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GamingLinuxLinux Games

What are the best Linux FPS games?

14

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Considered

117

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Recs.

Mar 13, 2023

Last
Updated

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14 Games Considered

Best Linux FPS games	Price	Steam Rating	Platforms
-- Half-Life 2 (and episodes)	-	Overwhelmingly Positive	Linux
-- Insurgency	$14.99	-	Windows, Linux, Mac
-- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive	$14.99	Very Positive	-
-- Left 4 Dead 2	$19.99	Overwhelmingly Positive	-
-- Team Fortress 2	-	Very Positive	Win / Mac / Linux

Half-Life 2 (and episodes)

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Top Pro

Amazing character animation

When Half Life 2 came out it set the bar super high for character animation that still rivals some games today. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Overwhelmingly Positive

Top Pro

Guns are varied and interesting

Almost every gun is fun to shoot and is distinct. The crossbow is super awesome for it’s power and the gravity gun offers variety in puzzles and what you can shoot with. Want to hit someone with an explosive barrel? Pick it up and throw it with the gravity gun! See More

Top Pro

Great Sci-Fi story

Aliens, portals to other dimensions, oppressive regimes, oh my! This game brings a great flavor of dystopian sci-fi as you fight part of the rebel cause to deliver justice with your Gravity Gun to the many species afflicted by the evil Combine. Also Half Life ties in somehow with the Portal series which makes it even more awesome. See More

Top Pro

Commentaries

Hear from the creators about the making of Half Life 2 Ep1 and 2. Everything from level design to technical details are discussed. More developers need to use this. See More

Top Pro

Very moddable

Entire games have been made from Half Life (such as Counter Strike) and the tradition continues with it’s sequel! In fact there’s a game essentially about making your own things made from a modded Half Life 2 and that game is called Garry’s Mod. See More

Insurgency

Top Pro

Mature community means more people can experience enjoyable communications and interactions while online

Insurgency's player community is more mature and respectful than what is commonly expected in online shooters, making communicating both on forums and in the game more enjoyable. See More

Specs

Co-Op:8 Player Online / 8 PLayer LAN

Controller Support:Full

Top Pro

Easily play against friends, no matter the OS they use

The game works on Windows, macO and Linux, which means anyone can play the game against someone with one of these different operating systems. See More

Top Pro

Gameplay stays balanced thanks to no allowed class repetition on each team

The game doesn’t allow multiple people on the same team to have the same character class. This helps ensure the game remains balanced as no two players can have the same roll. See More

Top Pro

Easy VoIP support, as it is built in

Insurgency has Steam integration that allows for easy VoIP communication. See More

Top Pro

Slow and measured gunplay creates a more realistic atmosphere

In an effort to be more realistic, the gunplay is slow and measured. This makes for an immersive experience, both because of how real it feels and because of how different it is from other FPS games. See More

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

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Top Con

Can have a bad community

As it is a large game, it should come as no surprise that the community just won't be up to par. You may be kicked for strange reasons (like bottom scoring or the all too common random hacking accusation) and many could give you a 7 day ban. It can be very frustrating as missions in the mission system require you to play certain things while crossing your fingers. See More

Top Pro

Will be familiar to CS 1.6 and CS: Source players

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive builds on the strengths of its predecessors, even though those predecessors have been constantly improving for over a decade now. Nonetheless, Counter-Strike veterans will feel right at home in Global Offensive, albeit with some minor differences. The MP5 is now the MP7, The TMP has left its place to the MP9 and you can't attach a suppressor to the M4. See More

IntellectualBunjil's Experience

full of cheaters See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Top Con

Has a large skill gap

Since it's a pretty old game, most players are veterans at this point and have been playing for a long time. This may make it hard for newer players to jump in and play. See More

Top Pro

Carefully-executed changes to existing maps

The updates and improvements made to existing maps have been pretty clever and useful. For example, cracked glass is more opaque, making it harder to go on a sniping rampage. Or the stairway which was added to the bottom of de_dust made the route more viable for the Terrorists, while keeping the original purpose of that area serving as a bottleneck. See More

ClassyMeretseger's Experience

A lot of the community is pretty toxic, I have been kicked multiple times for being bad. See More

Top Con

Lots of cheaters, bad aiming system

Many cheaters with walling, motion hack, aim hack and so on. Aiming system is such that it's more easy to head shot someone at 100 meters than to kill someone at 2 meters. The spin trick is still there since first Counter Strike (shoot and move the mouse), that all snipers use, this ensures instant kill. Often bullets go through 50 cm walls, often used by no-life players (and there are many). Crash regularly on Linux. See More

Top Pro

Driven by tactics and cooperation

Each round of CS feels more like a game driven more by careful tactics than a frivolous fast-paced and lethal paintball arena of which too many modern First-Person Shooters are guilty of. Positioning, timing and thinking are key ingredients of a successful game and cooperation is crucial if you want to win. See More

Top Con

Hard to see if you are hitting someone

One of the things that were changed in CS:GO is firing feedback. When someone is shot in GO, they don't wince, there's only a small amount of blood and audio that conveys the information that you are actually hitting someone. But omitting wince animation from character models makes it harder to see if you are actually hitting another player, especially at distance. See More

Top Pro

Runs well on most hardware and even on older hardware

It's a very optimized game and runs smoothly on even outdated hardware. See More

Top Con

Less time spent playing a game

This is a feature that makes kills and hits (no health regeneration) more impactful, but also a lot less time is spent playing the game, especially if you die early to a sniper peek. Newbies will be playing a lot less of the game than more experienced players. See More

Top Con

New maps and modes feel pretty mediocre

Even though old maps have been revisited and improved by a wide margin, new maps and modes released with CS:GO are pretty mediocre. Half of the maps available are locked under Arms Race (which is a re-imagining of the original community-created GunGame) and Demolition (GunGame without insta-respawn and bomb defusal) modes. These game modes feel pretty safe and unimaginative, especially for veterans who have played their predecessor. Some of the new maps are pretty compact and designed to act as instant-action meat-grinders akin to modern FPS (like Call of Duty) instead of requiring any tactics to win. See More

Left 4 Dead 2

Top Pro

Invigorating team-work dynamic

Left 4 Dead 2 requires players on the same team to cooperate in order to survive. This makes for an interesting team dynamic, as it will be increasingly difficult to make it through a level if any one player on the team decides to go off on their own instead of staying with the group and cooperating. See More

Top Con

AI lacks craftiness

The AI has a tendency to make ridiculous choices that can screw up what players are doing. This can become a big problem when relying on AI teammates in order to get through a level. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Overwhelmingly Positive

Co-Op:1 Player Online / 100 Player Couch / 400 Player LAN

Top Pro

Unique and diverse co-op versus mode

Left 4 Dead 2 features a versus mode that pits two teams against one another. For the survivor team, it is basically the same game as the normal campaign. However, versus mode adds a new way for teammates on the opposing team to work together by playing as the infected, which opens up a whole new play style and set of strategies. See More

Top Con

Not much different from its predecessor

While the game has been improved from the original, if you did not have much fun with Left 4 Dead, you will probably not get much enjoyment out of the sequel. It is essentially the same game and some have complained that it just feels like a large DLC update. See More

Top Pro

Invigorating cooperation based survival dynamic

Left 4 Dead 2 requires players on the same team to cooperate to survive. This makes for an interesting dynamic for teammates, as it will be increasingly difficult to make it through a level if any one player decides to go off on their own. See More

Top Con

Very difficult without team engagement

For those looking for a casual co-op experience, Left 4 Dead 2 probably isn't for you. Without a good sense of teamwork and focus, this game can get very challenging. See More

Top Pro

Awesome game for singleplayer

One of the best co-op games for offline bot play. See More

Top Pro

Play as zombies or survivors

Experiencing both sides of the zombie apocalypse brings a fresh experience. See More

Top Pro

Local two-player and online four-player co-op

Left 4 Dead 2 supports two-player local co-op as well as four-player online co-op. See More

Top Pro

Melee weapons offer a more visceral gaming experience

Left 4 Dead 2 allows for the player's use of melee weapons. These create not only more graphic violence when playing (in comparison to that created when just using guns), but also a more personal and intimate experience. See More

Top Pro

Much improved from Left 4 Dead

If you loved the original Left 4 Dead, this game will be even more fun for you. Almost everything has been improved, such as the AI and multiple new additions to the game (like new enemies and weapons). See More

Team Fortress 2

Top Pro

Cross-platform

The game runs on Windows, OS X and Linux machines. See More

Top Con

Free accounts are slightly limited

Free accounts do not get rare and cosmetic items nor as many storage slots for items. Items are relevant as free accounts can only hold 50, while the game has much more than 50 pieces of equipment (that affect gameplay), let alone 50 weapons. While a premium account player can react to almost all situations with a counter item, with only 50 slots a newbie probably won't have or even be able to access it. A full inventory also means a free player will have to miss out or delete exclusive event items and cosmetics just to play the game as full as they can. A free account is upgraded when any item is purchased with real money from the store. See More

AuthenticVagitanus's Experience

I love it so much ☺ play this game See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Genre:Hero-based FPS

Co-Op:6 Player Online / 6 Player LAN

Controller Support:Partial

Top Pro

Multiple game modes allowing for great variation

TF2 has more than 10 game modes, plus variations on those, as well as community mods that offer a wide range of objective-based play. Classic game modes include Capture the Flag, Control Point, King of the Hill and Payload. There's also Mann vs. Machine, a co-operative game mode where you play against waves of AI controlled enemies. See More

Top Con

Random critical hits add a significant luck element to the game and push certain types of players out

In most 'public' servers, an option called 'random crits' (short for 'random critical hits') exists by default. This allows a random percentage of your shots to multiply damage by 3 for a shot, and also remove the damage drop-off over range. This 'feature' gets increasingly more annoying as you get more experienced, as you will die more often than your opponent having x3 or more damage over you, actively making their experiences and wins less meaningful. Some classes are especially burnt by this. Medics don't use weapons often, Snipers only have secondary weapons and melees, and Spies only have their revolver (and most sidegrades of that revolver remove this ability entirely). Quickplay (a feature most newbies use to get a match) also disables these servers from appearing in the list, so there are very few 'nocrit' servers because many don't know they exist. See More

Top Pro

Fun, humorous gameplay, graphics and sound

This game has a history of over-the-top characters, visuals, voice-overs, and various other items, which altogether create an amusing world both within the game and outside of it as well. See More

Top Pro

Includes Mann vs. Machine, a ridiculously fun co-op mode

Mann vs. Machine is a co-op mode in Team Fortress 2 that is comprised of gameplay where 6 players team up to stop AI robots from deploying a bomb. While not the central gameplay of the game it is a mode that allows for co-op play to be enjoyed with the characters in the game. Mann vs machine works quite well over LAN and is very fun to boot. See More

Top Pro

Free to play

Team Fortress 2 has been free to play since 2011. See More

Top Pro

Offline LAN support

As long as users last logged in to offline mode on Steam before trying a LAN connection, LAN will work. See More

Top Pro

Fair free to play model

This game is mostly pay-to-gain, as in to get more weapons. You can randomly get things, though. You can use the things you randomly get to be also used in crafting recipes to make other things. See More

Top Pro

Hectic FPS gameplay created by 9 distinct classes and lots of varied items

TF2 has 9 playable classes - Scout, Soldier, Pyro, Demoman, Heavy, Engineer, Medic, Sniper and Spy. This allows for a range of playstyles. For example, the Heavy, starting with 300 health (going up to 450), wielding a machine gun and usually assisted by a Medic, will be commonly found on the front-lines soaking up lots of damage and pulling the enemy team's focus; at the same time the Engineer will try and avoid direct battle as much as possible, providing infrastructure (teleports, sentry, dispensers). Add to this hundreds of weapons for each class providing different stats and you have an impressive amount of variety in gameplay. See More

Top Pro

Active, fun, creative community

The TF2 community is know for actively engaging in different TF2 related activities. They create shorts using the source filmmaker, sell items via the steam workshop, build real-life sculptures, etc. See More

Top Pro

Good VR support

To enable VR support, type -vr in console. TF2 has 8 modes in which to control the game. They can be changed with the command vr_moveaim_mode in console. They offer choice in what combination of aiming and steering should be coupled to the rift and mouse and introduce the concept of dead zones - an area of the screen that controls differently when aiming or steering within its bounds than outside them. Typing vr_calibration in console gives access to adjusting interpupillary distance (distance between eyes). You can get that information from an optician or use the calibration tool to help figure it out and set it there. Calibration will help set accurate render point (camera position) and reduce nausea. See More

Borderlands 2

Top Pro

Humorous writing in a game with a serious tone

Despite being an in-your-face action game with an generally serious plot, Borderlands 2 features an interesting yet slightly cliche sense of humor. This is even exaggerated in the side quests, which at times feature the funniest and most creative parts of the writing. This way the player can dive into the main plot and get an enjoyable action plot, while also being given the choice to go on side-quests that feature a break from the more serious overtones through an expanded sense of humor. Often the humor is meme based or low brow, which should appeal to a wide array of sense of humor. See More

Top Con

Tedious to check gun stats

You are hit with a ton of different weapons throughout the game that checking the stats on each can become tedious. This can be a pro to some but to others it can be an quite an annoyance. See More

Specs

Genre:Action RPG

Co-Op:4 Player Online / 4 Player LAN / 2 Player Couch

Top Pro

Tons of heavily customized and unique loot

Borderlands 2 makes it feel like Christmas every time you kill an enemy or open chests. Whether it's just ammo and health or a new mod, it makes killing enemies and finding chests much more satisfying than other loot based games through giving the player the potential for a good drop, which is always on the horizon. While many loot based games are based on this mechanic, the overall appeal of new loot is boosted by the randomized look and features of each weapon and mod. The guns (as well as other items) in Borderlands 2 have distinct visual features depending on their attributes. For example, a gun with a plus melee attack might have a blade on it. This is customization that goes beyond pallet swapping (where the same assets are used for different items that differentiate themselves through different colors) which makes you much more attached to the gun than a bunch of polygons should. Which adds to the appeal of discovering new items in the game. You will also find tons and tons of different types of guns. Six different types of guns exist in the game including pistols and sniper rifles. Each with eight different manufactures like Hyperion and Jacobs give an almost unlimited amount of guns you can find in the game. Being that the guns are randomized as they appear, it is difficult to find any two that are exactly alike. With the many different combinations available, you never know what attributes the next gun you will find will have. This also gives an individualistic experience to each player of the game as even if both went to the same areas, they will find wholly different items. See More

Top Con

Gameplay can become repetitive

Many battles can be cheesed by running away, taking cover, shooting, and repeating. The AI doesn't do much to pursue you which gives the player the advantage of using the same technique for most fights, which can become boring with time. See More

Top Pro

Allows for multiple playstyles

Borderlands 2 is all about options. With hundreds of weapon options and 4 classes, you can have multiple play-throughs that will play completely different each time. Along with each class, there are multiple skill trees meaning you can tweak your character to exactly how you want to play. Even if playing the same class on multiple playthroughs, you can equip completely different skills which will make the experience much different from the last. This all adds up to a game that can be bent to the wants of the player, something that is highly configurable which makes for a gaming experience that is difficult to beat in customizability. See More

Top Con

Limited visual customization of characters

As a game that is full of choices, it is somehow lacking in visual customization options. Borderlands 2 only features the ability to change your character's basic skins through different colored outfits. There is no way to customize the characters faces or body style. This can make for online games that often have the exact same looking characters, which can not only get confusing but does not allow for any sense of originality concerning each player's character. See More

Top Pro

Enjoyable co-op play that focuses on teamwork

The varying classes and play styles are designed to work together and promote co-op play. One player may be a tank, with large guns and long lasting armor, while another may have medic abilities with a long range sniper rifle. This makes for a scenario where each class compliments each other, which is a fun way to work as a team when playing co-op. See More

Top Con

Lost loot due to sharing

The unfortunate downside to all of the loot is that it is anyone's game. Loot isn't reserved for each individual player when playing co-op and can be taken by anyone. So that means the first person to get to the loot can basically take all of it. this can lead to contention between co-op players, which basically goes against the idea of cooperative play. See More

Top Pro

Works on different OS's: Linux/Mac/Win

Borderlands 2 is a co-op multiplayer game, so cross platform support means you can play with your friends no matter what OS they use. See More

Top Pro

Variety of co-op options

Borderlands 2 offers 4 player online co-op as well as 2 player split screen local co-op. There is even a way for two player local split-screen to play online with others. See More

Top Pro

Great comic book art style

Using solid black outlines and bright colors, this game looks great. It has memorable looks to it that makes it stand apart from other first person games. Very similar in style to comic books, the art is clean and bright taking advantage of a palette not often found in modern (brown and grey) shooters. See More

Metro 2033 Redux

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Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Bioshock Infinite

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PoisedMagec's Experience

I have played this - excellent story and gameplay. See More

Specs

Serious Sam 3: BFE

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Specs

Steam Rating:Mostly Positive

Natural Selection 2

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Top Con

Really long loading

10 minute loading times to join matches is way too long to wait. See More

Top Pro

Development is driven by community

From the very beginning NS2 has had a very passionate community - they've contributed maps, designs and even core features (such as the Spectator Mode). And since build 265, the game's development has been handed off completely to a 14-man community development team (with oversight from UWE). See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Top Con

Steep learning curve

The learning curve for Natural Selection 2 feels unapproachable at times. See More

Top Pro

Integrates RTS elements on top of a shooter

The game has two completely different factions - the humans and an alien race called Kharaa. One player in each team can become a Commander, who then issues orders, RTS-style. See More

Top Con

Buggy

Game still crashes randomly when shooting with a shotgun and the requirements under Linux are far more demanding than with the Windows counterpart. See More

Top Pro

Kharaa can evolve into 5, highly distinct classes

There are 5 different classes that the Kharaa can evolve into. See More

Top Pro

Developed to be heavily modifiable

By utilizing LUA files the game is highly moddable. See More

Top Pro

In-depth choice of equipment

There is a wide range of weapons for each side that allows for plenty of choice for the player. See More

Top Pro

Maps are beautiful

Top Pro

Dynamic environments

During play levels will change and react, making for dynamic levels and environments. See More

Top Pro

Teamwork is essential

To really advance and do well in the game teamwork is essential. See More

Day of Infamy

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Sanctum 2

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Co-Op:4 Player Online

Controller Support:Full

Shadow Warrior

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Urban Terror

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Specs

Genre:First person shooter

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