The best free FPS games you can play right now

Splitgate advertises itself as “Halo meets Portal,” and that’s easily the best way to describe the game. This is a fast-paced, arena-based shooter where you and everyone else can create portals to flank, reposition, and zip around the map. That concept alone would make this game worth a look, but once you actually feel how good this game is to play, you’ll stick around for match after match. However, you do still need to be smart. Portals can only be placed on specific surfaces, so you can’t spam them anywhere to get yourself out of a bad situation. While most shooter experiences will live or die based on how fast you can nail a headshot, Splitgate evens the playing field a bit with the portal mechanic. Positioning is always a key factor in FPS games, but this new level of dimension and strategy that portals bring to the genre makes tactics even more important than quick reflexes. If you’re smart enough, you can get the drop on your enemy, mow them down, and escape back to safety when a direct engagement would’ve ended with you biting the dust. The weapons are satisfying, movement tight, aiming precise, and it all just feels so fair. Even when you get blindsided, you’ll be inspired to use portals in a new way on your next try.

It has been quite a few years since Respawn Entertainment launched the excellent Titanfall 2, a full-priced multiplayer shooter that mixed brilliant on-foot gunplay with hulking, walking tanks that delivered deadly firepower. Rather than create a full sequel, the studio instead developed the free-to-play Apex Legends, a battle royale game cut from the same cloth as Call of Duty: Warzone. The only difference is that you can play as one of 13 legends, each with its own unique abilities. Set on an enormous map littered with squads of two or three, Apex Legends feels like a battle royale game made for people who don’t typically enjoy the genre. There is still a circle that closes in on your position, but if you don’t like where you spawned, you can find a device that flings you back into the air. If you happen to get killed early on, your teammates still have a chance to recover your “banner” and revive you at a special medical station. These tweaks are placed on top of a gorgeous and varied map, and Respawn’s signature snappy weapon controls are back in full force. It isn’t Titanfall 3, but it’s still great. In fact, Apex Legends attracted more than 50 million players in its first month and is one of the best PS4 shooter games you’ll find.

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds first amassed a huge following on PC, and later on Xbox One and PlayStation 4. However, the free-to-play PUBG Mobile offers a great alternative version for anyone itching to get their battle royale fix on the go. The game uses a combination of virtual buttons and sticks to create a shooting experience much better than it has any right to be, and with optional motion controls, you can even fine-tune your shot to take out the most distant targets with a sniper rifle. As with its big siblings, PUBG Mobile supports duo and team-based matches, and built-in voice chat allows you to coordinate with your teammates before you approach a new area. You can actually play PUBG Mobile in either first-person or third-person perspectives, and you don’t even have to have a mobile device to get in on the action. Publisher Tencent developed its own emulation tool so you can play the game from your PC with a mouse and keyboard setup. It won’t have the same fidelity as the full PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, but it’s completely free to play and just as addicting. Tencent also recently extended the reach of its PUBG Lite release to almost anywhere other than North America. Initially restricted to Thailand, this free alternative to the original PC release also relaxes the more taxing system requirements, making it easier on older systems. If you had to settle for the mobile version because of an aging machine, PUBG Lite might be what you’re looking for. Likewise, there’s PUBG Mobile Lite if a 2014 handset is your only option.

If you’re looking for something fundamentally different from most other free FPS games out there, The Cycle: Frontier might be worth checking out. It’s a hardcore shooter developed and published by Rogue Planet Games. The Cycle: Frontier is a unique quest-based PvPvE multiplayer shooter. You drop into a match and aim to complete more quests than the other players before the planet, its alien inhabitants, or said other players kill you first. You can sabotage the efforts of other players by doing things like hijacking their automated tools while they’re away or working together by signaling a team-up or rescuing them from danger just to stab them in the back later on. The Cycle: Frontier is still very much in development. It only entered the F2P space proper in September 2019. It’s a brave move to shrug off the battle royale formula in favor of something totally different these days, but if you’re tired of fighting over chicken dinners and victory royales and a simple K/DA, The Cycle: Frontiers is worth a look. It’s going to need all the help it can get.

With planet-spanning battles and three diverse factions, Planetside 2 ups the ante on everyday first-person shooters. Everything the player does affects their faction’s success in battle, from killing enemies to buying vehicles and taking enemy control points, all of which take place on a massive scale featuring lean animation and exceptional skill trees. The diverse combat ensures no two matches are ever the same, placing players against one another in custom tank battles one minute, and urban firefights and aerial onslaughts the next. It all gives players the opportunity to unlock weapons, attachments, skills, and other components through the game’s intuitive leveling system. The core of Planetside 2 revolves around holding crucial territories and claiming key resources, with hundreds of players fighting it out over the course of multi-day and weeklong battles. Turning the tide takes teamwork — and sometimes being a cog in the machine isn’t so bad.

Battle royale games are a dime a dozen these days, but Tencent mixes up the formula in Ring of Elysium by providing another option for those not interested in mowing down other players: Escape. Set on a snowy mountain in the middle of a massive storm, you and up to three other players can survive certain death — either by the weather or other players — by boarding a rescue helicopter. To brave the storm, you can even snowboard or hang-glide to your destination, but you have to watch out for the dropping temperature that can send you to an early grave. Tencent is no stranger to battle royale games, as the company is responsible for publishing PUBG Mobile, and it shows in Ring of Elysium. Snappy, satisfying gunplay and a simple inventory system help keep you in the action and away from menus, and the game’s gorgeous buildings and environments are far different from the urban and forest-heavy places we’ve seen in similar battle royale games. As of now, it’s only available on PC.

Stop. Don’t skip this one. Slapping “Mobile” on the end of a popular FPS game doesn’t automatically make it bad. In fact, Call of Duty: Mobile is our top pick for a mobile shooter. And it isn’t even limited to mobile phones. Just like with PUBG Mobile, Tencent built Call of Duty: Mobile with support for its own purpose-build emulator, making it incredibly easy to play this game with a mouse and keyboard. But better still is the fact that Call of Duty: Mobile sticks to what made the shooter series take off in the first place: Fast, fluid action on a bunch of instantly recognizable and iconic maps. Plenty of CoD 4 maps return, with other titles represented, too, making it easy to jump right in no matter when you hopped on or fell off the yearly hype train. Certain playlists (like Zombies and Gun Game) are time-limited events, but you’ll always have access to staples like Team Deathmatch and Search & Destroy. Better yet, there’s even a Battle Royale mode, making it a fine choice for those who just can’t handle PUBG Mobile.