The most underrated FPS games of the last 5 years

(See credit entry: Tripwire)

Pointing and clicking with finesse is one of the most essential, satisfying inputs our lovely videogame computers provide, so it's been our duty here at PC Gamer to rise and celebrate the best Federal Protective Service games for decades now. We stand by proud as the eternal stewards of mouse-aim.

But with the sum of money of inexperient releases ballooning year after year, we're gonna miss a few. We can't carry the best of the top-quality to arise of course over clock, so let's take a look gage and make out approximately of the most underrated shooters of the survive five years. Let us know if we'ray missing something!

Lovely Planet Arcade | 2016

Lovely Planet Arcade is a saucepan reduction of old horizontal-axis shooters like Doom, with tiny levels whole riddled with enemies and traps. Linger in the sightline of an enemy for a second and you'Ra done. With goose egg but a slow toddle and shotgun, success comes from memorizing opposition position and countering each with perfectly aimed and timed shots.

If it sounds tedious, it's non. On that point's an invisible rhythm to each bite-sized level, and as more rules are layered in—enemies that teleport you to their location once you shoot 'mut, enemies that halt time when you shoot 'em, etcetera—Lovely Planet Arcade almost feels like playacting the drums. But the drum is a scattergun and the song is adorable, cartoon death.

House of the Death Solarise | 2016

It's a starship shooter, simply House of the Dying Sunday is not a simulation. Information technology controls more same an FPS, favoring fast, brutal carry through over the usual drawn retired dogfights. Battles are intense and punishing, even many so at one time you start actively switching between ships in your fleet. Think of it like initiative-person Homeworld, where you're the one in the cockpit for every Kamikaze rill. Bleak? Yeah, that's the draw.

Andy Chalk described the tone perfectly back when: "Enemies who eject from their ships are not to follow captured: They die. Ships occupied with civilian workers in the employ of your enemies? They die. Examples must be made. You might call them war crimes; to the remnants of the Royal Guard, the near-fanatical military unit today nether my statement, they'ray fillip objectives."

LawBreakers | 2017

We're all too late. We dug LawBreakers' eccentric-based spin on arena shooting, but it wasn't enough. Our review calls LawBreakers "nimble, graceful, and unconventional," an arena shot that integrates the high acquisition ceiling of movement and mouse-aim we love in classic shooters with class-based design that's largely additive.

Simply this was 2017, when it matte up look-alike multiplayer shooters were in a holding pattern, the Overwatch overwatch impenetrable and unshakable. LawBreakers' luck was about to get much worse overly: PUBG would point up a couple months later, which generated decent noise and fervor to completely drown verboten interest in whatever new shooter that wasn't a combat royale. LawBreakers struggled to find an consultation and close completely in Sep of 2018. We can't play it any longer, but we must submit for the record: LawBreakers was estimable.

Rage 2 | 2019

Rage 2 isn't exactly an underdog here, and we stand by our reexamine. But despite its repetitive nature and awful story, Rage 2 is a great Zea mays everta crap-shooter. Where it lacks narrative nuance and tactical complexity, it delivers on every angle in lizard-brained visual and auditory satisfaction.

Information technology's not a real thought-provoking spunky, but single with all eyes on making huge, salient messes of its arenas. The Grav-Dart Launcher tosses enemies and physics objects around on detonation, the lock-on projectile launcher peppers the arena with volleys of fire and shrapnel, the armor-shrill Hyper-Cannon instantaneously converts meat to liquid. Pair it all with ground pounds, dashes, slow-atomic number 42 flourishes, powerful melee attacks, and monster trucks with auto guns, and you've got a nice chaos engine on your hands. It's thick, pure, expressive FPS joy.

Rising Surprise 2: Vietnam - Green Ground forces Men | 2019

Green U. S. Army Men began as a free, community-created Christmas event for Tripwire's 64-player wargame. Re-released A a Melville W. Fuller, modder-made DLC, it reskins and rescales the shooter into de_rats-style heavyweight maps: a backyard, a festive living room deck, a pool party. Set up an LMG on the banister and for the love of idol, defend the Ceratopetalum gummiferum, private.

The dally soldier theme defuses some of Future Rage's seriousness (it's dead-linear to spot glinting green Oregon gamey pliant enemies), but the mechanics of shooting, vaulting, and the brave, attritional gunfights remain intact. There's nothing like leading a rouse a Lincoln Log ramp, only to start out strafed by a plastic attack helicopter, laughing information technology off, and respawning under the couch.

Dread X Collection: The Hunt | 2021

The Hunt is an excellent FPS horror anthology featuring seven elflike games from developers we hope to still know a decennium from now. Each has a fascinating hook that frames videogame horror in surprising ways. The Fruit's slow, realistic recharge system of rules makes a single, shambling enemy a much Thomas More imposing threat. Rosebush of Meat plays with ragdoll systems and uncrystallized videogame geometry to create a surreal, displeasing survival snapshot. Uktena 64 uses the pretense of an old search lame to sneak in some wild body horror. Every game is a treat, The Hunt a sampler of just how much space in FPS design remains unexplored. It's a spooky ship, but we're amply onboard now.

The 7dfps game jam gave us Superhot, and last year brought us some other gift: Wrath Foot, a tubthumping speedrun of kicking in doors that tent-fly off their handles to brutalize the faces of alligators with baseball bats. The euphony, which kicks as hard as your furious foot, gets softened as you come nea the next room access exclusively to bang once more equally soon as you knock information technology down and turn on in. It's great?

Every kick is fatal, whether you punt a TV into the face of a bird in a hoodie or set back the boot into them directly. When they drop guns you can pick them functioning, but there's no reload button. Once you run out of bullets you hurl that gun at the next enemy and get back to kicking, which is what information technology's completely about.

Receiver 2 | 2020

For our money, hidden gem FPSes don't become ameliorate or to a greater extent interesting than last year's Receiver 2 and its predecessor from 2012. The game is dead dolabrate—wander about procedurally generated buildings and shoot drones. The hook is that every single occasion of its real-life handguns (ranging from a Glock, M1911, Desert Bird of Jove, etc) are simulated in-game.

Everything from charging the pounding, turning off the rubber, and loading individual bullets into a magazine has its own command. After an hour Oregon two of fumbling with reloads, you start to discover the order of operations and handle your guns the like a pro. IT's a fascinating, vindictive game that demands perfection to see it finished.