Feels like most shooter games these days are super fast paced, COD style games with 0.5 second reload times and Olympic sprinter running speeds. What are some games that have weightier gameplay mechanics and don’t make you feel like a superhuman?
You might love and hate my answer: Titanfall 2
It’s literally both of these things. Pilots play the extremely fast, twitch-shooting superhuman game while Titans play the slow-paced boots-on-the-ground heavy-weighted gameplay.
It’s the best multiplayer shooter of all time and it survives thanks to the Northstar launcher on PC
ARMA series
Hell Let Loose
It’s a larger-scale online FPS (50v50 maps) and a single bullet will kill you even up to great distances. There is no rushing in; that will just get you killed. You need to work as a team and advance with a plan to really get a win.
“Ready or Not” seems not to be recommended yet. It is basically a SWAT simulator you can play single player or together with 4 people.
You can choose your loadout freely to complete the missions. I recommend going blind into the missions on a first playthrough as some have some unexpected surprises …
https://store.steampowered.com/app/393380/Squad/
This is my favourite shooter, based on the Battlefield 2 mod Project Reality. Everything feels, looks, and sounds realistic. Matches take several hours and have a lot of coordination between specialised squads. The maps are huge and detailed. I’ve played rounds where I only fire a couple bullets and like PUBG it’s so much more thrilling than an arcade shooter with nonstop action.
Escape from Tarkov has a PVE mode now, so you dont gotta deal with the sweaties of PVP. Any of the tactical looter shooters have a slow vibe. Tarkov was intense and difficult for a long time, but my bestie was my Sherpa, so to speak, and we go into maps together and I can handle myself now. It has a hideout building aspect, so your loot goes towards something. There’s quests from the trade vendors, that all builds a lore to the game that has a lot of secrecy. I dunno a lot of it, but it’s fun to figure out. It also has weapon building, where all the weapons are able to be taken apart and sold for parts or pieced together with the parts you want. The ammo has stats on what can penetrate armor, and the armor has a plate system so you can buy or find better plates for it. There’s a durability aspect too, and weapons can jam and need to be evaluated and then clearing the malfunction. There’s bosses, too. And different factions to deal with. Many are ill equiped, and some are decked out in gear with big weapons. Your character can die with one shot if there’s no armor there. Or you can tank a bunch of shots if you’re kitted out. There’s even a flea market that’s player based. So the prices can make your character rich, if you play the market or sell stuff. Like, selling a chocolate bar can net you 100k, because they’re fast food during in-raid. Oh, and there’s a whole water + food system. So you have to find food and water to keep that going. You have to use the right meds for the right situation; splits for fractures, bandages for light bleeds, tournequits for heavy bleeds, pain killers, injector pens for status effects and medkits to heal, after you deal with all those situations. Some medkits even cover a lot of the various things, some inject pens cover various things too.
It’s pretty in-depth.
The game is based in Russia though. Your character is without a faction, despite picking one “USEC” OR “BEAR.” But that’s just how you got into the city; USEC was the corporations mercenary group, BEARs were the military. And it takes place after the fighting, your character sorta got out of the faction. Unless you do a scavenger (scav) run, everyone is unfriendly. Scavs all stick together except the boss and their goons might pop you.
It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with real politics, far as I’ve seen? But the lore deals with the corporate greed, military powers, and regular scavenger people all kinda vying for survival in a war torn city of Tarkov. It’s a weird lore, but interesting for a game and intense gunfights of fire, move, cover, fire, move, cover. Be wary of a clicking grenade and run.
Hunt Showdown, it’s literally a slow shooter - old, single shot weapons and similar.
Have a few thousand hours between me and my friends, its decent but someone high up in Crytek seems to be pushing for “popularization” - it’s not as fun and slow-ish as it used to be.
There is a different game coming up with possibly slow game play too, HUNGER, not much known yet though.
Yeah, Hunt Showdown was peak multiplayer for my friends and I about 2 years ago, but it’s continually gone in a direction that has erased its identity. It used to be about map knowledge and patiently waiting for opportunities to punish opponent’s mistakes. Now they’re trying to make everything more fast paced. On one hand, I get it, because it was never going to break out of its core audience of veteran players. On the other hand, that core audience was what was keeping the game alive.
Ah yes, the ol’ ‘ostracize the core fanbase to gain a more ephemeral one’ strategy. A popular choice these days, unfortunately.
Yeah, I put dozens of hours into Hunt with some friends. We would only be able to play every few months. So every time we logged in, they had made new mechanic changes, some of which made the game less of what we liked. I always appreciated that there were no respawns. If you killed someone, they were out, period. If I die, then i wasn’t careful enough.
And then one day we come back to play, and kill someone, only to have them pop back to life behind us. I felt like the gameplay I enjoyed had been betrayed.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R Gamma. Completely free if you don’t count the disk space and one of the funnest, and most difficult games I have played.
Running around like most other FPS games will just get you killed. The AI is written in such a way that it correctly understands actual flanking, and when it peeks a corner, it does it exactly the same way a real player would - it’s actually scary.
I snuck into some occupied buidlings and killed every enemy except one. I was in a barn which had a front entrance and a hole blown in the back wall. I knew that the last enemy was out the front, across the road, inside the window of a building there, so I went out the hole in the back of the building and around the side, intending to go behind a fence and then behind their building to get them. When I got to a place I should have been able to see them, they weren’t there. I turned around and they were behind me along the fence - I nearly shit my pants. When I had the idea to go around back, the AI apparently had the idea to run out the front of their building into the front entrance of mine, and take me from behind by complete surprise - essentially the same exact tactic I had thought of.
It was then I realized how great the AI actually was and now every time I play I live in complete fear.
SUPERHOT moves at your pace. Though it definitely does make you feel superhuman, just in a different way.
SUPER. HOT.
SUPER. HOT.
too bad its a very short game.
I hear this every time I scroll past it in my library. I finished it about 4 hours after my bedtime one night and the ending felt uncomfortable
Oh man, you think that was uncomfortable, try playing the VR version.
It makes you virtually kill yourself at least twice and implies mind control of the player.
Shit’s wild.
the entire game feels uncomfortable. masterpiece.
SUPERHOT is the most innovative shooter I’ve played in years!
But I’m not a rapper.
yes but it’s
SUPER
HOT
I’m surprised to not see the Sniper Elite games recommended here, if we’re talking single player. They’re definitely a bit formulaic by now, and story/dialogue is not worth paying attention to, but they’re slow, methodical, and a lot of fun!
There’s a bit of a Hitman vibe to the later ones, approaching objectives almost however you’d like, and they can absolutely get hectic if you find yourself in a compromising position.
I’d throw Sniper: Ghost Warrior in there too. (Different studio, similar generic title :P) They’re a bit like the Elite games but in first-person, and set in modern day/near future.
The spinoff games Sniper: Ghost Warrior: Contracts 1 and 2 are a bit more hitman style as well. (I got more into the Contracts games personally, as the story from the main series was kinda wack.) They’re shorter games overall but levels can get bloody difficult when your plans go inevitably wrong.
Oh I remember the original Sniper Ghost Warrior!! Fun game but I found it felt a little cack-handed, in my experience - altho it is plenty old now. What do the Contracts games feel like? I assume they’re much more modern?
Oh yeah, the Contracts games have decent game feel. Definitely not jank. They’ve been on CryEngine since Ghost Warrior 2, so they are modern enough I guess.
Are you explicitly looking for competitive multiplayer games? Single player shooters like Prey, or the BioShock games, might be able to fulfill what you’re looking for. I like Helldivers 2, as well. It’s not slow per se, but your fighting AI and not people so insane reflexes are far from important. It’s coop but very worth your time.
If you can mind the obnoxious patriotic undertones, Hell Divers is actually my go to game rn. Partly hate it for the mentioned but overall, pretty decent game. I’m not a hard core gamer really (in general) but the game has grown on me and it’s PvE so it’s fun being able to play with others instead of being toxic.
I wouldn’t call them undertones and its entirely satirical, unlike COD.
Definitely get that. Making fun and all that. I just wish there was an off button. lol
I’d like to second what priapus said - Helldivers is actually making fun of the type of blind patriotism you find obnoxious. It’s heavily inspired by Starship Troopers which is also a comedy movie making fun of that type of obnoxious patriotism. It’s all very tongue in cheek, devs aren’y actually pushing the patriotism.
I’m with you guys… and I do see that. It’s just obnoxious to me, nonetheless. 🤷♂️
Interested in why you call them patriotic “undertones” lol. The patriotism is overt to the point that if you miss that it’s satire you may be missing out on half of the experience of the game
Not sure if this is what you’re looking for, but Hunt: Showdown is a pvpve experience set in a fictionalized horror-themed 1900s old west.
The guns have few shots and are very slow to reload. Often your best strategy is to move very slowly and deliberately, looking closely for any movement from other players, taking care not to make any errant noises. Every single sound you make, including right clicking to aim down sights, is audible to your opponent if they’re close enough. One good shot is enough to down someone.
The result is a unique experience that can hit both extremes: agonizingly slow build up of anticipation, or a fast paced chase through the woods to cut off an escape.
Receiver 2, my dude.
An awesomely weird firearm simulation/stealth game, with a storyline consisting of equal parts gun safety, mental health awareness, and cult reprogramming. Almost every function of the player weapon is a different key on the keyboard. Reloading a single magazine is like a 4-6 keystroke sequence. A suddenly jammed weapon is like being presented with a tiny puzzle to solve, while under fire from deadly turret drones. One shot from an enemy kills you. You can and will shoot yourself in the leg. There is fall damage. There is broken glass damage. You are not an action hero, you are a sentient range target. Every bullet matters.
Anyways, it’s very paced, tense as fuck, and a decent challenge. The voice acting and soundtrack are also lovely.
Hell Let Lose is a WW2 simulator game,
You can play it like cod and run around but all that gets you is killed by some guy who’s creeping a corner or whatever.
It’s best played slow and tactically following orders from your squad leader who gets orders from the match commander.
One or two bullets will kill you and half the time if you’re not being careful you won’t know what happened to you.
Then the slow pace is suddenly juxtaposed by a fierce fire fight defending your location while tanks shell you and artillery rains down.
I would also recommend Hell Let Loose. We recently had a game night with about 6 friends who all come from call of duty style, faster paced games. All of them mentioned how slow it felt and half of them were able to adjust to the new style and did pretty good. I would compare it to Battlefield but in a hardcore mode with less destructable environments.
Yeah that’s one thing I miss about the game, not having destructible environments. I understand why though the matches go for an hour and a half fighting back and forth there would be nothing left on the map
