good reason why Doom Eternal was our GOTY for 2020, it truly is spectacular.

Overwatch 2

Compare it to Team Fortress 2 or to League of Legends if you like – Overwatch 2 has enough in common with both to share some of their appeal, but different enough that it will take months for players to figure out its best character combinations. Some people may not feel like this FPS is a true sequel, sentiments echoed in our Overwatch 2 review, but rather that it’s more of an ‘Overwatch 1.5’ instead.

The switch to 5v5 and the introduction of role lock from the beginning work together to create the best version of Overwatch so far. By reducing the number of tanks on each team, players spend less time firing at shields and more time tackling the objective. Overwatch League has also crystallised the game’s e-sports potential. Don’t worry if you’re not all about eight-hour practice sessions, though – half the charm is the pick-up-and-play appeal, which cements Overwatch 2 as one of the best FPS games on PC. If you’re planning on jumping in for the first time, our Overwatch 2 tier list should give you a good indication of who’s OP right now and who’s just not worth your time.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Throwing yourself into the world of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive for the first time is like diving into a modern warfare meat grinder. You will face players who have been prowling versions of these maps for more than a decade. You will die to snipers with tens of thousands of kills notched into their Scout. You will be punished by players who could recite CS:GO console commands in their sleep, sitting out the rest of the round while you rue your mistake.

Why, then, would you choose to play Counter-Strike: Global Offensive? Because working your way up to the top of the leaderboards is an achievement; a reward earned through patience, skill, and muscle memory. And it has some of the best level design in games. There’s a reason why, even today, you will find servers running ancient maps like Dust 2 day in, day out; in part, because regular CS:GO updates forever keep this shooter fresh.

Recently, it was announced that the classic shooter would be getting a sequel, and that the Counter-Strike 2 release date would be summer 2023.

Half-Life 2

So much more than an evolution of its superb predecessor, Half-Life 2 is frequently hailed as one of the best PC games of all time. Such accolades are not undeserved, either. The long-awaited sequel to Half-Life is hugely ambitious, benefiting from being developed by a much more confident Valve.

Everything is bigger than the 1998 original: the environments, the enemies, the story – it’s a blockbuster and a smart one at that. There are decent AI companions; real characters who exist to do more than die comically; physics that transform the world into a seemingly real, tangible place.

Valve again works magic with its environments. Despite often being larger and more open than Half-Life’s, they are still crafted with the same care and attention to detail. And, importantly, they remain memorable, from the haunted streets of Ravenholm to the ominous Citadel, standing over City 17 like a steel and glass tyrant. Age may have worn away some of the sheen, but it remains a striking, compelling FPS game.

Rainbow Six Siege

Thanks to continued support from Ubisoft, Rainbow Six Siege is almost completely unrecognisable from the so-so shooter that emerged with a whimper rather than a bang in 2015. Now, with its burgeoning e-sports scene, a constant flow of Rainbow Six Siege operators, and some of the best multiplayer gameplay around, it has become one of the best shooting games on PC.

Every moment of Siege’s boxed-in battles is fraught with tension and danger, from the moment you start scouting an area with your drone – praying your enemies don’t spot it before you can find the hostage – to that final attempt to save the day by shooting down walls and smashing through the ceiling. Its asymmetrical multiplayer and tactical openness mean no round plays out the same way.

It is a psychological battle as much as it is a series of gunfights; a game about manipulation and control as you attempt to make your foes react in specific ways while you try to keep your own team working together. You never feel safe: an attack can come from anywhere, usually everywhere all at once. After all these years of feeling safe behind walls, Siege’s destructible environments force you to think on your feet and trust no wall.

Siege features a relatively high barrier to entry, but unsure players can jump into the fray cheaply with the Rainbow Six Siege Starter Edition. For those who take to Rainbow’s punishing gameplay, you can be assured Ubisoft Montreal’s shooter is here to stay with new seasons and content coming all the time.

Escape From Tarkov

There are countless FPS games that tout their realism, but none come close to the obsessive attention to detail paid by Escape from Tarkov’s dev team when it comes to guns, attachments, and ballistics modelling. Not only are there upwards of 60 guns in Escape from Tarkov but each one can be modded up or stripped down to the point where they’re unrecognisable from their off-the-shelf counterparts. You can swap barrels, mounts, scopes, flashlights, foregrips, pistol grips, handguards, muzzle attachments, stocks, charging handles, magazines, receivers, gas blocks, and choose from several different types of rounds for each ammo type. No two weapons you find in-raid are ever the same.

This leads to plenty of malfunctions for new players and anyone who, er, doesn’t know much about guns. However, after stacks of wasted roubles and an inventory packed full of useless attachments, you’ll soon start figuring out how to fit each attachment before finally forming an emotional bond with your custom build. That last part is especially important as in Escape from Tarkov, if you die in a raid and an enemy loots your body, you’ll lose everything you brought in with you, even your treasured assault rifle.

These brutal rules can make Escape from Tarkov incredibly intimidating for new players, but while it’s easy to lose your valuable gear, it’s just as easy to go into a raid with little more than a pistol and extract with some of the best armour and weapons in the game. Thanks to a player-driven economy, you can even loot a seemingly worthless object like a statue and trade it for a brand-new HK416.

Escape from Tarkov stands out from other FPS and multiplayer games on this list as it mixes PvP and PvE so seamlessly. Every raid plays out on a massive map with players spawning around the edges and AI enemies spawning in at key points of interest, usually where good loot can be found. From the start of the match, you have up to 40 minutes to kill, plunder, and make it to one of the designated extraction points. If you die you’ll only get the gear you insured beforehand back, and only if it’s not been looted from your body first. So, how do you escape from Tarkov? Well, we’ve got a comprehensive Escape from Tarkov tips guide here to give you a helping hand. Extraction points are always on the opposite side of the map where you spawned in, so making it through a raid without encountering an enemy is virtually unheard of.

Titanfall 2

EA and Respawn built on everything the first game got right and balanced this shooter sequel’s multiplayer so well it became one of the best PC games of 2016. There’s nothing quite like Titanfall 2’s juxtaposition of crunchy, industrial mech brawling and nimble pilot combat. As you’ll see in our Titanfall 2 campaign review, the solo portion of this FPS also serves as both an excellent intro to the game’s mechanics and a charming, self-contained narrative.

The campaign never tries to outdo the gameplay with epic setpieces or blockbuster bombast. Instead, the raw mechanics serve up all the thrills: wall-running at a group of enemies and blowing them away with a few, satisfying blasts of your shotgun feels exhilarating every time. What’s more, the PC version holds up wonderfully as we saw in our Titanfall 2 PC port review.

Respawn has not only added depth to single-player; a four-player co-op wave mode is an excellent companion to the competitive multiplayer that contains a wide variety of Titanfall 2 classes. Titanfall 2 is a bigger and better beast than before, and a breath of fresh air for the mech games genre as a whole.

While there’s no word on a Titanfall 3, Respawn Entertainment’s battle royale Apex Legends is set in the same universe. Sure, the wall-running is gone, but Apex Legends weapons like the Mozambique and Hemlock serve as a fitting nod to this developer’s wonderful past.

Left 4 Dead 2

Valve’s zombies are not like other zombies. In Left 4 Dead 2, they crash over you like waves, crawling up walls and leaping across gaps. They are accompanied by specials: highly-evolved undead that force you to work together. A Smoker will drag you off into an alley with its long tongue where you’ll be mobbed by common undead. A Hunter will pin you to the asphalt before tearing out your throat. A Boomer will charge right into your face and explode, drowning you in a green gloop.

Even though zombies are a dime a dozen and Left 4 Dead 2 has been around for a long time, the tension, level design, and countless mods ensure it remains a compelling romp. It remains one of the best co-op games on PC.

Team Fortress 2

In this extra shooty, class-based affair, angry cartoon men capture briefcases, escort bombs, and stand on nodes. Team Fortress 2 is brilliant, and it’s still easily one of the best shooting games on PC. It has also evolved, with mountains of user-created content, maps, modes, and new Team Fortress 2 gadgets helping keep the shooter relevant. Online games like this never go out of style.

The premise is as simple as ever: you pick a character from a cast of nine and take your place on a team. Modes include Capture the Flag, King of the Hill, and Payload – the latter seeing a team drive a bomb forward on a rail track, while their opponents desperately attempt to hold them back. It is a classic that has become the flagship mode of Overwatch, but it was refined to perfection here in Team Fortress 2 first.

Valorant

Riot’s hero shooter will be incredibly familiar to fans of CS:GO and Overwatch, but – as we explain in our Valorant review – that’s not a bad thing at all. Valorant has pushed its way right to the front of the competitive FPS pack, and it’s not hard to see why. There’s a bright-eyed cast of heroes to choose from, each with a handful of useful, well-balanced abilities. The weapons and the economic system are straight from CS:GO – they even called the ‘AWP’ the ‘Op’, which is pretty much the same word. Clever.

Matches are intense and require skill, precision, and team coordination. Just like CS:GO, if your aim is shoddy or your reactions aren’t on point you’re in for a rough one – but at least you don’t have to play against a grown adult who has been playing Dust 2 for the past twenty years. Valorant couldn’t be any more geared towards esports, so if you’ve got your eye on a new competitive scene, it comes highly recommended – and if you don’t fancy the commitment of a full match, the Spike Rush game mode is faster, more casual, and offers just as much FPS fun.

Unreal Tournament

Epic made a name for itself with Unreal – impressive in a time when shooters were dominated by id – but it was with 1999’s Unreal Tournament that Epic earned its grand moniker. Tournament had the same core concept as Quake Arena but offered an alternative for those looking for a few more frills.

Among the game’s exciting weapons is the BioRifle, which weaponises toxic sludge. You can even charge it up and release a great bulb of the stuff, using it as a gelatinous landmine. Then there is Redeemer, a rocket launcher that flings a pilotable thermonuclear warhead at your enemies. You should also try the Ripper, which fires saw blades that bounce around corners. Each gun has separate strengths and alternate fire modes that need mastering in order for you to dominate in the arena.

Tournament’s maps – old and new – are filled with memorably mad architecture. There is nothing quite like leaping in low gravity between the three stratospheric towers in DM-Morpheus – particularly if you can gib someone in mid-air, spraying their gore through the sky.