FPS Game Tier List

I played a LOT of Golden eye when I was a kid, and it was one of my first FPS multiplayer experience.

But I only placed on B tier.

Why? Because Deus Ex exists, lol. S and A tiers are taken and reserved for immersive sims and immersive sim-like!

I am pretty sure most FPS die hards at my age are PC gamers from the early 90s so the one being ranked as classic are probably doom 1&2 and Quake 1&2.

GoldenEye craze is more of a console thing IMO. The IP also got a bonus. James bond is bad ***.

"Cult classic" only? Come on man, Half life completely changed the whole gaming industry, it's influence still exists even today.

1. The reason why Counter strike even exist is because of half life. CS was originally a mod of half life.

And we all know the next part of history, CS stormed the world.

2. Which also made Valve rich, which eventually leads to the launch of Steam and become the one of the biggest gaming platform.

Steam started out as a Half life 2 launcher.

Valve is now a 10b dollar company.

(On the other hand, other 90s big name FPS developers like id Software or Rare are pretty much dead by now....)

3. Valve developed famous source engine for Half life 2 which is later on used by many cult classics including Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, Team Fortress 2, Portal, CS2, Dota etc.

All of Valve's crazy accomplishments wouldn't happen without the first Half life. It's wayyyyy more than just a cult-classic, it's an industry changing classic.

Personally, I think if Half life was never made and Valve never get to launch Steam subsequently, I'd be a caveman game nerd instead of civilized game nerd like now. Valve enlightened us all, thanks to Half life.

How did half life change things? I thought Unreal was the most influential (as well as Doom, and arguably Quake for some things but idk since I didn't play it).

Powerslave Exhumed - Really interesting environments
Deus Ex
Dark Forces
Singularity
Shadow Warrior
Prey
Wolfenstein (Return, Old Blood, New Order)
SiN
Hexen
Unreal 1 & 2 (I actually liked these)
CHASM: The Rift

I think people have fond memories of it because of the social aspect, we were all young and sitting around a TV shooting each other, talking ***, eating pizza, etc.

The game itself is very mid IMO, good for early console FPS, kinda suck when compared to PC counterparts


I'm really glad to see someone putting System Shock 1 here. It got knocked as a "Doom clone" when it was released, which was a shame, because it is such a good game. I had it on floppies and still have a SS2 boxed copy, although I preferred 1. If you get a chance, there is a long video where the devs do a playthrough and talk about the various tidbits of the game with stories, like how the first code was actually their office entry code.

The remake was good, also, although the outcome/delays were easy to see coming a mile away, the end result was decent. I prefer the OG though

No System Shock 1, no Deus Ex later either. It inspired a lot of games due to its gameplay.

See the wall of text above.....>.>

No half life, no Steam. (Nor CS, Dota, or whatever accomplishment Valve made after that)

It's not about one game and what they did in that specific game, but the ripple effect happened in the whole industry after that game.

Unreal eventually become a powerful engine that is also important to game development. But I'd say Valve+Steam has way bigger influence to the game industry than Epic+Unreal.

Without unreal, indie dev still gonna use Unity. And AAA dev can use their own engine.

Without Steam, you won't see indie game boom era happening, ever.

As for doom, they are influencial one generation before half life, in 1993-1997 or something. but eventually they fade out, while Valve survived and dominated.

Each era had a sortof engine list, also.

Doom, Build, Quake, Quake II, Unreal up through the early 2000s. It seemed like a trend to try and make a game, hoping for engine adoption (Chasm was like this IIRC), but only a few really landed it.

Also, how could I forget No One Lives Forever

Are square even using their own engines anymore?

Oh and I so remember the "3D engine competition" in the 90s!

I would say the whole FPS genre is what pushed 3D technology forward in the 90s then it kinda peaked in Half life 2.

Havok physics engine was used half life 2 (and the physics made Half life 2 a classic), and it's still used in modern games today. Which is kind of mind blowing if you think about how a physics engine can last THAT long.

Even more mind blowing that Valve used this technology wayyyyyyy back.



Yup, PC was quite ahead of console in the 90s when it comes to FPS technology. FPS was borned and flourished on the PC so it was more advanced on the PC overall.

Mod is also a big part in FPS industry, which console don't get.

GoldenEye eye only got console and 007 IP bonus IMO.

B-tier!

Pc > console for shooters??? Ya dont say

Try aiming with an D-pad controller and no aim assist, and then do it with a mouse.

this was probably THE reason I never got in to fps, was always a console gamer first. incidentally also stuck with controller for FFXI the entire 20 years, if I had to play with kb only I would have never lasted.

SS: Perfect Dark
S: Halo
A: Goldeneye, Turok II
B: Medal of Honor: Rising Sun
C: Virtua Cop
D: Call of Duty
F: Virtual Hunter

SKill Issue

Says the Galka

shout outs to turok fans, again with the console bias :)

All games for years have had auto aim when using controller for years

I would argue the list is not “most influential” FPS, but instead “best” FPS. So it’s not about what it lead to but just how awesome the game was itself.

That said, I would still say Half-life is toward the top, same with Goldeneye and Unreal tournament (the original).

Side note: I recently found out that you can download UT from epic for free and works on W11.



MGS games are not FPS.

The conversation at the time was about 90-2000s fps games, not CoD era games. Goldeneye didnt have aim assist, but it did have a thumbstick.

I suppose not, but basically a shooter.

Anyway, real talk. Halo games:
S: Halo 2, Halo Infinite
A: Halo 1, Halo Reach, ODST (maybe S tier)
B: Halo 3
C: Halo 4
D: Halo 5

MGS is a shooter in the same way Thief was a shooter, shooting is in the game but it’s not the game, the game is stealth.

I wonder where Star Citizens FPS would sit on this list. The FPS mechanics there have come a long way. Even if it wasn't initially designed as an FPS game.

Ineligible for not existing. Released games only. Also it's a crap fps.

Easy to tell if a game is an fps. Is the camera first person? And is the gameplay shooting related? Then it's an fps.

Deus Ex is an action rpg but technically a fps game.

A slight highjack, but the new Painkiller looks awesome.

I would put Bloodborne at D tier because its FPS is capped at 30 and FS/Sony/WHOEVER WONT REMAKE IT!!!!!