10 Best Shooters of 2026 to Play This Summer

When our dearest star is punching down on you like Mario's Angry Sun, it's best to stay inside and play games instead of working up burns and heatstroke.

Before anything, there is nothing wrong with replaying that one comfort game over and over again. I have some 200 hours in Metro Exodus, and that's supposed to be a 14-hour game, so I get it. Still, you can't deny the appeal of something new.

To keep you fresh in this record-breaking summer heat, here are 10 shooters released in 2026 that you should try out instead of grinding out unlocks.

10 Far Far West

Press F to Yeehaw

Ever since Rockstar dropped Red Dead Redemption 2, people have become experts at recommending it for virtually every player alive on this Earth. In the spirit of variety, I'm here to talk about another cowboy shooter, Evil Raptor's Far Far West.

Built as a co-op experience that you can also enjoy alone, Far Far West is a cartoonish first-person shooter that puts you in the role of a gunslinging robot in the Wild West. The gameplay is as silly as its premise, infused with bombastic supernatural shenanigans to stay fresh.

Far Far West draws heavy gameplay inspiration from titans like Helldivers 2 or Destiny 2, but it manages to make it fun and avoid the pitfalls inherent to those two titles.

9 '83

Cold War Gone Hot

Life, as they say, finds a way. I can't think of a better way to describe the development and release of '83, the debut multiplayer shooter by Blue Dot Games.

This Cold War piece is heavily inspired by Rising Storm and Red Orchestra, and many members of the team worked on both series before. As an early access title, '83 has yet to reach the heights of its predecessors, but it offers a fun, albeit limited, shooter experience that is worth the price tag.

8 Over the Top: WWI

Bayonet Charge Simulator

You know what the only worse thing than sitting in a flooded trench is? Having to go over the top of said trench while bullets and shells land all around you. This isn't the kind of thing you do if you want to live to 100.

Despite being one of the most major modern conflicts, the Great War is still underrepresented in games compared to its 1939-1945 sequel. On top of that, the few games that do depict it tend to focus on only one thing or another. Not Over the Top, however.

This is an all-encompassing war simulator with up to 200 players per battle. You can fly, dig trenches, treat wounds, or even play the bugle during a bayonet charge. It doesn't matter what you pick; your life expectancy won't be too high in the end, but that's the fun part here.

7 Rising Front

No True Glory

If multiplayer isn't your thing, or your computer is of the potato kind, then there is still another way to enjoy big First World War battles.

Developed by Sandstorm Studios, Rising Front tries to do a lot at once, and it mostly succeeds at it. The game can be played as a first-person shooter or as a real-time strategy game. On top of that, it also lets you play through the American Revolutionary War.

The graphics are hardly cutting edge, but Rising Front picks effect over realism, so you get to feel the horrors of both conflicts up close and personal in a fully controllable single-player environment.

6 Better Than Dead

Bodycam Bullet Storm

Fewer things offer more catharsis than schwacking clear-cut bad guys in a game, especially in games that let you do it as viscerally as you'd dare.

Better Than Dead is a brutal bodycam-style shooter released by Monte Gallo and published by MicroProse. The game puts you in the shoes of a woman whose quest for survival suddenly opens the door to exacting revenge and saving others from the same fate.

It deals with fairly dark topics in the story while giving you some of the sickest shooting mechanics released in recent years, set in a stylized Hong Kong underworld. Just try to avoid killing innocent people, yeah?

5 Mouse: P.I. for Hire

It's a Real Hoot

We've been talking about Mouse: P.I. for Hire for so long that it doesn't feel like a new game, but Fumi Game's totally-not-Mickey-Mouse shooter only came out in April 2026 following a handful of delays.

The retro styling and boomer shooter mechanics work in synergy here, serving as the perfect support for a fun pulp fiction story that doesn't take itself too seriously. Sure, it's not the most original idea or execution, but you won't be thinking of that while blasting away in black and white.

4 Marathon

In Space, Nobody Can Hear You Complain

When you consider the context in which it was released, Marathon feels like a small miracle. The game was born out of a rudderless Bungie that tried (and eventually failed) to live up to Sony's lofty, arguably unrealistic expectations, and in spite of it all, it's one of the slickest extraction shooters in the market.

Marathon stands out from the competition thanks to its original art direction, but it doesn't lean on that alone. The gunplay feels crisp, the new content has been exciting, and the best part is, it's totally legal to enjoy the game without paying mind to those who are too busy watching player count graphs to jump into the game.

3 HumanitZ

Should Have Stayed Dead

There's something special about isometric zombie games. If you've enjoyed trying (and inevitably failing) to survive in Project Zomboid but want a little bit more freedom, I can't recommend HumanitZ enough.

This isometric shooter is an open-world survival sandbox, with that decadent feeling you have in Escape From Tarkov, but with the whole zombie apocalypse flair to it.

HumanitZ is still an early access title, and there are some sorely missing quality of life features, but the atmosphere and combat more than compensate for it.

2 Road to Vostok

Current Objective: Survive

Every year, Finland inexplicably ranks as the happiest country on Earth. I reject the idea of Finland as a beacon of joy, and a big part of that is its talent for bringing distilled misery to the table. There is no better example of this than Road to Vostok.

Released in April 2026 following a lengthy development period that included a full engine change from Unity to Godot, Road to Vostok is what every STALKER fan has been begging for in a survival shooter. It spawns you into a desolate section of the Russo-Finnish border, with the simple goal of surviving and exploring the closed city of Vostok.

The AI needs some polish, but that hasn't stopped Road to Vostok from being the best survival game of the year so far. Hey, maybe Finns are happy because they get to play it all day long.

1 007 First Light

IOI's Other Guy in a Suit

Let me preface by saying that if Patrick Gibson doesn't return as James Bond, either in future games or movies, we will have lost the most quintessential 007 in the modern era.

Beyond Gibson's acting chops, however, 007 First Light stands out because playing it makes you feel like MI6's finest. The shooting and weapons are nothing to write home about, but they tie in perfectly with simple, beautifully executed combat mechanics.

007 First Light also has the distinction of being the most accurate story about AI to date: it doesn't take over the world in any shape or form, but you have to deal with an annoying CEO who wants to force it down everyone's throat.