First Person Shooters (FPS) are one of the most common type of f2p games. They’re particularly popular in North America which is generally a smaller market for free to play MMOs than Asia. Most of today’s MMOFPS games are tactical shooters, and the evolution of the genre has been startling.
The earliest free to play shooters were modeled after the popular Counter Strike, which it self got a free to play version called Counter Strike Online. Games like Mercenary Wars, and Mission Against Terror come to mind. Then there’s Cross Fire which was released several years ago but looks and plays a lot like the classic Counter Strike. Nexon has its own FPS called Combat Arms which has gained a large audience and received continual updates. Aeria Games publishes Wolfteam which is developed by Softnyx, and Netgame publishes Operation 7. Besides the original Wolfteam, most of these games are pretty standard tactical shooters set in a modern, urban environment.
Then there’s ijji. Run by the Korean company NHN, ijji publishes a lot of free to play games including MMORPgs. But their FPS and shooter catalog is notorious. They run no fewer than four shooters with a fifth in development. Despite having so many shooters, they is a lot of variation between them. GunZ: The Duel is a third person shooter like Battlefield Heroes and S4 League. Soldier Front is more traditional tactical shooter, and A.V.A is perhaps the most polished free shooter to date. Their latest shooter is Genesis A.D which has a sci-fi theme complete with futuristic weapons and maps. There’s jet packs, wall jumps, and all the rest. In some ways, it reminds me of Unreal Tournament. There are some similarities between Genesis AD and Alliance of Valiant Arms. Both have three classes that players can switch between, and similar interfaces.
The fifth ijji shooter still development is Karma: Operation Barbarossa. Even Karma will fit in nicely since it is set during WW2 and doesn’t directly compete with any of ijji’s current shooters. The f2p shooter genre is just getting started. Electronic Art’s has just announced another free to play (or play4free as they call it) Battlefield game. This one has realistic graphics and looks a lot like Battlefield 2.
Let’s wrap up with some more free to play shooters that are already available. K.O.S. Secret Operations has been compared to Counter Strike: Source on MMOHut. Its a fun game and many of the maps are modeled off stages in CS which should make the game feel familiar to veterans. Quake Live is an updated version of the classic Quake 3: Arena and is launched right from the browser for convenience. Even the US Army has gotten into the F2P FPS game with America’s Army. Its a hyper realistic, tactical, team based shooter. And we can’t forget War Rock by GamersFirst. Like Battlefield, the game has multiple modes, some of which support tanks, airplanes, and other vehicles.
I mentioned mainly FPS shooters, but also a few third person shooters (TPS.) There are many other free games that are best categorized as shooters but don’t quite fit the traditional definition of the term. We’ll cover those games next time.