Throughout the years, gaming has evolved into an industry of its own to the point where it can now be considered as a form of art along with film and literature. It has the potential to make us laugh, make us cry, make us feel. Story-driven games like The Last of Us, Heavy Rain, Bioshock, and The Walking Dead, to name a few, are the proof of that.
But that’s not what we’re gonna be talking about today. This article is about games where you blow shit up and laugh at your teammates’ stupidity while respawning. Because there are very few genres that truly manage to keep your blood pumping and heart racing the way that FPS games do, and especially when you add a bit of online camaraderie to the mix.
Now that doesn’t mean that you’re gonna have to pay a penny for it. One of the perks of being a gamer is that you can often find amazing games that are heavily discounted or flat-out free. So get ready to dedicate hours of your life raging at your computer screen while laughing at the fact that you didn’t have to open your wallet to have this much fun.
It is my mission to show you some of the best online shooters that you can download right now for FREE.
Apex Legends
The first one on the list you’re probably already familiar with: Apex Legends is a sci-fi battle royale where you can choose from a group of champions, each with their own special abilities and perks, so you choose the playstyle that best suits you.
The game was developed by Respawn, the masterminds behind the Titanfall series, so the controls feel good and intuitive enough with their own take on the FPS genre.
Like most battle royale games, you’re dropped from the sky to the map with dozens of other players in a battle for survival until you or your team is the last one standing. The main difference being from other battle royale games is that this one is squad-based, so the focus is more on teamwork.
It has several mechanics that allow you to communicate with your teammates even without the use of a microphone. It makes games with randoms more coordinated than they would have been otherwise.
Call of Duty: Warzone
I know, another battle royale game, but this is the last one on the list, I swear. Personally, my favorite battle royale, close only to PUBG, Warzone provides a straightforward gaming experience by implementing a lot of elements from past Call of Duty games and other battle royales.
The sense you get from playing a Call of Duty game is one of familiarity. The controls are as intuitive as an FPS can get while adding new features suited for the battle royale experience. You’re introduced to a short tutorial to get your hands on the mechanics of the game to then having different modes tailored to your own personal preferences.
Do you like to have a few friends over Discord and play as a squad as you would in Apex Legends? Or do you prefer to go solo and taste sweet victory when you’re the only one left in the circle? Or maybe you prefer a frenetic fight for cash in the Plunder? The choice is yours.
As if that weren’t enough, Warzone allows up to 150 players at a given time and introduces the Gulag mechanic, allowing you to have two or even three chances to get back in the game after your death. These two elements give the player a more extended experience with all the action without feeling like a slow burn.
Destiny 2
Destiny has gotten a bit of a bad rep. Personally tried the first one when it came out and got tired after a few hours. However, it has gotten better throughout the years with each expansion, and now with the sequel available for free, I decided to give it a second chance, and I’m glad I did.
The player base of Destiny has always been dedicated, and now I understand why. While it is a grind, mostly because it’s a loot-based game, it’s a fun grind, the kind you don’t realize that you’ve spent over 100 hours on. Destiny 2 also fixes a lot of the issues the players, myself included, had with the first installment.
Another good thing about Destiny 2 is its community. Many franchises are filled with toxic fanbases that make you feel guilty about enjoying those games because of association. While others make the very experience of playing into a grind or downright horrible (looking at you, GTA Online), Destiny 2 promotes cooperation and coordination for raids and events, basically rewarding players for working as a team.
The result of this is a community ready to give new players a hand and willing to explain things that would otherwise go over most people’s head and let’s be honest, Destiny doesn’t do the best job at explaining things to you.
The story is definitively an improvement compared to the first but still nothing to write home about. You’ll find yourself more engrossed in the battle and sense of achievement that only a looting game can provide without caring about who’s the one sending you to a mission or who you’re fighting against.
Paladins: Champions of the Realm
Paladins has five different game modes and several champions to choose from, each falling into the category of Support, Damage, Front Line, and Flank. But that doesn’t mean that gamers will be expected to be bound by a specific loadout.
Hero games are widely known for their strict commitment to each character’s abilities, but Paladins balances this out pretty fairly by offering a myriad of customization options to the player. So being able to switch character builds between matches and depending on your team’s needs is part of the core gameplay.
This game is reminiscent of Overwatch, but several updates later has managed to transform it into its own thing. The aesthetic is great since I’m a fan of lower resolution, cartoony graphics. Paladins also does a great job of providing information to the player without the screen feeling clustered.
It is a chaotic game by nature, but it only enhances the sense of frenetic fighting rather than frustrating nonsense.
Black Squad
This fast-paced FPS will feel familiar to those of you who grew up playing Call of Duty or Counter-Strike. Movement in Black Squad is faster compared to those games, however, and the frames-per-second can remain stable at 60 frames-per-second in the high resolutions even in mid to low-end PCs.
The learning curve is nearly nonexistent if you’ve played any FPS game ever, and it can be picked up by newcomers and casual players as well as the pros and still have a good time. Personally, I am considered in my close circle as a “newb” and still managed to get several kills my first time playing.
The community is small but supportive. You’ll also be happy to hear that Black Squad has a wide variety of weapons and customizations available for each.
The cooler weapons can be bought on the in-game store but make no mistake. This is not a pay-to-win situation, and while you technically can buy the cooler weapons out of your pocket, you can also buy them with the in-game currency that you earn the more you play. And the matches are fun enough that it won’t feel like a grind.
Planetside 2
Unlike the other entries on the list, Planetside 2 is a massive multiplayer online game on top of being a first-person shooter.
Another neat feature is that travel can be really fun and plays a significant role in combat. The player can control tanks, vehicles, and aircraft to lay waste to enemies in huge open maps.
The number of players that can be involved in a battle is staggering, providing a feeling of epicness to the whole experience.
This sci-fi shooter also offers stunning visuals for a game that’s almost a decade old. The classes are versatile enough for you to experiment while also offering countless upgrades that can increase each class’s efficiency. As a lover of all things sci-fi and shooters, Planetside 2 is a diamond in the rough.
Ironsight
Heavily inspired by Call of Duty with a futuristic aesthetic. Ironsight has six different modes, all of them really fun and rewarding, though the highlight of this game is definitively the deathmatches.
The gunplay is satisfying with the variety you’d expect from this sort of game, surprisingly though, shotguns can be a bit clunky, so I wouldn’t recommend having one as your main.
I’m not exaggerating when I say that Ironsight borrows a lot of elements from classic Call of Duty games from the 2010-2012 era. Loadouts, killstreaks, it’s all there. Sadly though, there are no killcams, making every death you didn’t see coming a bit more frustrating since you don’t see where you made a mistake.
Unlike the other entries on this list, the community in Ironsight leaves a lot to be desired. However, the playerbase is steadily growing, so hopefully, it’ll have a dedicated and close-knit community in the near future.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
You knew this was going to be on the list sooner or later. Counter-Strike is the granddaddy of online FPS games, bringing memories of amazing kills to youngsters and fossils alike all over the globe. It’s been going strong for 20 years and counting, remaining in the top games of all time, along with some of the most played on Twitch.
If you’ve been living under a rock for the past two decades, you play in one of two teams: terrorists whose objective is to plant a bomb or a counter-terrorist unit trying to prevent that.
It’s really hard to think of any downsides to this game besides its age. And even so, it has aged quite well, considering that a lot of FPS games have tried and failed to replicate its allure. CS: GO remains one of the classics that we’ll always crawl back to whenever we want to get our fix of a good FPS game.
Quake Champions
A reimagining of the Quake 3 arena with all the bells and whistles of modern online FPS games, Quake Champions, while not as popular as most of the entries on this list, deserves a good spot considering how well it handles the fast-paced gameplay in competitive matches.
Quake fans are going to be pleased to find that this game retains the same feeling of most guns, and newcomers are going to find refreshing that the mechanics of the game are really simple. You’ll be able to just start and instinctively play without much room for thought or any arduous learning process.
The champions are similar to other class-based shooters, with each one having different passive abilities and a few tweaks that make them different from each other. Things like mobility, speed, and damage output are only a few of the ways the champions differ, but they’re not enough to make them feel that much of a difference to play with.
Compare this with games like Overwatch, where the champion you choose will have vastly different capabilities and overall gameplay elements from the rest. Here, it doesn’t really matter which one you choose, and it’s pretty easy to get a ground on what way you like to play the most.
The maps also allows for verticality, and the way the player interacts with the world is ultimately what distinguishes the pros from the noobs.
Team Fortress 2
From the geniuses at Valve that refuse to count to 3, Team Fortress 2 remains as strong as ever. Even if some members of the community argue that the numbers of the game have been decreasing, I’d say that it’s just part of any game’s natural lifespan.
But just like other Valve made games such as Left 4 Dead and Counter-Strike, the core playerbase not only remains loyal but there’s always new people looking to get on the train.
The fun is all there, the colorful characters and maps filled with glorified violence and explosions. Not to mention the hats… So many hats.
Regardless if you’ve played Team Fortress 2 before or if this is the first time you’ve heard of it, which I doubt if you own Steam, I’m sure that you’ll have a blast with this game.
Bonus: Warframe
I decided to place Warframe as a bonus because it deserves to be on the list by all means. After all, it means all of my criteria: it’s a shooter, it’s free, and it’s awesome. But you’re gonna find that this little game is not like the others.
Unlike all of the games I’ve mentioned before, this one is a third-person shooter, and I know what you must be thinking: “Oh, the disgrace!” But bare with me because this game largely depends on being played in third-person.
First, a little bit of context: Warframe is a co-op action shooter set in space. It has a lot of similarities with titles like Destiny, but with the added bonus of being a bit more polished in the way it implements its loot-based system and customization options.
I know it can be hard to believe that a free-to-play game made by a relatively small studio can compare with a triple-A title. But it can, and in a lot of ways, surpasses those titles.
Warframe has endless customization options available to those who dedicate the time to level up and get loot and those who decide to pay for those options without feeling like a pay-to-win scheme. And if you think that grinding to get gear is a pain in the butt, well, I’d say you’re right most of the time, but not in Warframe.
The gameplay is gripping and really fast-paced. The mobility allows you to traverse the maps in ways that you otherwise wouldn’t be able in the first-person perspective, which is why I decided to include it on the list anyway.
Not only will you find yourself in that awkward scenario where you said you’d be playing a couple of hours at most, only to then realize it’s been a week and you haven’t showered, but you’ll also see that a lot of bigger titles from greedy developers could learn a thing or two from games like this one.
Back when it came out, Warframe was nothing more than another sci-fi shooter, but after years of dedication from its players and updates and love that the developers have put into it, you’ll see that Warframe is now so much more. If you don’t believe me, just check on some of the most played games on Twitch, and you’ll find this game on some of the top hits along with the GTAs and Minecrafts of the industry.
So do yourself a favor and download at least one of these games, whichever finds you fancy and go crazy.
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