Best Early Access Shooters

Shooters, whether they are slow-moving first-person military sims, arcadey top-down experiences, or third-person cover shooters, rarely become early-access success stories. This might be due to specific requirements of the genre, like efficient servers for the multiplayer and fully realized basic mechanics, but it might also be due to the players’ expectations.

Roguelikes are pretty much expected to be a bit dysfunctional. Pure luck ruining a run is something that players must accept coming into the genre. Making an early access shooter (especially a competitive one, as most early access shooters seem to be) might be more akin to selling an incomplete, unbalanced, unoptimized fighting game, which is sure to brush some fans the wrong way. That said, some shooters manage to find success within the early access formula.

10 Force Reboot

Very Positive On Steam

• Platform(s): PC
• Released: 2022-08-25
• Developer: In404
• Genre(s): Roguelike, First-Person Shooter

Force Reboot is a movement shooter with roguelike elements. This game adds a nice twist to the usual movement shooter formula by functionally introducing a timer in the form of a constantly draining HP bar. The only way to recover health, of course, is to kill enemies. Kill all the enemies, and the door to the next room will open.

Force Reboot is also a roguelike: at the end of each floor, the player must choose one of a handful of enhancements, each coming with its drawbacks. And as it’s usual for the genre, death means going all the way back to the beginning.

9 Beyond Sunset

Very Positive On Steam

• Platform(s): PC
• Released: 2023-10-08
• Developer: Metacorp / Vaporware
• Genre(s): First-Person Shooter, RPG

Beyond Sunset is a first-person shooter with a classic look clearly inspired by Duke Nukem 3D. Doom seems to be another big inspiration, as the developers say the game grew from the modding community of the more modern GZDoom. The game itself seems to be based on GZDoom, too, though it’s hard to say for sure.

That said, Beyond Sunset has more than a few RPG influences, as demonstrated by its dialogue trees, upgradeable guns, and player enhancements. In keeping with tradition, the game is very mod-friendly, too. According to the developers, the game should be released sometime in 2024.

8 BattleBit Remastered

Very Positive On Steam

While not actually a remaster, BattleBit Remastered is the newest iteration of BattleBit, a modern war first-person shooter in the vein of the Battlefield series. With its 254-player battles and great optimizations, it has the potential to become someone’s favorite massive war FPS.

The hardest pill to swallow for some will be the graphics. True, the performance is incredible, considering how large those maps are and how many players are logged in at once, but somewhere in this exchange, the presentation took a hit. Still, the blocky graphics look way better in action than they do in pictures and videos.

7 Stop Dead

Positive On Steam

• Platform(s): PC
• Released: 2023-10-5
• Developer: Gridsnap Games
• Genre(s): First-Person Shooter

Stop Dead is a first-person shooter about telekinetic rebels fighting the AI uprising by parkouring really fast around the city skyline. This game mixes so many ideas that it’s surprising how rarely it loses sight of what’s fun. The closest thing to Stop Dead is Mirror’s Edge, even though it is more action-oriented and a lot more chaotic.

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Stop Dead currently has only 23 levels, but each of those has its own leaderboard. For a game built to be all about speed, this shouldn’t be surprising. The full game will have about 40 levels, forming a cohesive narrative, but fans seem to be already having plenty of fun with the currently available levels.

6 Rising Front

Very Positive On Steam

• Platform(s): PC
• Released: 2023-01-14
• Developer: SandStorm Studios
• Genre(s): First-Person Shooter

Rising Front is a battle simulator set during the Great War. If those words bring to mind images of somewhat realistic simulations like the recent Isonzo, too bad. Rising Front looks even more abstract and plasticky than the original version of Verdun, all while boosting ragdoll physics as a top feature.

Still, Rising Front can be plenty of fun with the right crew. And just like BattleBit Remastered, the low-fidelity graphics almost disappear when the game gets going. What makes Rising Front a success is the size of the battles, which can be populated with up to hundreds of (mostly AI-controlled) units per side.

5 SCP: 5K

Very Positive On Steam

SCP: 5K is a tactical shooter based on the SCP foundation, an internet-based collection of stories about an organization that captures, catalogs, and secures supernatural entities. As the name implies, SCP: 5K takes inspiration directly from SPC subject 5000, which is more of a written story than an entity.

But SCP: 5K includes other SCP like 173-B, a non-copyright infringing version of the well-known SCP-173. It also includes the knife-wielding crab SCP-098 and the hallucination-inducing SCP-7528. The game currently offers a couple of hours of content, which should increase significantly as the game comes close to a full release.

4 Starship Troopers: Extermination

Very Positive On Steam

Starship Troopers: Extermination is the latest recently released Starship Troopers video game, following the pretty good RTSStarship Troopers: Terran Command. Extermination is instead a first-person shooter supporting co-op mode with up to 16 players. It also introduces elements of base building and survival, nailing the feeling of the last few scenes of the movie.

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Starship Troopers: Extermination currently has three classes and five kinds of enemy aliens, a number that some in the community think is a bit low. Of course, the game will include more content once it comes out of early access. It remains to be seen if the game can remain updated and maintain a stable community.

3 Deadside

Mostly Positive On Steam

• Platform(s): PC
• Released: 2020-04-14
• Developer: Bad Pixel
• Genre(s): Survival, First-Person Shooter

Deadside is an open-world survival FPS, but its specialty isn’t what one might expect. Instead of wandering alone across the map until they find an encounter, players take part in quests mostly against NPC enemies. Deadside also has a strong multiplayer component, with an optional co-op experience and PvP against other players.

As with most games in the genre, Deadside includes some basic base building, which really comes into its own when taken together with the missions. Since everything takes place in a consistent world, building a base next to missions allows players to retry them more easily. And unlike other games, the player’s home can’t be raided unless under special conditions.

2 Crab Champions

Overwhelmingly Positive On Steam

Crab Champions is a third-person shooter with plenty of fancy movement options, roguelike elements, and an absurdist sense of humor. Players take control of a troublingly fast crab hell-bent on destroying any other crustaceous on the island.

Like most roguelikes, Crab Champions is played in runs that rarely last more than 45 minutes. During this time, players experience a progression similar to that of a looter shooter, if a lot faster. Of course, part of the joy of the game is finding new game items and creating extremely powerful builds. As the main game loop is already complete, early access will focus on developing additional content.

1 ULTRAKILL

Overwhelmingly Positive On Steam

Fans of ULTRAKILL often jokingly say the game is one of the best shooters ever made, and it still isn’t out yet. While it’s true the game isn’t finished, the game currently includes the Prologue, the first two Acts, and the beginning of Act 3. This amount of content easily justifies the current price of admission. Not only do those missions get long and difficult, at least for beginners, but most of them have achievements/optional objectives or secret levels.

According to the game’s Steam store page, the full version of ULTRAKILL will have a complete third act, more secret levels, new enemies, and bosses. It will also most likely add new guns and upgrades, too, since those are often unlocked by simply playing new levels.

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