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Free first-person shooters are games of the first person shooter genre available with no cost. Not many first-person shooter games offer a free version of their game, but there are a few.

--All games are listed alphabetically--

This list does NOT include Demos, Open Betas or MODs requiring another game to run; it is standalone full version games only

all links are to the official game websites

America's Army: Special Forces (link up) 2.6

America's Army (AA) is a tactical multiplayer first-person shooter owned by the U.S. government, financed through U.S. tax dollars and distributed free by the U.S. Army as a global public relations initiative to present a positive image of the current U.S. Army and help with U.S. Army recruitment. It claims to be extremely realistic and pose a better challenge, as players have to think harder and work better as a team with strangers.

It uses an 'honor' system to rank all players. A player's honor level is saved and updated every time he plays, creating an MMORPG style system, similar to the experience system in Battlefield 2.

Released on July 4, 2002, America's Army was developed by the MOVES Institute at the Naval Postgraduate School, in Monterey, California, and is based on the Unreal engine.

File Size: 897MB


Alien Arena 2006

Alien Arena (Alien Arena 2006 UE) is a fully functioned free deathmatch shooter based on the Quake II engine that runs on Windows and Linux, and features standard deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag, deathball, and all out assault, in a funky 50's era sci-fi atmosphere.

As of this release (v 5.02 Uranium), there are 34 maps, 9 player models, and 8 weapons(each with alternate firing modes. Gameplay is similar to Quake III and UT2004, and the engine has an in-game browser to find other serves and players online. The game features beautiful effects such as shaders, stencil shadows, light bloom and reflective water, and highly detailed models and textures.

File Size: 171 MB


BZFlag

BZFlag is a free multiplayer multiplatform 3D tank battle game played from a first-person viewpoint. The name stands for Battle Zone capture Flag. BZFlag runs on Irix, Linux, *BSD, Windows, Mac OS X and other platforms.

Get the game here: official BZFlag website

Control Monger

Control Monger is a Free First-Person Shooter by NetCharger and Mindsurge Entertainment. Players play either in Team Mode with two teams (Red (House of Kahn)) or Blue (House of Lo)) or in a Free For All frenzy. Strategy is required at all times to implement the skills of each of the different types of bot to take the best advantage of the map. Three modes of gameplay are currently available, a Deathmatch, a King Of The Hill or a frantic race to capture the flag. Ojectives must be destroyed before the flag can be snatched, the opposing team can race to rebuild the objective, shielding the flag from your capture.

File Size: 43 MB


Cube

Cube is a free, open source Quake-like first-person shooter computer game that runs on Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OS X and even Pocket PC devices with 3D acceleration such as Dell Axim x50. It uses OpenGL and SDL. Cube features both single-player and multiplayer gameplay.

File Size: 28 MB


D-Day: Normandy

Normandy, formerly a Quake II total conversion but since released as a standalone game, features realistic World War II combat.


Digital Paint: Paintball 2.0

Digital Paint: Paintball 2.0 is a fast-paced, team-based, first-person shooter with a variety of game modes and support for up to 4 teams. Modes include Standard CTF, Siege (Attack/Defend), KOTH (King of the Hill), Elimination, Deathmatch (Free-for-all), and Pong. It was once a Quake2 mod but is now completely standalone and completely free.

File Size: 16 MB


Duck Hunt 3D

Duck Hunt 3D is a first person shooter where the player shoots ducks scoring points before they fly away. There is an infinite rounds but limited ammo per round. This game is never over.

Filesize 2 MB


Flamewar!

Flamewar! is an amusing freeware game created by Moondoggie Entertainment. It was designed to poke fun at certain aspects of internet culture. The goal in each level is to defeat all the other forum-goers, but to do that you must avoid being flamed yourself. It distinguishes itself from other shooters through it's unique art style and simple but fun play.

File Size: 2.4 MB

Official Flamewar! Webpage

Kuma\War

*] is a free online war game that reconstructs real-war events from the news. Kuma\War is a first and third-person squad-based war game. It is the first PC tactical FPS that models missions on actual real-world events. Each month players get new single player and multiplayer games (missions), to reflect unfolding events around the world. A vast database of intelligence accompanies Kuma\War online games: satellite photos, political context, event details and the weaponry, tactics and forces involved. Players also receive exclusive video news shows and insight from a decorated team of military veterans.

File Size: ? MB (Note: every level is downloaded separate from the client, full game is well over 1 gig)

Hidden & Dangerous

Hidden & Dangerous is a 1999 computer and video game developed by Illusion Softworks and published by Take-Two Interactive.

The player takes the role of a four man British Special Air Service (or SAS) team executing a number of important sabotage and/or rescue campaigns during World War II. The game takes a realistic approach, where the player must use stealth for the most part to complete the objectives.

It was released free to promote its sequel.

File Size: 264 MB

Marathon Series

Marathon was developed by Bungie for the Apple Macintosh. The game is known for having many properties of modern FPS, such as dual-wielding, friendly NPCs, and intricate plot development. The game is playable on other platforms through the use of Aleph One, though playing of the original Marathon requires using a program called M1A1.

The original Marathon is set in 2794, where the player is dispatched to Tau Ceti IV, to answer a distress call. The player's job is to defend the crew from invading aliens. During that time, the player witnessess the interaction of three AIs, Leela, Durandal, and Tycho.

File Size: 4.7 MB (Note: Size is for the Mac Classic download)

Marathon 2 takes place seventeen years after the original Marathon. At this point, Durandal has sent humans to search for the S'pht homeworld, in the hopes of stalling the Pfhor attack on Earth.

File Size: 25.8 MB (Note: Size is for the Mac Classic download)

Marathon Infinity features multiple plot branches. After having activated Thoth and after having aided the S'pht'Kr in destroying the Pfhor armada, Durandal is apparently destroyed (though he may actually have hidden from Tycho by transferring himself to the electronic implants of the human leader Robert Blake). At the end of the game your objective is to activate an ancient Jjaro machine that keeps the W'rkncacnter locked in the Lh'owon sun.

File size: 35.5 MB (Note: Size is for the Mac Classic download)

Official Bungie Marathon Trilogy Website

Nexuiz

Nexuiz is a GNU GPLed FPSs game that focuses on quick, lethal battles with balanced weaponry. As of this release there are 9 weapons and 17 official maps, as well as 15 player models, with an average of 2 skins each.

While Nexuiz is not intended to be an eye-candy game, it features many stunning effects such as Coronas, Bloom (reflected glow), Realtime World and Dynamic Lights (and shaders, with OpenGL 2.0), and blood (although this can be relatively easily disabled by turning off particles and decals).

Nexuiz is an open source game based on the Darkplaces engine, a modification to the Quake engine.

File Size: 179 MB

Sauerbraten (Cube 2)

Sauerbraten is a partially (not all data is) open source Quake-like first-person shooter computer game that runs on Windows, GNU/Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OS X. The game uses OpenGL and SDL, features single-player and multiplayer gameplay and contains a built in level editor.

Sauerbraten is a branch of the computer game Cube and expands its original concept. It shares most of design goals and philosophy with Cube, but uses a new 6-directional heightfield world model. This allows much more complex level geometry and easier editing. Much like the original Cube, the aim of this game is not necessarily to produce the most features & eyecandy possible, but rather to allow map/geometry editing to be done dynamically in-game, to create fun gameplay and an elegant engine. The engine supporting the game is entirely original in code & design, and its code is Open Source (ZLIB license)

File Size: 64.9MB

Starsiege: Tribes

Tribes (usually called Tribes or Tribes 1) is a sci-fi first-person shooter (FPS) computer game, the first of the Tribes video game series. It was developed by Dynamix and published by the company now known as Sierra Entertainment in 1998.

Tribes was one of the first online-only games of its kind and sported several multiplayer features that other games have only recently included (32+ player support, 128 players max, troop transport vehicles, several different player classes). Most of the standard maps were outdoors in a variety of climates, from sunshine to snow and hail. In general, bases were scattered throughout the map depending on the gametype. The outdoor environments were and still are relatively huge, many extending for several "in-game" kilometers in any direction, but "jetting" and "skiing" gave Tribes a fast-paced feel.

File Size: 135 MB (plus patch)


Tribes 2 was also released for free to the public; however, each user account requires a unique CD key for it to be used in online play. Free distribution of CD keys is currently discontinued, though this does not prevent the game from being installed and played on a LAN.

Tremulous

Tremulous is a stand-alone game based on the Icculus.org/quake3 source and heavily draws inspiration from the popular Quake2 mod Gloom. Players take the role of a human marine or an alien set to conquer the opposing base. The code is GPL and the content use the Creative Commons Sharealike-License.

File Size: 95.6 MB

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory

Enemy Territory was originally planned to be released as a commercial expansion pack to the popular FPS Return to Castle Wolfenstein. However, due to problems with the single-player aspect, the multiplayer portion was released on May 29 2003 as a free standalone game. In early 2004 the source code for the game logic (not the game engine) was released to the benefit of its modding community.

As of release 2.60 the game is available on Linux x86, Mac OS X (PowerPC), and Windows platforms.

There are two sides, Allies and Axis. There are six officially released maps, and many community-created maps. On each map, the offense needs to complete a certain set of objectives within a limited amount of time. The defense needs to keep the offense from completing objectives until time runs out. Some objectives may be optional, and some objectives can be carried out by either team. These minor objectives assist the team completing them. Depending on Game Mode the action will continue on another map (Campaign Mode) or the same map (Objective Mode, Stopwatch Mode, Last Man Standing). Each mode offers a different game play. Objective is to complete or stop completion of an objective. Stopwatch is which team can complete an objective faster. Last Man Standing is what team still has players alive, Allies or Axis.

Mods: Enemy Territory Fortress

File Size: 258 MB (plus patch)


Warsow

Warsow is a Standalone FPS game for Windows and Linux.

Some Features Include:

  • 3D Engine based on Qfusion (a modification of Quake 2 GPL engine) ;
  • eSport oriented FPS ;
  • Fast-paced gameplay focused on trix (trick jumps) and art of move ;
  • Complete Power-up System including Weak and Strong fire mode for each weapon ;
  • Cartoonish graphics that are similar to cell-shading.

File Size: 62.2 MB


Wulfram 2

Wulfram 2 is a hybrid genre first-person shooter, real-time strategy, and simulation game currently being developed by Bernt Habermeier and published under the name SlurpySoft (Slurpy is the pen-name/callsign of Bernt Habermeier) using an original source code developed by Bolt-Action Software, of which Bernt Habermeier was a co-founder. Wulfram 2 is one of four known games to be developed by Bolt-Action Software, and is the only one still playable. Notable is the fact that Wulfram 2 is free to play, though the administration is accepting donations from the player-base and offering certain non-gameplay related benefits for it.

File Size: 22 MB (plus patch)

X Operations

X Operations (X Ops) is a freeware first-person shooter video game developed by Team MITEI, a Japanese developer, in 2003. The game is partially in the Japanese language but is, for the most part, in English. It includes GoldenEye 007 style graphics is known to be one of the more simple and basic free games out there. However, it has arguably addictive gameplay and has a certain comedic element (whether intentionial or not) to it as killing an enemy will result in them throwing their arms up and falling forward or backward in a stiff fashion. There is also a multiplayer version of X Operations (X Operations Online) inwhich you can play versus anyone in the world.

File Size:

  • Single Player 4.78 MB
  • Multiplayer 3.81 MB


See also

External links (complete list)

Note: Official X Operations page is Japanese

First-person shooters | Multiplayer online games | Computer and video game lists | Free, open source shooter games

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "List of free first-person shooters".

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