The FPS is once again in transition. It’s a change that’s been percolating for a while, but 2025 was the year a number of developing trends in PC gaming’s favorite genre finally boiled over.
The time of extreme skill ceilings and the pursuit of metallic ranks defining every new multiplayer FPS is behind us. The escalation of gaudy, overpriced cosmetics created a distaste so palpable that Call of Duty had to desperately change its game plan. The two biggest shooters this year cost money, and there were no major free-to-play releases. The theme of this new era, as I see it developing so far, is remembering that shooters can be both casual and thrilling. High fun, low emotional investment.
An old guard of life-consuming live-service games remains a vibrant and popular part of this genre, but they’re once again sharing the space with—and even adopting the attributes of—a more casual breed. Games that don’t mind if you only play them once in a while. Games that let you make your own fun, encourage cooperation, or earn our respect by not bombarding us with ads.
I don’t play FPS these days - what’s considered a casual FPS today? I’m guessing ARC raiders? Presumably because it’s not all reflex based?
Killing Floor, I guess would fit the bill. Too bad KF3, the one that released this year, is broadly considered to be completely mediocre.
Any game is casual if you’re employed enough.
ARC Raiders is definitely of the “life-consuming live-service” multiplayer games in my view, same as Helldivers 2. Basically anything that is live-service, since it demands you play continually or otherwise miss out on timed events.
I hope multiplayer non-live service games are the sort of casual FPS that is making a comeback, a la Space Marine 2.
I feel almost the exact opposite; I can jump into Helldivers 2 as if I’d never left and keep on playing but trying to play Space Marine 2 now feels like I’m constantly behind everyone else and trying to catch up.
I guess for me I’d feel like I’ve read about all these cool events in HD2, and they’re gone and done and I can’t replay them, because they were live events only.
Compare that to something like Mabinogi (which is still an MMO, but doesn’t follow the same live-service philosophy), where you can start as a first-time player today, and still play through every campaign/ storyline since its ~2003 release (and there are a LOT of them).
I think that depends on the way you play. You can lose everything pretty quickly by getting swarmed from a few low level bots or someone shooting you in the back. Which at least for me makes it feel not that casual.
The game does try and match you based on aggressiveness so if you chill and don’t shoot other players you’ll filter into the nicer lobbies although you still never know if the person next to you will choose that day to decide and PvP. Its famous for people to send the ‘don’t shoot’ emote then as soon as you turn to walk away they shoot you