Due to kids and work I haven’t been playing much larger games in the last decade or so, only casual games (hidden object etc.). Lately I’ve dusted off some old games 9after my son had discovered the joys of Doom), and I loved FPS games around 2000. Quake did not age as well as I hoped, but Return to Castle Fowlfenstein and Call of Duty are still excellent experiences.
I also tried some newer games (the new Tomb Raider games, Bioshock), whicih look gorgeous, but are also much more story-oriented than a straight up shooter like RTCW. On the other hand, the shooters I hear a lot about seem to focus mainly on multi-player, which I don’t like as I haven’t got the reflexes or playing style to survive for more than ten seconds.
So I wondered: what is currently good in FPS games? I’m only interested in single player campaigns.
I left off around the time F.E.A.R. was released (although that one seemed interesting), did play No one lives forever (liked that a lot), Bloodrayne, also Hitman. To me it seems like those kind of games have become a niche.
As regards hardware:
My primary computer for playing would be a Macbook Air M1 which can comfortably do Tombr Raider and Bioshock in emulation. We also have afairly basic Windows 10 game computer which has a dedicated graphics card but not extreme, although I get the impression that you only need top of the line graphics card and CPU if you want to do 120 fps 4K. For my eyes anything above 1024x768 at 3 fps already looks good.
I’m also interested in hearing about good games even if I can’t yet play them: might be a future buy.
If you liked Wolfenstein, than Wolfenstein: the New Order and Wolfenstein 2: the New Colossus are both excellent games. They’re fun, intense shooters with decent stories and characters, and shooting Nazis is, of course, always a blast.
They’re a continuing story, so play them in that order.
Control might be slightly more story-oriented than you want, but the gameplay is phenomenal and there is a lot of intense fighting. I highly recommend it. (Note: I played on console, not PC, so I can’t speak for that experience).
Doom, the one from 2016, is a pretty good FPS. There’s barely any story and at times the protagonist interrupts whoever is trying to give him exposition.
I’m repeating other people but Doom 2016, Wolfenstein: The New Order and Borderlands are a great start both in terms of mechanics (good shooting and lots of it) and system requirements. I’d personally start with Borderlands 2 out of that franchise since I think it’s significantly better than BL1 and you don’t really need anything from BL1 to follow along (you’ll get the occasional “heh” if you played BL1 first but not worth investing the time, in my opinion).
Other popular options in the “dumb single-player shooty-shooty” genre of FPS games (versus story oriented FPS games) include the Serious Sam franchise (Serious Sam 3 was from 2011 and should run fine) and Bulletstorm. Unfortunately, it looks as though you can’t get the original Bulletstorm and only the remastered edition so you might want to check system requirements on that one.
If you don’t mind a little more story and mechanics (some crafting, skill trees, etc) then perhaps the more recent Far Cry games. I’d personally start with Far Cry 4 which was an improvement upon FC3 but paces much better than FC5.
Too late to edit but the Borderlands games are currently on sale on Steam as part of the 2K Publisher sale. For other titles, you might want to wait until the 11th when Steams “Lunar New Year” sale starts and they might be cheaper. No promises but no harm in waiting either.
I played all the way through the game on Xbox and it was incredible. Tossing things around with telekinesis was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done in any game ever. And the story is really, really good, especially if you read the in-game lore.
(If story isn’t your thing you can ignore the lore and just play the game.)
These are great suggestions, thanks. I had heard vaguely of Borderlands and Control but hadn’t considered them as shooters.
For the record, I don’t mind story, but with newer games like Tomb Raider it seems like the makers only want to tell a story, and the game elements seem accidental to that. Half Life 2 also feels a bit like that. Return to Castle Wolfenstein and the original Call of Duty managed to get a good balance for me and also the action was well choreographed to make it challenging and fun. No one lives forever, while having more story, was also very good.
I did play Serious Sam 1 and 2 back in the day, and found them fun, but ultimately a bit repetitive
I’m intentionally choosing a few games I’ve played through that have a few years on them, so they’ll play well on your computer with graphics options turned on.
I got a fair bit of mileage out of Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy Ghost Recon Wildlands. It rewards stealth, and there’s an inflection point of difficulty where bullets are a threat to you and the opponents aren’t bullet sponges. That’s where it plays like the older Clancy games. Don’t get the sequel (Breakpoint), and you don’t really need the DLCs either but if you do, skip Narco Road.
The closest to the oldschool shooters that’s modern, and you want to skip Serious Sam, would be Shadow Warrior 2. It rewards rapid (lateral) movement and has a rewarding melee system if that’s your poison. It’s got a crass sense of humour, yes, but the Flying Wild Hog remakes aren’t the social-gaffes-in-video-form of the original Shadow Warrior from the 90s.
Finally, the Metro series. Maybe not Metro Exodus because that one will likely strain your computer, but Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light. It’s basically a linear, Russian post-apocalyptic tale set in the overrun subway system of post-nuclear-exchange Moscow. It’s seriously moody, in a good way.
It’s possible that you won’t like Borderlands’s quest-based system where NPCs ask you to go get the macguffin from the bad guy. But in general there aren’t too many unskippable cut scenes, for instance.
I love the Metro series but held off on recommending them because they are heavily plot based and 2033 in particular is really slow to get moving. They tried to stay close to the novel for 2033 and the novel obviously wasn’t a shooter so there’s lots of slow burn story-telling and only bursts of action. So I think they’re great games but not if you’re looking for a shooty FPS experience.
Along the same lines are the STALKER games. Shadow of Chernobyl is easily in my top ten, if not top five, favorite PC games of all time but it’s also somewhat slow paced and the dated gameplay can be best affectionately described as janky. Great atmosphere though and each time I touch it, I get sucked in for another full run. Call of Pripyat is good if not reaching the same heights and Clear Sky was by a different studio entirely and generally considered inferior to the first two but still gets a “Very Positive” on Steam.
Depends what you want from a 3d shooter. Some, like Metro series can be played as a shooter, but it can also be played as a sneakathon, like Hitman/2/3 or Thief. Straight shooter, would be Doom 2016 and Doom: Eternal. I liked Wolfenstein: Old Blood and New Order much more than Wolfenstein II :New Colossus. The Far Crys are same as metro, can be sneak and stab, or full on war, tends to be bases and towers to be conquered. FC4 is the best I reckon.
Borderlands 1, 2, 3 and the prequel are all good and can be picked up cheap for the earlier ones. Earlier ones will be much less demanding too. Thes are Shooters with vehicles, which is another variation, along with Rage I + 2. Bioshock I, II and Infinite are also good.
And I’m glad someone remembers No One Lives Forever original and 2, I heard there was a remaster coming but they stopped it. It was one of my favourites too. Bits of that were sneakathon too, but it captured bond with the humour of Austin Powers so well. Sneaking around listening to guards (when set in the 60s) saying that they hoped the beatles don’t break up, or discussing other failed bad guys operations was hilarious and I always waited till their conversations were done before killing them. Always amazed how they got all the bond bits well, underwater with spear gun, space station, skiing, sleds, cable car, all the popular bits from the movies.
It’s funny, I would have suggested STALKER over Metro, simply because the game doesn’t bother saddling you with much plot, but it has a learning curve best described as, “Thrown in the deep end without a life preserver.” I’m kind of with you about that, though. (That said, Jophiel, if you like 'janky, open-world and ambitious, you may or may not like E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy.)
But more generally, I’d also push “The Signal from Tölva” It’s a small game that kind of bleeds RTS-y elements with a first person shooter. Nobody’s really bothering to give much of a plot while you play, though there’s kind of one there if you look hard enough.
Titanfall 2 is mostly a multiplayer game, but its single-player campaign, while fairly short, is surprisingly good. You switch between fighting as a fast moving, wall-running infantryman and piloting a massively-armed giant mecha, shooting at enemies in beautiful and dynamic environments. Also contains trace elements of time travel.
Thanks again, I really appreciate the effort you all make of finding a match with my personal preferences and hardware. I also find the discussions of the pros and cons of these games very helpful to get a better understanding of how they would actually play.
Borderlands is straight up a shooter. More accurately, a “looter shooter” – you kill piles and piles of dudes and collect piles and piles of new guns. Most of which are going to be trash but then you find the upgrade that makes you grin and keep shooting dudes.
Control is a lauded game and rightfully so. But it’s also a bit of puzzle solving and is third person rather than a first person shooter so it never crossed my mind. It’s also a newer game so check your system requirements. That said, everyone I know who has played it walked away speaking highly of the experience.