Too many great games exist. If somebody spends every waking minute of their life playing video games, they might experience about 15% of the worthwhile projects released over the decades, and that’s an optimistic figure. Simply put, everyone misses out on a couple of masterpieces that fly under their radar or get buried in their endless backlog. Don’t let these brilliant FPS games be among them.
Especially on PC, first-person shooters are so plentiful that only a couple of titles per year manage to stick their heads out of the crowd to announce their presence. A couple of classics aside, older mid-tier titles quickly become forgotten, replaced by the latest hotness that will eventually suffer the same fate. As somebody with a soft spot for AA releases, I love revisiting forgotten gems from the late 2000s, and FPS games from that era have aged better than most other genres. Love a good shooter? Play these games.
I want to cover an assortment of reasons why a game might be overlooked nowadays. Mainly, they fall into three categories:
No One Lives Forever Games
The Curse Of Publisher Hell
Let’s get the most famous delisted FPS games out of the way immediately. Frankly, it genuinely feels criminal that The Operative: No One Lives Forever and its sequel, No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.’s Way, have now been delisted for longer than when they were available to buy. Stuck terminally in ownership limbo, this franchise supposedly belongs to multiple publishers, none of which seem capable of definitively proving their case.
Consequently, two of the greatest FPS titles of the 2000s are basically wiped out of existence except for some PS2 physical copies (the sequel never even got a console release). Even worse, this legal nonsense essentially retired Cate Archer, a character who seemed poised to stand alongside Lara Croft and Samus as one of gaming’s best female protagonists. Although somewhat dated by today’s standards, both games have not lost an ounce of charm, and they are still 100% worth playing.
Black
Absurdly Impressive For A PS2 And Xbox FPS Game
You needed to be there, man. When viewed through a 2026 lens, Black cannot be fully appreciated since its strongest selling points – incredible graphics and destructible environments – are not as impressive as they were in 2006. Even back then, Criterion’s game flew under the radar, a consequence of being exclusive to hardware on the verge of becoming obsolete. It also offered no multiplayer and a single-player campaign that lasted maybe 6 hours.
However, make no mistake about it, Black was and still is absolutely jaw-dropping when played on its intended hardware (or through other means… not that I know anything about that). Frankly, the Xbox and especially the PS2 should not be able to run this type of video game blockbuster, particularly one that lets players destroy the entire environment well before Battlefield adopted that concept. Non-stop action from start to finish, Black might not last for a long time, but it makes every single second feel like a set piece.
Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway
A WW2 Masterpiece
Over the last decade, we received one Brothers in Arms game: A pinball spin-off. That’s just depressing.
A couple of decent mobile titles aside, 2008’s Hell’s Highway is the last true entry in the series, and that might continue to be the case for a long time to come since we haven’t heard anything about a proper new game in the last 5 years. The three main games – Road to Hill 30, Earned in Blood, and Hell’s Highway – combine to create a legendary WW2 trilogy that can stand alongside Medal of Honor at its best.
You should play all three games, but Hell’s Highway is the most enjoyable in 2026, and its sim-style approach sets it apart from most modern shooters. Rather than Rambo, players step into the role of a squad leader who relies on authentic military tactics to survive; a run-and-gun approach will just get you killed. Touching upon themes of PTSD and survivor’s guilt, the story hits hard and features some of the best character writing of its era.
All Brothers in Arms main games are readily available on Steam, making them easy to pick up and play.
Singularity
The FPS Miracle
When a publisher delists a game, a reversal basically never happens. Well, apparently, miracles are real, as Singularity went to hell and came back again. Although garnering a positive reception, Singularity never quite became a cult classic on the same level as Bulletstorm or Syndicate, despite arguably being better than both of them. Seriously, Singularity only has 3000 English reviews on Steam. It came out in 2010.
Coming out at a time when FPS mechanics were already codified, the game controls incredibly well and still feels awesome to play. More importantly, its main gimmick, time manipulation, continues to set it apart from the crowd, especially when it comes to triple-A shooters. Using the TMD device, you can cause a Soviet soldier to age decades or freeze bullets in midair. Just a great concept executed well.
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This article originally appeared on GameRant and is republished here with permission.
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