Best shooters of all time

GoldenEye 007▲ Rising

Rare proved consoles could do FPS with split-screen deathmatches that ended friendships over the Klobb and Oddjob bans. It practically invented the console shooter template — objective-based missions, headshots, stealth options — and the multiplayer alone launched a thousand N64 sleepovers.

Year: 1997Critic score: 9.6/10

added by IJRin 8 rankings

Half-Life 2▲ Rising

The Gravity Gun turned physics into a weapon and made every crate, sawblade, and toilet a potential murder implement, while Alyx and the Combine occupation gave the genre a story worth caring about. It redefined what a shooter's tech and narrative ambitions could be, and level design like Sandtraps and Ravenholm is still studied two decades later.

Year: 2004Critic score: 9.6/10

added by IJRin 8 rankings

BioShock▲ Rising

Rapture's fall from Objectivist utopia to splicer-infested nightmare gave shooters a philosophical spine, and the 'Would You Kindly' twist recontextualized every choice you'd made as a player. Plasmids let you set enemies on fire and watch them dive into the ocean, proving FPS combat could be as much a toolbox as a trigger.

Year: 2007Critic score: 9.6/10

added by IJRin 9 rankings

Halo 3▲ Rising

Master Chief's 'finish the fight' arc closed with the Halo ring detonating and a farewell that still gets quoted, but the real legacy is Forge and the custom game economy that turned strangers into map-makers and matchmaking into a nightly ritual. It's the moment Halo peaked as cultural furniture, not just a game.

Year: 2007Critic score: 9.4/10

added by IJRin 5 rankings

Halo: Combat Evolved▲ Rising

The Pillar of Autumn crash-landing kicked off a campaign that made the analog stick viable for aiming forever, pairing recharging shields with the two-weapon limit to force tactical choices most shooters still copy. Bungie didn't just make Xbox a platform — they made console multiplayer a living room religion.

Year: 2001Critic score: 9.5/10

added by IJRin 6 rankings

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

'All Ghillied Up' and the nuke gut-punch showed military shooters could have cinematic weight, but it's the killstreaks, perks, and Prestige grind that rewired the entire industry's multiplayer DNA. Every loadout-based shooter since owes it royalties.

Year: 2007Critic score: 9.4/10

added by IJRin 3 rankings

Half-Life: Alyx

Valve returned to City 17 not with a sequel number but a VR-native masterpiece where reloading a pistol by hand and physically dodging headcrabs made presence feel dangerous again. It proved VR shooters didn't have to be gimmicks — they could be the best version of the genre.

Year: 2020Critic score: 9.3/10

added by IJRin 5 rankings

DOOM Eternal▼ Falling

id doubled down on aggression, turning survival horror's ammo-scarcity anxiety into a 'stay and fight' loop where chainsawing enemies for ammo made retreat the actual death sentence. The Slayer's power fantasy — glory kills, Meat Hook, BFG spam — is the purest distillation of what makes DOOM's combat a genre unto itself.

Year: 2020Critic score: 8.9/10

added by IJR

Overwatch▼ Falling

Blizzard took the shooter and welded it to hero-based team comp, making ultimates like Reinhardt's earthshatter or Genji's dragonblade into esports set-pieces rather than just kills. It turned aim skill into one variable among many, proving shooters could be about team fantasy as much as reflexes.

Year: 2016Critic score: 9.1/10

added by IJRin 4 rankings

DOOM (1993)▼ Falling

id Software's demons-in-a-space-base sprint basically created the FPS as a commercial genre, with BFGs, circle-strafing, and WAD modding spawning an entire subculture before 'shooter' was even a marketing term. Every deathmatch, every mod scene, every 'rip and tear' meme traces back to this.

Year: 1993Critic score: 9.2/10

added by IJRin 2 rankings