Popularity doesn’t guarantee quality, but it is usually a good indicator. If an FPS game pulls in hundreds of thousands of players, they probably see something worth experiencing. On the flip side, lesser-known releases can be fantastic, even if they don’t surpass the 500 concurrent players mark. While I’m not suggesting you drop $30 on that random shooter with 17 votes on Steam, plenty of overlooked FPS games deserve your attention and have already proven their worth to a small group of players.
“Underrated” is a vague term that covers a lot of criteria, but here it refers to games that are obscure, hard to find, or underplayed. Their quality far outshines their exposure, and they tend to hit the mark with those who finally play them. These are those FPS masterpieces that make you think, “Why did I wait so long to play this?”
I’m focusing on single-player FPS games.
5
Turbo Overkill Is A Modern FPS Masterpiece
Deserves To Be Mentioned Alongside Greats Like Ultrakill And Dusk
- 94% on Steam from just over 4,500 reviews (Trepang2 launched 2 months before Turbo Overkill, and it has 17,000 reviews)
- A relentless boomer shooter with style and even a hint of substance
- You have a chainsaw leg. Let me repeat that – you have a chainsaw leg!
Around the mid-2010s, AAA FPS games stopped coming out, except for established franchises like Call of Duty and Doom. As always, indie devs stepped up and launched the genre into a new golden age defined by arena combat, quick movement, gore, and experimentation. Obviously, Dusk, Trepang2, and Ultrakill were never going to pull Battlefield 6 numbers, but they cemented themselves as modern cornerstones of the shooter market.
Despite being as brilliant as those three games, Turbo Overkill never quite transcended its “indie darling” label, becoming a gem beloved by die-hard FPS fans but not particularly known by anyone else. I kind of get it; boomer shooter burnout had started by late 2023, and the game’s title can cause people to believe it’s just copying Ultrakill. Their names and quick movement make up the bulk of their similarities, and Turbo Overkill features a far more set-piece-heavy campaign that isn’t far removed from the AAA releases of old.Turbo Overkill‘s masterpiece status comes down to two major strengths: Chainsaw leg and alternate fire. Rather than just a melee option, the chainsaw leg drives the entire movement system, letting you slip and slide across the battlefield, dissecting enemies and picking up along the way. It is so satisfying. When you don’t feel like revving your limb, you can simply blast away with your guns, all of which have wildly creative alt-fire modes.
4
Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason Is Permanently On Ice
A Horror Shooter That Turns Heat Into Life
- Cool mechanics. Well, maybe “cool” isn’t the right word.
- Gone way too soon.
Want to feel just a little bit depressed? Then check out DelistedGames’ Extinct List, which contains nearly 1,000 games. For one reason or another, mainly license issues, these titles were removed from digital stores, making them nearly impossible to buy unless you can find a physical copy. A few of the greatest FPS games of all time were doomed to this fate, including true masterpieces like The Operative: No One Lives Forever and even AAA releases like Battlefield: Bad Company 2.
Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason doesn’t quite have the name value of those two classics, which arguably makes its situation even sadder. Released in 2009 worldwide, Action Forms’ FPS horror game was removed from Steam and GOG in 2013, meaning it barely lasted 5 years. Since it was always fairly obscure, its delisting means it will eventually be forgotten entirely. Memories fade, and very few new ones are being created.
As its name suggests, Cryostasis uses warmth as a mechanic andtakes place on an abandoned Soviet icebreaker marooned in the Arctic. Rather than relying on simple HP, the game ties your survival to heat sources, forcing you to track down lambs, revive generators, and monitor your temps. When you finally heat up a room, ice begins to melt, changing its appearance and possibilities.
Cryostasis tells a pretty darn effective story that doesn’t rely on jump scares, instead emphasizing dread and foreboding. You also jump into the minds of the dead crew to live through their final moments, allowing you to change the present. That’s just neat.
Find the odd one out before the timer hits zero.
3
Beyond Citadel Has Way More Going On Than Blood And Fanservice
But It Still Has Those Things In Abundance
- 96% on Steam from roughly 2,940 reviews
- A stylistic throwback to classic ’90s shooters, albeit with an anime twist
- Peculiar reputation.
OK, here’s the game I’m most hesitant to mention, and it has absolutely nothing to do with its actual quality. Along with its precursor, The Citadel, Doekuramori’s Beyond Citadel is the definition of “don’t judge a book by its cover”… or controversy. FPS games with anime aesthetics don’t really exist, so this game stands out in a way that nobody seems to be looking for.
While the art style might be an auto-skip for some folks, Beyond Citadel also earned a somewhat negative reputation for its gore-tastic violence and unsettling imagery. Whether killing enemies or getting killed, you will see more than you could ever imagine, and more than some folks will want installed in their memories. There’s no escaping these bloody moments, and there is also a bit of traditional fanservice.
Setting that aside, Beyond Citadel is comfortably among the best and most unusual shooters of the 2020s. Despite its aesthetic, the game features surprisingly realistic weapon management, including an intricate reload system that changes by gun. Weapons heat up and jam in the middle of combat, and enemies aren’t idiots who only exist to be shot.
Beyond Citadel is one of the only boomer shooters with tactical sim gunplay. Look, you don’t have to rush out to play this shooter, but if nothing I said puts you off, you might want to consider it.
2
Turok 2 Remaster Is The FPS Masterpiece The Original Tried To Be
Not Just Food For Nostalgia
- An all-time great can age gracefully.
- Freed from the constraints of the late ’90s.
- Dinosaurs and dinosoids.
Let’s shake things up for this one. Turok 2 isn’t exactly underrated, being remembered as an FPS gem that might have been too ambitious for its own good. I wouldn’t advise against playing the original, but I’d suggest going in with low-ish expectations, since the game’s flaws (ahem, level design and fog) can be hard to look past nowadays. If you grew up with Turok 2 and want a rerun, you should go with Nightdive’s modern remaster – it’s closer to the experience you remember fondly.
Nightdive is the standard-setter for remasters, and Turok 2 serves as a prime example. The studio didn’t stop at a high-resolution switch, uncapped framerate, and modernized controls; no, they tweaked the levels in small ways to make them less confusing to navigate. The 1998 version’s sprawling stages were too big for Nintendo 64, and the remaster actualizes its potential to shine as a true masterpiece.
1
The Darkness Is A Narrative Masterpiece
An FPS Game You Play For Every Reason Besides The Actual Shooting
- 4.6/5 on the Xbox Store (434 reviews). Also, you can still buy The Darkness.
- Rich story, characters, and setting.
- Gameplay is pretty bad, so just imagine how good everything else must be for the game to still qualify as a masterpiece.
Oh, yeah, let’s get to The Darkness.
To be honest, I nearly doubled down and included both entries in the series, especially since the sequel has far better gameplay; however, they aren’t really a great two-parter. The Darkness 2 mostly abandons its predecessor’s incredible atmosphere, mature storytelling, and intense feeling of anguish, resulting in a game that plays better but isn’t anywhere near as memorable.
The Darkness is a straight-up chore to play most of the time, and this flaw would have dragged Jackie into the nether if anything else fell short. Fortunately, everything else is about as brilliant as it can be, provided we put aside the 20-year-old visuals that look like they come from an AA-level project released the same year as BioShock and Modern Warfare.
Set in a semi-open New York, the campaign follows a mafioso named Jackie, who inherits a demon and goes on a rampage to avenge his girlfriend Jenny’s murder. That might not sound that unique on paper, but The Darkness absolutely nails its atmosphere, sense of place, and voice acting. One of the best moments in any FPS game doesn’t involve firing a gun at all; early on, you can decide to simply sit on a couch next to Jenny and watch the entirety of To Kill a Mockingbird on their TV. Absolutely genius move.
