Video games are all about taking us to amazing worlds that are nothing like our own. They give us the power to do things or fight enemies that we could never have dreamed of. The great thing about games is that there are so many different kinds, so there is always something for everyone.
One of the most popular types of games is the third-person shooter, and there are quite a few games in this genre that can be called all-time greats.
20 Best Third Person Shooters Games 2022
Shooting games are usually very popular, but there is a big difference between first-person and third-person games: the way you see the action. First-person shooters show the camera as if you were the character, and third person shooters show the camera floating slightly behind the character’s shoulder.
The third-person genre has been around for a long time, but it has changed a lot over time. These are the best games in the third-person category.
Even though it’s impossible to list every third-person shooter you need to play, we’re still going to try. We’ve added a few entries to this list of popular games that talk about must-play third-person shooters.
Destroy All Humans 2 Reprobed
Have you ever wanted to go through an alien invasion, but instead of fighting against them, you’d rather play as one? Destroy All Humans 2 Reprobed is a remake of the same original PS2 game and the first game in the series since 2008. The story of the Furon alien Crypto is the same in the remake.
In his quest to rule the world, Crypto has a small arsenal of nine weapons. Destroy All Humans 2 Reprobed has a lot of ways to hurt humans, from the standard disintegrator ray to the Free Love goggles, which are a little less violent.
Mafia
The first Mafia game came out in 2002 and showed what this series would be like. Mafia is about the rise and fall of Tommy Angelo, a taxi driver who became a mobster. It takes place in 1930. Even though it was often compared to Grand Theft Auto, Mafia became a successful series in the same style.
The story of the Mafia got a lot of praise, and at the time, it had one of the biggest cities to explore. The game play is similar to Grand Theft Auto and most other third-person shooters, but it is still considered one of the best games of 2002. Now that there’s a new version, there’s no reason not to try it.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves takes place two years after the first game in the series. Many people think it is the best of the series. Nathan Drake, Chloe Frazer, and Elena Fisher are still looking for the Cintamani Stone and Shambhala as the story goes on.
The gameplay follows the same formula as its predecessor with Drake being able to jump, climb, and hide behind cover in firefights. Shooting mechanics were drastically improved from the first game, as well as having a competitive and cooperative multiplayer mode.
In 2009, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was praised and won several Game of the Year awards. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is still thought to be one of the best PS3 games ever.
Alan Wake
Alan Wake, which was made by Remedy, is not your typical third-person shooter. Even though there are guns, Remedy’s 2010 classic is more of a psychological thriller, similar to the popular TV show X-Files. In the game, best-selling author Alan Wake is trying to figure out what happened to his wife. The twist is that the events of the game are eerily similar to what happened in his best-selling book.
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As you look around the small town of Bright Falls, Washington, you will meet different people who are being changed by an unknown darkness. Alan Wake has traditional gunplay with regular handguns and a special flashlight that can be used to kill darkness. In 2021, a remastered version of the game came out with new graphics and better controls to make the experience better.
Star Wars: Battlefront 2
Star Wars has been one of the biggest and most popular things in pop culture for more than 40 years. People have pretended to use lightsabers, use the Force, and talk backwards like Yoda. There have been many famous Star Wars video games for fans of all kinds of games, and Star Wars: Battlefront 2 is one of the best shooters. Battlefront 2 is the best shooting game in the Star Wars universe, even though it has been criticized for microtransactions and too much grinding.
Players can drop into one of fourteen different Star Wars settings and fight their way to victory and stronger characters. If you do well in battle, you can temporarily change your character into a special Star Wars fighter like Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader.
These characters have the power to change the course of a battle in a big way. Even though the game got a lot of bad press for some of its business choices, Star Wars Battlefront 2 has great gunplay and deserves to be among the best in this genre.
Dead Space
During the time of the PS3 and Xbox 360, there were a few big horror shooter games, like Dead Space. Dead Space is a mix of science fiction and horror that was made by Visceral Games and released by EA. It is one of the best third-person shooters.
Dead Space takes place in the far future, and it’s about an engineer named Isaac Clarke who fights a group of enemies called Necromorphs on the ship USG Ishimura. Clarke has to fight these undead enemies, but his main foes are a group of fanatics who follow the Unitology religion.
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They think that the Earth’s government has hidden an alien artefact called the Maker, and they want to use this artefact to start some kind of unification process. People think that Dead Space is one of the best games of all time because it has great gunplay and the right mix of science fiction and horror.
Rise Of the Tomb Raider
Rise of the Tomb Raider was the follow-up to the 2013 Tomb Raider game. It was about Lara Croft’s journey to find the city of Kitezh. Along the way, Croft fights against the military group Trinity, which is also trying to get the city’s ability to stay alive.
Rise of the Tomb Raider did a great job of taking Croft’s story to the next level and giving great game play at the same time. It was so popular that in 2018, Shadow of the Tomb Raider came out as a follow-up.
Many of Rise of the Tomb Raider’s features were already in the last game, but they were improved in different ways. In order to make the game feel more like a survival game, Crystal Dynamics added more to the hunting system and made it easier for Croft to level up his skills and abilities. Also, the number of quick-time events was cut, which made the world of Siberia feel more alive.
Tom Clancy’s The Division
Tom Clancy games are well known to people who like to play competitive shooters. Rainbow Six has been a mainstay of this community for what seems like forever, so when Ubisoft announced a live-service Tom Clancy experience, there was a lot of excitement.
A deadly virus has spread throughout snowy New York City, turning the streets into a war zone. The virus was called “Green Poison,” and it spread when money was handled. So, it was only natural that the virus would break out and spread quickly through the city on Black Friday, when everyone was out shopping.
Tom Clancy’s The Division is mostly a third-person shooter, but it also has some RPG elements. In The Division, the enemies you face are what many people would call “spongy.” They have bigger health bars and need a bit more firepower to kill. On the multiplayer side, The Division added more online modes like Survival, Resistance, and Skirmish, as well as raids and harder missions in places called Dark Zones.
Control
If entertainment has taught us anything about governments, it’s that we can’t trust them. Control was made by Remedy Entertainment. It is about Jesse Faden, the new head of the Federal Bureau of Control.
This secretive US agency studies strange things, but in doing so, it released a dangerous enemy from another world called the Hiss. Faden must get new skills from Objects of Power to beat the Hiss and stop the end of the world.
Faden has a special pistol that can be changed and used in different ways as the game goes on. For example, Faden’s weapon in her Charge form works like a rocket launcher that does explosive damage. In her Pierce form, it looks like a sniper rifle. Objects of Power give Faden psychic abilities that let her lift and throw things at her enemies. This is in addition to the unique way she uses guns.
Returnal
Returnal is one of the few games that is only available on the next-generation consoles. It is a third-person roguelike that follows the astronaut Selene Vassos as she searches for a mysterious signal on the planet Atropos. Vassos is not only exploring an unknown alien world, but she is also stuck in a time loop. Every time she dies, she comes back to life at a certain point to start over.
Returnal has two main parts, and you have to finish three biomes in each one. If Vassos dies before finishing a full half, she will start over at the beginning and have to fight through the biomes again. Vassos has a lot of weapons at her disposal, from a simple pistol to the Electropylon Driver, which is thought to be the most dangerous weapon in the game.
Red Dead Redemption 2
Red Dead Redemption 2 is perfect for anyone who wants to play a Western game. This game is a prequel to the story of Red Dead Redemption, even though it is the sequel to Red Dead Redemption. The player controls the outlaw, Arthur Morgan.
The main goal of Red Dead Redemption 2 is to finish the required story missions, but the game is also a kind of Western sandbox where you can really lose yourself. You can ride your horse through the wide-open wilderness, fish by a calm lake, or hunt legendary beasts.
Like Grand Theft Auto, the shooting mechanics in Red Dead Redemption 2 might not be for everyone, but the game’s realistic setting and gameplay make it stand out. Rockstar puts a lot of time and effort into making a truly authentic Western experience that can’t be beaten.
Sunset Overdrive
Sunset Overdrive was one of Microsoft’s first big exclusive games for the Xbox One. It was made by the amazing Insomniac Games. In Sunset Overdrive, which was set in a post-apocalyptic world, you had to stop the new mutants from taking over Sunset City.
When people in the city drank FizzCo’s energy drink, they changed into horrible mutants. You play as a former employee of FizzCo and fight against a group of mutants and bureaucrats from the company.
Sunset Overdrive got a lot of praise for its crazy, funny story and interesting gameplay. Sunset Overdrive has a lot of different weapons and a fun way to move around the city. You can grind on rails or bounce off of things as you move through the city. Sunset Overdrive ended on a cliffhanger, but since it came out in 2014, no follow-up has been announced.
Hitman World of Assassination Trilogy
Since 2000, IO Interactive has been making the Hitman series, which is one of the most well-known shooter series. The World of Assassination trilogy, which started in 2016, gave the series a boost in popularity. The first game of the trilogy was, surprisingly, episodic, though the following two were fully launched titles.
Hitman’s main goal is, not surprisingly, to kill the targets that Agent 47 has been given. You can kill your target in a number of ways, whether you use a gun or something you find in the environment.
There aren’t many rules when it comes to killing the targets, only to be as silent and undetectable as possible. After you finish each game in the trilogy, you do have the option to continue your personal playthrough by carrying your progress over to the next game.
The Last of Us Part 2
The Last of Us by Naughty Dog was a roller coaster of emotions that left people speechless about what happened to Ellie and Joel. The story of the game was a masterpiece, but the game itself wasn’t as good as it could have been. The amazing story continued in Naughty Dog’s sequel, but the game’s mechanics were greatly improved to make it a truly unforgettable experience.
In The Last of Us Part 2, aiming and shooting got a lot better, and the upgrade system got more complicated. Naughty Dog made the cover system better and added more types of enemies for Ellie and Abby to fight.
A lot of the systems in The Last of Us Part 2 are just improved versions of ones that were in the first game. For example, stealth combat is one of these systems. The key to your success and survival is to strike from the shadows and make as little noise as possible.
Fortnite
Fortnite should be talked about when talking about games that have changed the history of the industry. The battle royale game from Epic Games took a niche type of multiplayer game to a whole new level.
Other traditional multiplayer games, like Call of Duty, had to change their multiplayer strategies because of Fortnite’s multiplayer mode. It also made it possible for other battle royale games, like Apex Legends, to come out.
Even though Fortnite has cartoony graphics that might turn off some players, it has great gameplay. It had a lot of different weapons, good shooting mechanics that included bullet drop, and a building mechanic that had never been seen in a shooter before. Fortnite kept getting more and more popular as online streaming grew and more and more pop culture references were added.
Mass Effect 2
Mass Effect, a space adventure game by Bioware, got a lot of praise and rave reviews. Its stories were out of this world (no pun intended), and its characters became famous right away. But it wasn’t a total success because the fighting and moving around were bad. Mass Effect 2 is one of the best third-person shooters ever made because BioWare listened to all of the feedback and made the necessary changes.
The designer made it easier to aim and shoot, and he changed the game from having unlimited ammo with an overheat feature to having regular bullets and magazine clips. Just adjusting to the normal rate of ammo use was enough to make the game’s combat feel right.
BioWare also fixed the cover system. In the first game, Commander Shepard would often get stuck in corners that he couldn’t see. Some people think that Mass Effect 2 is the best game in the trilogy and their favourite game of all time. One big reason for this is that the way you fight has changed.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
Ratchet and Clank were made by Insomniac Games, which is arguably one of the best game companies out there. They are two brave, amazing characters who have stood the test of time. Since 2002, this odd pair of a Lombax and a robot has saved the universe from many bad guys, including Dr. Nefarious, many times.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is the latest game in the series, and some people think it’s the first true next-gen game on the PlayStation 5.
Rift Apart had a lot of different explosive weapons, so you could get rid of enemy forces in any way you wanted. The options are almost endless, from simple electrocution to water sprinklers that make plants grow too fast. Aside from the large number of weapons, Rift Apart also gives Ratchet and Rivet the Tether, which lets them travel through holes in reality.
Resident Evil 4
Depending on how you feel about scary things, you might not notice this game. Resident Evil is one of the most famous video game series, and the fourth game is often thought to be the best one. Special agent Leon S. Kennedy must find and save the president’s daughter from a cult in Europe. The game first came out on the GameCube in 2005.
Resident Evil 4 was a big change for the series because it had more action and gunplay than the games that came before it, which were more focused on survival. Capcom also gave enemies different responses based on where you shot them.
For example, if you shot an enemy in the foot, it would lose its balance and fall. Capcom also added areas where you can interact with the environment to get to other areas or get away from the villagers. As the third-person shooter genre grew, these mechanics influenced a lot of other games in the same style.
Grand Theft Auto V
Grand Theft Auto 5 came out on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series, and it seems like just yesterday. PC too? Grand Theft Auto 5 is one of the most popular games of all time, and it is the best third-person shooter ever made.
Even though not everyone will like the way Rockstar handles shooting (there is an auto-aim feature to help), the Grand Theft Auto series as a whole has pushed the limits of third-person shooters and helped the genre grow in many ways.
Grand Theft Auto 5 has been the best game since it came out in 2013. This is because of the story, the variety of weapons, and the fact that you can do almost anything you want. Because Los Santos is so big, Rockstar added new types of vehicles, like an aeroplane, to make getting around the city faster.
Each of the three characters, Michael De Santa, Trevor Philips, and Franklin Clinton, has its own special skills that make the game more fun. Grand Theft Auto, which is also a sandbox game, has had a big impact on the gaming industry as a whole and on third-person shooters in particular.
Gears Of War
Many fans would choose Gears of War as the best game from the Xbox 360 generation to show off the console. Gears of War was inspired by parts of the game Resident Evil 4. It follows Marcus Fenix and the Coalition of Ordered Governments as they try to save humanity from the Locust.
Since the first game came out in 2006, there have been a total of five main games and three spin-offs. Gears of War was groundbreaking because it was the first game to have a top-tier cover system that let you shoot from cover even though you couldn’t see.
The first Gears of War game put a lot of emphasis on horror and was heavily influenced by the Resident Evil series. As the series went on, it became more about action in general, even though fighting an alien horde is scary enough on its own.
In Gears of War, there isn’t a standard health bar. Instead, as you take more damage, the skull logo gets more bloody. The Lancer, which has both a machine gun and a chainsaw, is one of the most powerful weapons ever made for video games.