The 10 Best Third-Person Shooter Games of All Time
Looking for titles that let you go pew pew? You’ve come to the right place. Also looking to feel emotionally connected to the character doing the pew pewing? You’re definitely in the right place. Despite the first-person shooter promise of total immersion, third-person shooters have a way of getting the player invested in their protagonists in a way that POV games struggle to do. Rather than a floating pair of hands, the player experiences a third-person protagonist as exactly that: a person. With the action of an FPS and the narrative drama of an RPG, these are the greatest third-person shooter games of all time.
Read Dead Redemption 2
A game that could also be titled Ultimate Comboy Simulator, Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of the most immersive gaming experiences of all time. You play as Arthur Morgan, a gold-hearted gunslinger attempting to help his morally dubious comrades escape the long arm of the law. It’s up to you to make 1899 your year for you and your gang: stealing horses, robbing trains, killing rival outfits, there are plenty of ways to skin a mountain lion and make a profit. Aside from being as narratively powerful as Western greats like Unforgiven and The Wild Bunch, Red Dead Redemption 2 features some seriously incredible gunplay. With the ability to slow time and quick-draw faster than the main character of Marty Robbins’ song “Big Iron,” you get to step into the spurs of the rootin’-est, tootin’-est, revolver-shootin’-est cowboy this side of the Mississippi.
Resident Evil 4
Resident Evil 4 is not only one of the greatest third-person shooters ever made, but an all-time great horror game to boot. You play as Leon S. Kennedy, a cop with a movie-star face and a quick trigger finger, sent into Spain’s backcountry to rescue the President’s daughter. Kidnapped by a cult infected with ancient parasites, the girl’s abductors are body-horror nightmares who can only be cured of their affliction with hot lead. Pistols, sub-machine guns, hand-cannon revolvers, Leon’s got options. Too bad his fanatical foes also have an arsenal: killer giants, sack-headed chainsaw swingers, and science experiments gone wrong. There’s never enough space to run, you never have enough ammo, and there’s always more enemies than you’re prepared to fight. In other words, Resident Evil 4 is an adrenaline-pumping thing of horror gaming beauty—the cultists infected with Las Plagas? “Beautiful” isn’t the first word I’d pick to describe them. Blowing up mutants with RPGS? Now that’s a gorgeous sight.
Spec Ops: The Line
In an era dominated by shooters where the American military was always the hero, Spec Ops: The Line dared to do something different. Inspired by Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the game follows U.S. Army Captain Martin Walker, whose team is sent into sandstorm-devastated Dubai to make contact with an American battalion gone rogue. Fighting against the half-crazed remnants of the unit he was assigned to save, Walker begins to question whether or not the military’s actions in the area were ever justified in the first place. While the shooting mechanics are solid, Spec Ops: The Line‘s narrative is what truly makes it great. Its hallucinatory and horrifying portrayal of combat makes the player question not only their own sanity, but the idea of war-as-entertainment games as a whole.
Dead Space
Built on the foundations of all-time great horror shooters like Resident Evil 4, Dead Space is one of the most nightmarish titles ever created. You play as Issac Clark, an engineer working on an interstellar mining ship that just harvested its most dangerous cargo to date. The ship has been infected by a body-stealing alien pathogen that reanimates human corpses into undead horrors. Like the engineer you are, it’s your job to fix the problem. The game forces you to rethink everything you know about third-person shooter mechanics. Headshots don’t matter; it’s the aliens’ razor-sharp limbs that you need to aim for. Real guns aren’t even effective against these things; your plasma-shooting engineering tools do a better job! Well, at least until your foes mutate into full-blown cosmic horrors, then you need to pursue other solutions.
Helldivers 2
Despite having only been on the market since 2024, Helldivers 2 has solidified its reputation as one of the greatest third-person shooters ever made. Borrowing from sci-fi military satire like Starship Troopers and Warhammer 40,000, the game puts you in the boots of a soldier of Super Earth: the totalitarian—I mean—”managed democracy” run world that our planet has become. Deployed to purge the stars of extraterrestrials in the name of freedom, elite soldiers called “Helldivers” drop into distant worlds with guns blazing. A co-op shooter where small squads fend off waves of enemies, Helldivers 2 is one of the most cinematic games ever created. Harrowing combat and jaw-dropping effects turn every battle into a big-budget Hollywood action movie, and players into Oscar-worthy voice actors. The best part? According to the lore, every battle is a canon event. That match where you saved your squad by crashing your drop pod into a giant charging bug-alien? That’s logged in the history books of Super Earth forever.
The Last of Us
The title that elevated the medium into Oscar-worthy art, The Last of Us is one of the greatest video games ever made, third-person shooter or otherwise. Unless you live under a rock, you’ve heard it—it was adapted into an HBO series that made Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey household names. Joel and Ellie’s surrogate father/daughter story is one of the most moving journeys in gaming history, and a perfect testament to the power of the third-person perspective. While most shooter games attempt to make you feel like you are the protagonist, The Last of Us continually reminds you of the opposite. This game and its equally devastating sequel force you to make deeply uncomfortable decisions because your character chooses to, not the other way around. Had the player been given the choice, perhaps Joel’s final confrontation with the Fireflies would have gone differently—maybe with fewer casualties? On second thought, probably not.
Mass Effect 2
Mass Effect lifted the curtain on the most staggering space opera in gaming history, and the sequel perfected the production. Rebuilt after death, Commander Shepard must reassemble the alien Avengers to take on the Milky Way’s latest extraterrestrial threat. Part third-person shooter, part RPG, Mass Effect 2 gives players a galaxy’s worth of gameplay choices. Telekinetically charge into battle with a sci-fi shotgun, sit back and snipe under optical camouflage, summon hi-tech drones to do your dirty work—combat options are endless. The romance options are equally myriad. Your ship is crewed by human and alien hotties alike, and you can pursue whatever your heart desires. Add “dating sim” to the ever-growing list of genres that describe this game, and it’s clear why Mass Effect 2 is a masterpiece.
Control
One of the few great cosmic horror games ever made, Control is a third-person shooter inspired by brutalist architecture and Lovecraftian myth. You play as Jesse Faden, the new Director of the Federal Bureau of Control—a government agency that responds to reality-destroying threats. Faced with a dangerous cosmic entity called The Hiss, Faden is tasked by The Board (a sentient black pyramid that sits in the Astral Plane) to eliminate the problem—and given the coolest gun in the universe to do so. The Service Weapon is a shape-changing sidearm that functions as a revolver, shotgun, sniper rifle, and more! Combine that with Faden’s telekinetic powers, and you’ve got a recipe for some of the most creative third-person shooter mechanics in history.
Gears of War
The ultimate couch co-op game, Gears of War is where best friendships were forged. The perfect excuse for a Mountain Dew-fueled all-nighter, Gears of War takes place on an Earth-like planet invaded by subterranean aliens. Marcus Fenix and Dominic “Dom” Santiago are two muscle-bound besties who are ready to test their friendship on the battlefield, fighting monsters in the service of the Coalition of Ordered Governments. A cover-based shooter that redefined modern TPS mechanics, Gears of War is equal parts tactically satisfying and adrenaline-pumping. With massive set pieces, larger-than-life battles, and alien foes that soak up bullets, Gears is a sci-fi military epic meant for the biggest of big screens—or whatever TV was hanging in your parents’ basement in 2006. Before online co-op became ubiquitous, this game was a sleepover essential.
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of The Patriots
While The Phantom Pain has slightly better shooting mechanics, Guns of the Patriots reigns supreme as the most sophisticated Metal Gear Solid title ever made. In the not distant future, shadowy billionaire cabals wage endless proxy wars using private militaries and AI-controlled guns—an eerie prediction for the future of real-life combat. Dispatched to a war zone to track down an old nemesis, Solid Snake intends to complete his mission as fast as his aging body will allow—which isn’t very. A stealth action game, Guns of the Patriots rewards players for going slow and avoiding combat entirely, only firing their arsenal when necessary. Despite its focus on espionage, the game isn’t without moments of action. Sniper duels in the snow, giant robot smackdowns, fisticuffs bouts between geriatric opponents—Guns of the Patriots contains gameplay multitudes.
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