Tactical shooters: about the games
Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 is an open-world tactical third-person shooter in which players help rebuild Washington, D.C. after a devastating pandemic. Firefights take place from cover, where positioning and gadgets decide the outcome, and players build their own agent by looting and crafting gear and choosing skills and Specializations such as the long-range marksman or the demolition expert. Co-op missions with up to three other agents take place while the city reacts to changing weather and faction fights over map control. After reaching max level, players can take on high-stakes endgame missions, intense PvP battles and dynamic world events.
Call of Duty®: Black Ops 7 is an action game from Treyarch and Raven Software that, in 2035, drops players into a world ravaged by violent conflict and psychological warfare. David Mason leads an elite team on a covert mission to the sprawling city of Avalon, where they uncover a plot that pulls them into their own haunting pasts. The co-op campaign can be played solo or with a squad, while multiplayer offers 16 6v6 maps and two 20v20 maps, with movement handled by the Omnimovement system. The Round-Based Zombies mode takes place inside the Dark Aether, a vast, ever-shifting hellscape.
Hell Let Loose: Vietnam places players in the Vietnam War, where 50-vs-50 battles pit the North Vietnamese Army against the US Armed Forces. Players choose one of 17 specialised roles within a team made up of several squads, cooperating to reach objectives, building tunnels, flying helicopters and driving patrol boats. The battlefield consists of six large maps inspired by real locations, including mountain gorges and dense jungle. The Warfare and Offensive modes alternate with other new modes that change the gameplay parameters.
Ghost Recon Breakpoint is a tactical third-person shooter set in a vast open world. Players must survive and fight a rogue spec ops faction, either alone or in co-op, relying on stealth, strategy and high-tech gear. You pilot drones, attack and infiltrate enemy bases, and move across the island's varied terrain. You build your Ghost from scratch, loot, craft and customize equipment, and keep the same character across the campaign, PvP and endgame content.
Hell Let Loose is a hardcore first-person shooter set in World War Two, where 50 players per side clash on battlefields with infantry, tanks and artillery. Players pick one of 14 roles across the Command, Infantry, Recon and Armour unit types, and the squad-based fighting depends on teamwork under the guidance of Officers and their Commander. Maps are built from aerial and satellite imagery of real locations, the front line shifts dynamically, and a resource-based meta-game lets players call in support, reinforcements and new vehicles.
WARDOGS is a tactical FPS about all-out warfare in which up to one hundred players split into three teams fight over a control zone. It mixes tactical gunplay and vehicles with building and destruction on a destructible battlefield set in derelict industrial mountains of Eastern Europe. The team holding the most players inside the zone scores points, and the first side to reach one hundred wins. Every teamplay act – reviving squadmates, ferrying friendlies to the objective or holding it – pays out cash for gear and vehicles, and that money carries over between matches.
Arma 3 is a massive military sandbox on PC that sends players to war across open worlds, where realistic ballistics, manoeuvring and teamwork keep you alive. It offers over 80 weapons with customizable short- and long-range attachments and more than 40 modelled vehicles, from tanks to helicopters and jets. Alongside combined arms operations, it brings single-player and co-op campaigns: East Wind on the islands of Altis and Stratis, Apex Protocol in the jungles of Tanoa and First Contact, plus scenarios, challenges and multiplayer modes Combat Patrol, Escape, Warlords and Zeus with a Game Master.
Insurgency: Sandstorm is a tactical FPS where close-quarters firefights, limited ammunition and instant death define the action. Players advance through war-torn city streets, complete objectives and rely on cover, artillery strikes and light attack vehicles. There is no crosshair, the HUD is minimal and damage is realistic, so squad coordination is essential. Players choose specialized classes and call in support strikes with a spotter. Modes include PvP battles of up to 14v14 and co-op missions against AI opponents.
Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts 2 is a shooter set in modern warfare. You take on the role of Raven, a contract sniper assassin, and in a single-player campaign you carry out a series of contracts and eliminate selected targets in a lawless region along the Lebanese and Syrian borders, with shots there exceeding 1000m. Each contract can be completed in several ways, and the money you earn goes into improved gadgets and weaponry. The game also includes the Butcher’s Banquet expansion with the new expansive region The Temple, where you must take out Mahmoud Zarza, known as ‘The Butcher’, and his associates.
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands is a tactical third-person shooter in which the player leads an elite team of Ghosts. In the near future Bolivia has fallen into the hands of a merciless drug cartel, Santa Blanca, and the task is to destroy it and save the country and its people. The player coordinates raids, pilots drones and helicopters, and crosses a vast open world in over sixty vehicles on land, in the air and at sea. A Ghost is created from scratch and gear is assembled from thousands of combinations, and up to three friends can play together or face class-based 4v4 tactical matches in Ghost War.
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six® Extraction is a tactical, co-op PvE first-person shooter in which you and your squad confront an evolving alien threat called the Archæans. Each foray into the alien containment zone plays out differently thanks to dynamic variables and unpredictable, deadly challenges, so you must plan ahead, work with your teammates and coordinate your tactics to survive. You can play alone or with up to two others, across 13 mission types and 12 large dynamic maps, with 20 operators and over 25 REACT gadgets. Four adjustable difficulty levels are available, along with a thrilling ranked mode for the endgame.
PAYDAY 3 is a one-to-four-player co-op FPS built around the fantasy of the ultimate heist, set in the most iconic city in the world, New York. The action runs from the financial fortresses of Wall Street to Manhattan penthouses and the streets in between. Players create their own heister with a custom look, loadout and skills and join the world's most recognisable crew, getting out with the prize either without a trace or through a hail of bullets. Once the alarm sounds, cops, SWAT and special units move in, and the crew has to fight its way out with the loot, where coordination and keeping your nerve under pressure decide the outcome.