Games Like Valorant: Broadening Your FPS Horizons

Quake Champions

We simply have to start our list with this one. Released in 2022, but being on early access from 2017, Quake Champions is an obligatory item on every Quakian’s to-play list.

Image credit: id Software

With fancy game modes in the like of Unholy Trinity (players equipped with Rocket launcher, Lightning gun and Railgun only, all pickups removed, all abilities active) and Hot Rockets (players spawn with Rocket Launchers only, with infinite ammo AND Quad Damage…), as well as titular champions based on Quake franchise characters (plus the one and only B.J. Blazkowicz), Quake Champions provides a full-blast team combat showdowns.

19 maps, 16 champions with special abilities (e.g. Sorlag from QIIIArena, Death Knight from QI and Global Defense Force soldiers who fought off Stroggs in QII), supercool weapon skins (including original Rocket Launcher form QI), 5 quickplay, 7 arcade, and 2 ranked modes of play – all of this simply prevents you from NOT playing it.

Quake Champions: Early Access Starter Pack

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Splitgate

Have you ever played Portal or Portal 2? Mix it with any bright and vibrant looking FPS based on Unreal Engine 4 and voilà! – you have Splitgate lock ‘n load!

Image credit: 1047 Games

Being a relative sleeper hit when released, Splitgate exploded in the summer of ‘21, quickly losing popularity again, causing 1047 Games to discontinue work on game’s updates just a year later. How unwise of them!

Apart from the hypercool and wild variety of modes, including King of the Hill (players must control a designated area for a certain period of time in order to score points), Splitball (players capture a disco ball in order to gain points, which renders their weapon skills but boosts their melee attack to 100) and Run (you get to collect all disco balls as fast as possible), Splitgate has been praised for the weapon fire accuracy. So if you want to frag someone with a grenade flung through a portal, or split open their skull with a sparkling disco ball, wait no longer!

Splitgate

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Call Of Duty: Warzone II

A series which doesn’t need any introduction, with millions of fans around the world. There’s hardly anyone who has never played one.

The freshest in the series, Warzone 2 offers a well-known gameplay of shrinking map which forces players to compete against each other more and more fiercely, until last man standing.

There is a memorable feature called the Gulag – a place where a dead players may battle one another in order to respawn onto the map. The game has several other game modes like Plunder (loot items worth $2 mil and survive) or DMZ (get as many pickups and items as your inventory slots allow). Hyperrealistic graphic, lots of equipment and vehicles provides a highly diversified gameplay, with a vast array of tactics to incorporate into elimination of your enemies.

Borderlands 3

Hold on to your butts! If you crave for an over-the-top FPS action, you’ve come to the right place.

A third installment of the series, Borderlands 3 still holds on to the looter shooter formula its authors have “patented” almost 15 years ago, however it’s been refurbished with the hackneyed “bigger and better” ingredient.

Image credit: Gearbox Software

Players’ moves have been improved by introducing climbing and sliding (the latter, while keeping that trigger pulled, baby!), vehicles’ (themselves now modifiable!) steering has also been retouched. And now, lo and behold, weapons. 10 manufacturers and six weapon types, with their elements like butts, viewfinders, etc. coming in tens of variants, it all amounts to one billion weapons to choose from. Or rather to loot! Never has looting been so rewarding, so eagerly anticipated, so maniacally longed for as it is with Borderlands 3.

Also, sound effects of said weapons knock your socks off. Meaty clinking, jangly clanking, squelchy rattling is like a music to your ears. Four new characters only add up to the juicy cocktail of full-throttle action. Have we mentioned the voiceovers are great, too?

Borderlands: The Handsome Collection

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Tom Clancys Rainbow Six Siege

Having a steady fanbase for over six years now, TCRS Siege offers what the beloved FPS franchise have accustomed us to offer: lots of realism and tactical FPS stuff.

Image credit: Ubisoft Montreal

With 20 playable maps, more than 9 modes of play, including rather original Headshots Only and Golden Gun modes – you have thousands of hours of fun. Realism-wise, Ubisoft Montreal almost overdid themselves this time: a team of 150 experienced Rainbow Six players and FPS veterans not only did study a historic cases of counter-terrorist operations like Lufthansa Flight 101 hijacking and 1980 Iranian Embassy Siege in London, but they also took advice from National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (a French S.W.A.T.) on how to handle hostage extraction. A gazillion of DLC weapon skins serves as an icing on a cake.

Tom Clancys Rainbow Six Siege

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Hunt Showdown

Imagine being a bounty hunter in a realm where the supernatural mix with the Wild West. Hunt Showdown presents a fantastic cooperative-competitive game mode in which you hunt for the possessed boss monsters, upon which you had to perform exorcisms in order to obtain the trophy.

Image credit: Crytek

You look around for tropes and clues where the boss’ lair might be, killing as many regular monsters as possible along the way. If you prefer the stealthier approach, you may as well employ one, because the loudness of your actions attracts attention of other bounty hunter teams (meaning trouble).

What really stands out, though, is the craftily constructed system of character progression called Bloodline. Its level range goes from 1 – 100, each rank unlocks some new weapon, tool or trait.

You may also transform your 100 rank into one point of prestige which cancels the rank to 0, but leaves you with three different prizes to choose from: 10% XP Boost, $2000 extra, or you may unlock a so-called legendary skin for your character or weapon.

Another huge advantage of the game is bosses’ design, which looks exceptionally nightmarish (especially Butcher, Assassin and Scrapbeak), as well as realistic take on players’ endurance – characters aren’t bullet sponges and the good ol’ headshot sends you immediately to the God Almighty.

Hunt Showdown

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Apex Legends

Set in the same universe as previous title from Respawn Entertainment – Titanfall 2 – Apex Legends is a battle royale hero shooter with an epic gameplay to die for.

A predesigned characters with special individual abilities play a pivotal role here. From launching air-raids, to revealing locations of nearby enemies, to making oneself invisible for a couple of seconds, the abilities are what sets this game apart from other shooters. The cooldown times vary among heroes, but, of course, there are some pickups which reduce it. The players team up either in duos or trios and choose from two game modes.

What’s more, the gameplay is enhanced by Seasons and Events. The former are aprox. 2-month periods in which special battle passes are released, as well as new characters are being introduced. The latter are more short-lived (2 weeks tops) and allow players to obtain special limited-time cosmetics as well as engage them in game modes which are not to be repeated.

Apex Legends Coins

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