There goes GI Joe, about to save the world all by himself with a pistol and a knife. Nothing can stop this mountain of muscle and bravado, but even this protagonist has a critical weakness: he is boring, full stop.
For decades now, first-person shooters have been guilty of crimes against good storytelling, putting players in control of a Mary Sue who is always able to save the world singlehandedly. Life, however, is not made of superheroes.
In honor of the average Joes who can hold their own with a gun but are far from infallible, this list packs the best first-person shooters where you don’t play a set character. It’s up to your skills as a player to leave your mark in history, with no plot armor or superpowers to help.
In order for a game to fit this list, you must play a non-named character and have either a story mode or a persistent progression system.
8
The Outer Worlds
Space Capitalism Simulator
The Outer Worlds puts you in the shoes of a nobody woken up by a strange scientist as your ship drifts aimlessly in space. In Obsidian’s masterclass of world-building, you bumble around in search of answers in a grotesque capitalistic hellscape. Relatable, isn’t it?
As a blank slate amnesiac character, it is your actions and choices that make who you play as in The Outer Worlds, and the game gives you plenty of opportunities to flesh that out.
Like many RPGs, the gunplay is not exactly stellar, but the characters and world more than make up for the game’s combat mechanics.
7
Escape From Tarkov
“Mercenary.” To the people left trapped in the city of Tarkov, that is all you are. Escape From Tarkov lets you pick between the BEAR and USEC mercenary groups when you first launch the game, but beyond the cosmetics and starting gear, none of that really matters since they have left you for dead.
Escape From Tarkov comes in both PvP and PvE flavors, and it gives you zero handholding as you try to make your way out of this hellhole. If you manage to stick with it, you get to enjoy some of the most satisfying shooter mechanics in the market, with unmatched gunplay and customization options.
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Your character here is essentially you and your morals, especially when pitted against other players. The game throws everyone into a desperate situation and lets you sort it out. Some people stay noble even in desperate times; others become bullies, preying on newbies trying to get quests done. All is fair in love, war, and Tarkov.
6
Fallout 76
Appalachian Blues
By giving Obsidian a shot at the Fallout franchise, Bethesda ensured it would never be able to match it with in-house single-player games. Going down the multiplayer route was a clever move, and one that resulted in a flawed but fantastic game with Fallout 76.
Other than emerging from the vault 25 years after the war, there is not much worth noting about your character initially, and that’s because you will be the one building them up from scratch.
To give credit where it’s due, previous Fallout games also offer a similar experience, but none of them give you as much freedom to carve a character as Fallout 76. Following a series of updates, you can even go down the ghoul path, with all the horrors and advantages that come with it. It’s all up to you, and that’s what makes it a great game.
5
Six Days in Fallujah
Join the Marines, See the World
In 2004, around 13,000 Coalition troops, spearheaded by the 1st and 7th Marine Regiments, stormed the Iraqi city of Fallujah. Six Days in Fallujah tries to replicate what that felt like on the ground.
In both the campaign and multiplayer modes, you play as just one of the thousands of Marines navigating the bloodiest urban battle in American military history since Vietnam. It is one of the most intense shooter experiences you can have, while still feeling grounded and realistic.
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The core gameplay element of Six Days in Fallujah is teamwork. If you and your four-man fireteam work together, you might just live long enough to survive the battle.
4
Gray Zone Warfare
Soldier of Fortune
A mysterious blast is the final nail in the coffin for the island of Lamang in Southeast Asia. The local military has morphed into thugs working for an absent autocrat, the United Nations abandoned the place, and all that’s left are marauders and mercenaries. You are one of the latter.
Three merc companies have interests in Lamang, and your character is one of the hundreds of other soldiers of fortune trying to make a buck out of what’s left of Lamang.
Gray Zone Warfare features one of the largest and most detailed maps in any multiplayer game, with plenty of room for you to develop your character as you try to survive and earn a living doing the dirty work for wealthy, mysterious figures.
3
DayZ
Land, Die, Repeat
If you woke up on the shore with nothing but your clothes in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, how long do you think you could survive? DayZ helps you answer that question by showing you, through a practical demonstration, that your survival skills are lacking.
Every time you die, you start as a new, nondescript character in post-apocalyptic Chernarus. You have to make do with whatever you find in the wild, and if (realistically, when) things go south, you start all over again.
This approach to hardcore survival has helped DayZ remain one of the most popular games out there, and that isn’t changing any time soon.
2
STALKER Anomaly
A Radioactive Routine
This full-conversion mod for the original STALKER trilogy runs as a standalone title, and allows you to do something the vanilla games never could: be a stalker in the Zone.
You get to pick between the various factions in the original game, complete with original storylines and full freedom to navigate the Zone as you please. Your actions affect your reputation, and the persistent world changes based on the events you witness or trigger yourself.
The main quests in STALKER Anomaly fall short of Shadow of Chernobyl, but it is the day-to-day life in the Zone that makes this one of the most gratifying experiences you’ll ever have.
1
Atomfall
Northener Mysteries
If it wasn’t for the whole nuclear disaster quarantine zone shenanigans, you could be fooled into believing Atomfall was just a slice of life game about living in Cumbria. Alas, the supercharged consequences of the Windscale disaster are hard to ignore here.
Developer Rebellion delivered one of the most gratifying examples of freedom in a videogame. The world of Atomfall is beautifully modelled and extremely faithful to the setting depicted, and you are let loose to explore it however you’d like.
In all of this, we never get to know the face, name, gender, age, or anything really about your character, and that’s because who you are doesn’t matter as you try to escape the hellscape that is northern England.
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