My FPS Game Show Recap
The First FPS Games Show Was Chaotic, Repetitive, and Weirdly Necessary
Today’s debut of The FPS Games Show, hosted by Bulkhead a week after Gamescom. Just a pile of trailers, updates, and pitch decks dumped onto Twitch and left for the audience to sort.
That is both the point and the problem. After sitting through it, my takeaway is simple. The genre is alive. It is also eating itself. Extraction shooters, tactical co-op, and “realistic” time-to-kill are everywhere. A few of these games actually look special. A few should have stayed in the pitch meeting. Here is what stood out.
WARDOGS
I have already written about this one, so I will keep it short. A $40 price tag for a game that looks this complete is still rare. Bulkhead is not hiding behind mystery marketing. They talk about the game constantly, they built a community before launch, and they are shipping Early Access on September 10, 2026.
The hook is still the one that sold me: King of the Hill energy with three teams fighting over a control zone, plus the kind of vehicle play that makes a Little Bird worth stealing. Another closed beta started today. If you see someone flying people around in that helicopter, it might be me.
BULKHEAD, Team17
WARDOGS is a TACTICAL ALL OUT WARFARE FPS where one hundred players split across three teams fight over the control zone. Set in the derelict industrial mountains of Eastern Europe on a destructible battlefield where teamwork pays and cash is king.
Fragmentary Order
This is the sci-fi tactical shooter from Nikita Buyanov’s new studio, Rant Gaming. Think extraction and contract work in a remote-controlled future war economy: PvP and PvE in the same space, robots and drones, a dystopian setting that wants to be harder and bigger than Tarkov.
They are aiming for fat player counts on a map, the kind of density where you have to lock in or you are already dead. It is riding a trend I am getting tired of, but the presentation still got me. I will take the playtest.
Rant Gaming Studios
200 years ago, humanity was able to stand on the brink of darkness, survive and reverse mutual total destruction. The organization that secretly proclaimed itself the Core was able to gather the remnants of everything human and turn the tide of destruction, convincing and uniting the governments of the world. People began to explore the solar system, defeated famine and war, praising the savior - the Core. By that time, trust in governments had been completely lost and the world had moved to a corporate system of power controlled by Core structures.
Ready or Not: Update 1.5
Everybody knows this game. What got me back in is the Mission Editor. You can now reshape existing operations: hostages, locked doors, traps, AI behavior, even how mean the suspects are. Then you can share those missions with the public.
That is Halo Forge energy for a SWAT game. I cannot wait to build something that makes my friends sweat.
Void Interactive, Team17
Ready or Not is an intense, tactical, first-person shooter that depicts a modern-day world in which SWAT police units are called to defuse hostile and confronting situations.
Terminal War
This one is a team-based third-person tactical shooter, which is a funny guest at an FPS showcase. Out of pocket, but I will allow it.
It is a 1990s alternate history after World War III. You pick one of three factions and drop into 4v4 PvP and PvE matches built around scavenging. Smaller scale than half the lineup, which might be a blessing.
Albatross Interactive
Terminal War is a grounded, team-based third-person shooter set in a fractured America during the late 1990s. Engage in intense combat across war-torn cities, forgotten towns, and contested territory where every bullet, every strike, and every decision counts.
Incursion Red River
Another tactical first-person PvE and co-op extraction shooter, this time in a war-torn modern Vietnam. Do not show your grandpa the trailer.
You play as a private military contractor running missions with weapon customization, gear repair, and safehouse upgrades tied to resource gathering. In other words: start grinding now.
Games Of Tomorrow GmbH
IRR is a tactical PvE Co-Op extract shooter set in a de-stabilized and immersive modern-day Vietnam. As a PMC for a mysterious organization, deal with 3 factions that stand to gain from the chaos. Engage in ruthless combat, plan your deployment, and explore the world as your journey unfolds.
Gallipoli
I just got a playtest key, so this one is personal. It throws you into World War I on the Ottoman fronts: objective-based fights, up to 50 players, one-shot kills, shell shock wrecking your vision, distinct classes, and buildable actions.
If you grew up on Battlefield’s better years, this will scratch that itch. Follow-up after I actually play it.
BlackMill Games
Land on the beaches of Gallipoli and fight intense 50-player objective-based battles on the Ottoman Fronts! Experience WW1 trench warfare and desert expeditions as one of 10 historic classes, armed with authentic weaponry. Gallipoli brings the most immersive WW1 FPS battles yet.
Bellum
This one peaked my interest more than most. Forty-versus-forty surface warfare plus tunnel fighting at the same time, so the match is really two battles stacked on each other.
The recon hook is the detail I liked. Recon players get a head start, but they also get limited armor and only two lives for the entire match. That is not a power fantasy. That is a job. Stay frosty or you are done.
Astarte Industries
The next evolution of platoon-scale tactical shooters, built in Unreal Engine 5. Set in a fractured Africa of the 2030s, where every life counts and teamwork isn't encouraged — it's demanded.
Gray Zone Warfare
Another extraction shooter set in Asia. Three factions. Same family tree as WARDOGS and Arma. By this point in the show, the formula was starting to blur together.
I would still play it. That is the problem with this genre right now. Even the “yeah, I’ve seen this” games look good enough to install.
Beautiful Light
This is the one that punched me in the nostalgia. Left 4 Dead energy: play as the humans trying to get out, or as the monsters hunting them before they extract.
I have been looking for a replacement for that specific predator-and-prey loop for years. This might be it. I signed up for the playtest waitlist.
Deep Worlds SA
Beautiful Light, a PvPvPvE tactical first-person extraction shooter where 6 squads of 3 operators are tasked with entering, securing, and extracting an artifact in a hostile, horrific environment. Face other operators and player-controlled anomalies, but beware: mistakes can risk your life and gear.
STALZONE
Not going to lie: the intro felt like AI slop. Chat thought so too.
It wants to be S.T.A.L.K.E.R. with a persistent online Zone. Fine. What I cannot get past yet is the blocky player look. It reads like Roblox had a baby with the Zone, and that visual is a hard sell until I actually play it. Verdict reserved.
EXBO
STALZONE is the PvPvE extraction shooter where you don't have to start over — and the only one with persistent world worth belonging to. You are invited to explore the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone twisted by anomalies and divided between rival factions whose territories shape the danger around you
Bodycam
This is the one a lot of people showed up for. Playtesting is live, and the pitch is simple: you are watching the fight through a bodycam on the operator, in a Ready or Not / military-shooter register.
The realism they showed is the point. It is also a hardware warning. I might need a second mortgage to run this clean. Still a must-play for me.
Reissad Studio
Bodycam is the first tactical multiplayer FPS with a true body-camera view in Unreal Engine 5. Close-quarters combats feel raw and loud. Every angle, callout, and bullet matters. Play Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Wingman on photoreal maps where teamplay, tactics, and clutch skill are key.
SAND: Raiders of Sophie
Steampunk colliding with a World War II vibe. The walking machines look like Wild Wild West if Will Smith’s spider-legged rigs got scaled up into full desert mechs.
It is an open-world PvPvE extraction shooter where you pilot customizable walking machines called Tramplers across a dead planet. Weird in a good way, I am in.
Hologryph, TowerHaus, tinyBuild
In SAND you build your highly customizable walking mech fortress. Squad up or go solo. Scavenge the dunes, gather loot, weapons, priceless artifacts, survive and extract. Clash with other players in a brutal procedurally generated desert set in an alternate 1910.
’83
A 40v40 tactical first-person shooter set in an alternate 1980s Cold War. I like that we are leaving modern-kit fatigue behind. Time-to-kill, ballistics, and positioning actually matter here.
Infantry, armor, artillery, recon. Someone grab me a Soviet surplus gas mask. Count me in.
Blue Dot Games
FREE DEMO NOW - '83 is a 40v40 squad based, objective focused online tactical first person shooter set in a Cold-War-Gone-Hot scenario. It's designed with 'accessible realism' for an enjoyable, but still hardcore experience that gets you to the action.
Battlestate Games
This segment felt less like a game announcement and more like a studio reel with a “hire us” button at the end. They made Escape from Tarkov. That matters. Ending on an inquiries email still made it feel like a contractor pitch, not a release.
SCUM: Into the Wild
This looked like Rust if Rust grew up: better graphics, a clearer fantasy, more to actually do. I was sold before the trailer finished.
Gamepires
Welcome to SCUM, a ruthless open-world survival game where deep character customization defines the prisoner you become. Loot, craft, hunt, build, and fight to outlast a hostile island where every choice can change your fate. Stay alive. Stay dangerous. Become harder to kill.
Rainbow Six Siege
I saved this for last on purpose.
Let this game die. Go back to making the Rainbow Six campaigns and multiplayer people actually loved, Vegas, the older entries, a new game with a spine. Nobody asked for another operator drop. Nobody asked for drone racing. Make a new game.
The bigger picture
The FPS Games Show did its job. It proved there is enough shooter news to fill a dedicated broadcast, and that studios will show up if you do not charge them a fortune for the privilege.
It also exposed the rut. Extraction loops, faction maps, “realistic” TTK, and PvPvE checklists showed up so many times that even good games started to sound like copies of each other. The titles that cut through were the ones with a specific idea: WARDOGS’ three-team hill fights, Bellum’s two-layer war, Beautiful Light’s hunter-and-hunted swap, Bodycam’s ugly intimacy, ’83’s Cold War scale, Ready or Not handing players the mission editor.
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