10 Best Cheap FPS Games

It's a familiar story: the rent and groceries go up, wages don't, and your crippling addiction to quality first-person shooters is not getting any better. If this resonates with you, don't worry, you are not alone.

The good news is that there are almost as many great FPS games as there are fish in the sea, and since a majority of them are made by like-minded gun nerds on a shoestring budget, you can pick up some of the best in the business for a decent price.

To satisfy your cravings, here are ten of the best obscure FPS games you can play on a budget. If it so happens that you did know all of these beforehand, then you're cool and we should be friends.

10 VLADiK BRUTAL

Go Go Gopnik

Some masterpieces require a big team to work, but others are the work of one madman. Vladik Brutal is decidedly the latter.

For only $12 and a significant chunk of your sanity, you can lay waste to mutants, fanatical soldiers, and despots in this Russian rendition of a crackpot action movie.

The gun mechanics have no right to be this great on such a silly game, and it's this sleek gameplay tacked onto an absurd setting that makes VLADiK BRUTAL so stupidly fun to play.

9 Vietnam War

Full Metal Jank

The Vietnam war was a sharp departure from the type of warfare US forces had been expecting during the Cold War, so it stands to reason that a game called Vietnam War would also be fairly different from your average FPS.

This eccentric $15 open-world shooter has graphics that look straight out of the Green Army Men games and awkward movement mechanics, but it manages to give the full Vietnam experience from both sides.

Its map spans over 1000 square kilometers, including portions of Laos and Cambodia, and you can also crew a host of vehicles. You can also even engage in less than honorable activities like drug trafficking with locals, or get drunk while trying to forget the atrocities you've witnessed. Ain't war hell?

8 Mohrta

Boomer Souls

Any self-respecting list of obscure FPS games needs some GZDoom, and Mohrta is the best emissary for the platform.

Mohrta is a retro FPS that is a little rough around the edges but manages the incredible feat of being a little bit of a boomer shooter while also having plenty of souls elements in there.

What makes this $20 sleeper hit stand out the most is the art direction, with a banger soundtrack and monster design that helped land it in our list of the best shooters of 2025.

7 Ground Branch

Play the CIA

It stands to reason that nobody could do a better job in recreating the original Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon vibes than a member of the dev team behind both.

John Sonedecker started work on Ground Branch over a decade ago, but the game only hit early access in 2018. A lot has happened since, and though the game has still not left early access, it now has a campaign and, crucially, new ownership and funding through a partnership with MicroProse.

The action in Ground Branch is slow, realistic, and incredibly intense, with some of the most seamless implementations of first-person perspective I've ever come across in a shooter. With 8-player co-op and 16-player PvP modes, it is the perfect $25 shooter for the brainy operator tired of bunnyhopping targets.

6 Easy Red 2

Welcome Back, Battlefield 1942

Released in 2020 by Corvo Studio, Easy Red 2 is one of those games that almost sounds too good to be true, especially with its $9 price tag.

This is a World War 2 multiplayer game that is all about combined arms, but with surprisingly deep mechanics for a large-scale shooter.

The environments are destructible, you can manage your soldier's inventory, and the armor simulation is some of the best in the business. If you liked Battlefield 1942, Easy Red 2 offers the same immaculate vibes, but in a modern package.

5 Beyond Citadel

Anime Meets Wolfenstein 3D

Classic shooters like Doom or Marathon are easy targets for remakes. Typically, that focuses on reinventing the games in a modern package, but some of that early soul is lost in the process. Doekuramori, however, would not have it.

The developer of The Citadel (2020) made a triumphant return in 2025 with Beyond Citadel, which offers the same anime-infused vintage mechanics but in a refined package.

Beyond Citadel has endearing 2.5D graphics that are seamlessly enhanced with HD weapon and character models, and some of the most fun gunplay I've ever encountered in the genre. Not bad if you want to save the world while looking cool for $15.

4 Dagger Directive

Return of the 1990s

The early Delta Force games were a formative experience for me as a kid, culminating in the 2003 release of Delta Force: Black Hawk Down.

Two decades later, and few games have managed to hit the same way. That is, until Dagger Directive came along in June.

Developed by Arcane Alpacas and published by the reborn MicroProse, Dagger Directive combines modern shooter mechanics with late 1990s art direction. It's sleek, tactical gameplay for a modest $20 price tag.

3 Incursion Red River

Goodbye Tarkov, Hello Vietnam

Extraction shooters are divisive by nature, with the eternally toxic PvP dynamics being the primary culprit here. To help democratize the genre, Games of Tomorrow launched Incursion Red River in 2024 for $19.

Set in the Red River delta, modern-day Vietnam, the game puts you in the shoes of a shady private military company trying to take advantage of unrest in the country.

Incursion Red River has the same gun nut experience as Escape From Tarkov, but with a more relaxed co-op structure that means you don't get your skull ventilated from halfway across the map as often.

2 Black One: Blood Brothers

Special Forces Simulator

Victor Ragot was awarded as part of the Nvidia Edge Program in 2018 for his work on tactical shooter Black Day, but it was with 2022's Black One: Blood Brothers that the founder of Helios Studio found his mark.

Styled in the same way as the original Ghost Recon (2001), this $15 game places you in command of a multinational special forces unit tasked with stopping a global terrorist conspiracy.

Black One: Blood Brothers is an unmatched tactical sandbox, allowing full customization of your squad, weapons included, but the star of the show is the freedom to plan and execute missions. Perfect for the kind of player that likes to shoot people, then mumble 'clear' after each room.

1 Zero Hour

Cops Versus Terrorists

Once upon a time, a group developing game assets met with an architecture visualization team in Bangladesh. This fateful meeting would eventually lead to the development of Zero Hour, which entered early access in late 2020.

Best described as a blend of Rainbow Six: Siege and Ready or Not, Zero Hour is one of the best tactical shooters on the market, and it costs as much as a cocktail at your local bar.

The game is the finest modern counterterrorism simulators, with original story missions that take place across Bangladesh. You can play the game with up to 10 others, in both co-op and 5 versus 5 modes, with that R6 Siege experience without having to deal with all the bad aspects of it.