The game’s combat doesn’t stray too far from the improvements made in Bioshock 2, and it has occasionally been criticized for having combat encounters that are too “samey” when spread out over the course of a full game, but in its best moments it’s still a blast to wreak havoc by employing both vigors and guns simultaneously. Moving out of Rapture and into the clouds, into another part of the Bioshock multiverse, was ultimately the correct choice, broadening the scope of this universe in ways that fans could never have expected. Here you’ll find some of the most iconic games of all time alongside cult hits and forgotten favorites, and all together they chart the growth of not just one genre but the entire industry, for better or worse.Īfter a long and very public development period, Bioshock Infinite had a lot to live up to. They weighed games both on their level of craft and their significance within the medium, and came up with a list that succinctly summarizes the rise and refinement of the shooter genre. They focused exclusively on first-person games where shooting and other forms of combat were the primary form of interaction (so no Mirror’s Edge, Gone Home or Minecraft), and where the player could directly control the character’s movements (so no “rail shooters” like Time Crisis or shooting galleries like Duck Hunt).

The group included Javy Gwaltney, former Paste contributor and current Game Informer Associate Editor Patrick Lindsey and Reid McCarter, game critics and co-editors of the book Shooter: 15 Critical Essays About Games With Guns Paste contributor Suriel Vazquez Paste news editor Jim Vorel former Paste games intern Eric Van Allen and Paste games and comedy editor Garrett Martin.

Paste convened a small group of knowledgeable critics and FPS aficionados to wade through the genre’s history and come up with a list of the 50 best first-person shooters ever made. Beyond commercial success, the combination of a first-person perspective and the easy-to-understand interface of shooting things has provided a reliable framework for designers to challenge and entertain players while experimenting with storytelling, world-building and notions of player choice.

In the ‘90s the shooter exploded from weird shareware files we’d download from a local BBS into the biggest genre in the medium, and it still dominates the sales charts today. Whether you like the genre or not, it’s impossible to deny that some of the biggest and most groundbreaking games ever made have been first-person shooters.

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