For more than two decades, the best FPS games have been the driving force of the PC games industry. They’ve let us travel from the depths of Hell in Doom to the outer reaches of space in Titanfall 2. Others have taken us on a detour through the likes of Half-Life 2’s zombie-infested Ravenholm, while some have embraced futuristic cities.

Some of these FPS games are old, others are new, all are great. Wolfenstein 2’s amazing campaign; Rainbow Six Siege and its tight tactical multiplayer; Overwatch and its vast array of amazing heroes – no matter what sort of virtual gunplay you’re after, the following FPS games will satisfy your itchy trigger finger.

Without further ado, here is our take on the top ten FPS (first-person shooter) games for PC right now:

Unreal Tournament

Epic made a name for itself with Unreal – impressive in a time when shooters were dominated by id – but it was with 1999’s Unreal Tournament that Epic earned its grand moniker. Tournament had the same core concept of Quake Arena but offered an alternative for those looking for a few more frills.

Among the game’s exciting weapons is the BioRifle, which weaponizes toxic sludge. You can even charge it up and release a great bulb of the stuff, using it as a gelatinous landmine. Then there is Redeemer, a rocket launcher that flings a pilotable thermonuclear warhead at your enemies. You should also try the Ripper; which fires saw blades that bounce around corners. Each gun has separate strengths and alternate fire modes that need mastering in order for you to dominate in the arena.

Tournament’s maps – old and new – are filled with memorably mad architecture. There is nothing quite like leaping in low gravity between the three stratospheric towers in DM-Morpheus – particularly if you can gib someone in mid-air, spraying their gore through the sky.

Escape from Tarkov

There are countless FPS games that tout their realism, but none come close to the obsessive attention to detail paid by Escape from Tarkov’s dev team when it comes to guns, attachments, and ballistics modelling. Not only are there upwards of 60 guns in Escape from Tarkov, but each one can be modded up or stripped down to the point where they’re unrecognisable from their off-the-shelf counterparts. You can swap barrels, mounts, scopes, flashlights, foregrips, pistol grips, handguards, muzzle attachments, stocks, charging handles, magazines, receivers, gas blocks, and choose from several different types of round for each ammo type. No two weapons you find in-raid are ever the same.

This leads to plenty of malfunctions for new players and anyone who doesn’t know much about guns. However, after stacks of wasted roubles and an inventory packed full of useless attachments, you’ll soon start figuring out how to fit each attachment before finally forming an emotional bond with your custom build. That last part is especially important as in Escape from Tarkov, if you die in a raid and an enemy loots your body, you’ll lose everything you brought in with you, even your treasured assault rifle.

These brutal rules can make Escape from Tarkov incredibly intimidating for new players, but while it’s easy to lose your valuable gear, it’s just as easy to go into a raid with little more than a pistol and extract with some of the best armour and weapons in the game. Thanks to a player-driven economy, you can even loot a seemingly worthless object like a statue and trade it for a brand-new HK416.

EfT also stands out from other FPS and multiplayer games on this list as it mixes PvP and PvE so seamlessly. Every raid plays out on a massive map with players spawning around the edges and AI enemies spawning in at key points of interest, usually where good loot can be found. From the start of the match you have up to 40 minutes to kill, plunder, and make it to one of the designated extraction points. If you die, you’ll only get the gear you insured beforehand back, and only if it’s not been looted from your body first. So, how do you escape from Tarkov? Well, extraction points are always on the opposite side of the map where you spawned in, so making it through a raid without encountering an enemy is virtually unheard of.

Titanfall 2

EA and Respawn built on everything that Titanfall 1 got right and balanced this shooter sequel’s multiplayer so well it became one of the best PC games of all time, as soon as it was launched in 2016. There’s nothing quite like Titanfall 2’s juxtaposition of crunchy, industrial mech brawling and nimble pilot combat. As you’ll see in our Titanfall 2 campaign review, the solo portion of this FPS also serves as both an excellent intro to the game’s mechanics and a charming, self-contained narrative.

The campaign never tries to outdo the gameplay with epic set-pieces or blockbuster bombast. Instead, the raw mechanics serve up all the thrills: wall-running at a group of enemies and blowing them away with a few, unnervingly satisfying blasts of your shotgun feels exhilarating every time.

Respawn have not only added depth to single-player; a four-player co-op wave mode is an excellent companion to the competitive multiplayer that contains a wide variety of Titanfall 2 classes. Titanfall 2 is a bigger and better beast than before, and a breath of fresh air for the mech games genre as a whole.

Call of Duty: World War II

The weariness that series loyalists have for futuristic Call of Duty settings was all too plain when Infinite Warfare came flying in, exosuits and all. A change of direction was needed. Something more along the lines of Call of Duty 2, which was once the gold standard in blockbuster FPS games. And so, following in Battlefield 1’s freshly muddied footsteps, Call of Duty: WWII cements itself as one of the best FPS games on PC, and beyond a doubt one of the best World War II games.

The game is fast with near instantaneous kills and deaths. There’s also a zombies mode, and it’s still populated with potty-mouthed 12-year-olds whose parents should have definitely taken a closer look at the game’s age rating.

Thanks to the addition of COD WW2 War mode though, a slower, more methodical approach is now required. Unlike the pace and nimble movement demanded by Kill Confirmed and Uplink, War sees a team push forward to complete objectives, while the other attempts to foil them. On top of excellent PC performance, Call of Duty: WWII is one of the best FPS games on PC with tried and tested multiplayer and a story that evokes some of the finest moments of classic COD.

Overwatch

Compare it to Team Fortress 2 or to League of Legends if you like – Overwatch has enough in common with both to share some of their appeal, but different enough that it will take months for players to figure out its best character combinations.

Overwatch is about teamwork: little is made of who killed you or how many headshots you amassed. More important is how you managed to revive a vital sniper on the capture point as Mercy, or pushed the payload forwards with Reinhart’s shield, or otherwise managed to win a round using your eclectic mix bag of abilities.

While it was a little light on features at launch, regular Overwatch updates are coming all the time, with new Overwatch heroes being added, too. Overwatch League has also crystallised the game’s e-sports potential. Don’t worry if you’re not all about eight-hour practice sessions, though – half the charm is the pick-up-and-play appeal, which cements Overwatch as one of the best FPS games on PC.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Throwing yourself into the world of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive for the first time is like diving into a modern warfare meat grinder. You will face players who have been prowling versions of these maps for more than a decade. You will die to AWPers with tens of thousands of kills notched into their Scout. You will be punished by players who could recite CS: GO console commands in their sleep, sitting out the rest of the round while you rue your mistake.

Why, then, would you choose to play Counter-Strike: Global Offensive? Because working your way up to the top of the leaderboards is an achievement; a reward earned through patience, skill, and muscle memory. And it has some of the best level design in games. There’s a reason why, even today, you will find servers running ancient maps like Dust 2 day in, day out; in part, because regular CS: GO updates forever keep this shooter fresh.

But Global Offensive is a modern game and brings modern ways of playing. It is now partly funded through the sale of cosmetics and weapon skins, like Team Fortress 2. It includes automatic matchmaking, guiding you away from the dedicated servers that made the series what it is today. And there are ranks, giving the elitists a visible badge for their dedication, alongside medals for veterans.

Half-Life 2

So much more than an evolution of its superb predecessor, Half-Life 2 is frequently hailed as the best PC games of all time. Such accolades are not undeserved, either. The long-awaited sequel to Half-Life is hugely ambitious, benefiting from being developed by a much more confident Valve.

Everything is bigger than the 1998 original: the environments, the enemies, the story – it’s a blockbuster, but a smart one. There are decent AI companions; real characters who exist to do more than die comically; physics that transform the world into a seemingly real, tangible place.

Valve again works magic with its environments. Despite often being larger and more open than Half-Life’s, they are still crafted with the same care and attention to detail. And, importantly, they remain memorable, from the haunted streets of Ravenholm to the ominous Citadel, standing over City 17 like a steel and glass tyrant. Age may have worn away some of the sheen, but it remains a striking, compelling FPS game.

Rainbow Six Siege

Thanks to continued support from Ubisoft, Rainbow Six Siege is almost completely unrecognisable from the so-so shooter that emerged with a whimper rather than a bang in 2015. Now, with its burgeoning e-sports scene, a constant flow of Rainbow Six Siege operators, and some of the best multiplayer gameplay around, it has become one of the best shooting games on PC.

Every moment of Siege’s boxed-in battles is fraught with tension and danger, from the moment you start scouting an area with your drone – praying your enemies don’t spot it before you can find the hostage – to that final attempt to save the day by shooting down walls and smashing through the ceiling. Its asymmetrical multiplayer and tactical openness mean no round plays out the same way.

It is a psychological battle as much as it is a series of gunfights; a game about manipulation and control as you attempt to make your foes react in specific ways while you try to keep your own team working together. You never feel safe: an attack can come from anywhere, usually everywhere all at once. After all these years of feeling safe behind walls, Siege’s destructible environments force you to think on your feet and trust no wall.

Siege features a relatively high barrier to entry, but unsure players can jump into the fray cheaply with the Rainbow Six Siege Starter Edition. For those who take to Rainbow’s punishing gameplay, you can be assured Ubisoft Montreal’s shooter is here to stay with new seasons and content coming all the time.

Team Fortress 2

In this extra shooty, class-based affair, angry cartoon men capture briefcases, escort bombs, and stand on nodes. Team Fortress 2 is brilliant, and it’s still easily one of the best shooting games on PC. It has also evolved, with mountains of user-created content, maps, modes, and new Team Fortress 2 gadgets helping keep the shooter relevant.

The premise is as simple as ever: you pick a character from a cast of nine and take your place on a team. Modes include Capture the Flag, King of the Hill, and Payload – the latter seeing a team drive a bomb forward on a rail track, while their opponents desperately attempt to hold them back. It is a classic that has become the flagship mode of Overwatch, but it was refined to perfection here in Team Fortress 2 first.