The best shooters endure. While other genres warp beyond recognition, there is something solid about the first-person shooter that makes it as dependable as a nice big AK-47. Maybe it s the gung-ho simplicity – look down a barrel and pull the trigger. It’s as fun to fire a double-barrelled shotgun from an early 90s FPS as the slick shotties of today. For that reason, this list runs the gamut from genre classics to those released in the last year. There’s bound to be something for you in this, our list of the best 50 FPS games on PC. Let s lock and/or load.

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Co-op Nazi-mangling spinoff Wolfenstein: Youngblood launches on July 26th, just before my birthday. It looks to be a gift that literally keeps giving, too; the Deluxe edition comes with a ‘Buddy Pass’, so you can invite a special someone to join you on your power-armoured rampage. Set some years after Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus, it casts one or two players as BJ Blazkowicz and Anya’s twin daughters, now old enough to hunt Nazis for themselves with the aid of matching super-suits. Check out the debut trailer below, featuring Carpenter Brut’s appropriately titled Turbo Killer.

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They live in compounds deep in the mountains, sharing conspiracies about who really runs things while cleaning their illegal firearms and awaiting the end of the world. One, channelling Donald Trump, is running for the Montana legislature and asks you to suppress disproportionately black voters opposed to his far-right agenda by murdering them. His ex-wife kills flag burning socialists from a helicopter with the efficiency of a South American military junta.

They are somehow the best anti-fascist heroes Ubisoft could come up with for Far Cry 5.

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This article contains major spoilers for Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus (and Jacob s Ladder).>

Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus was one of the critical darlings of last year. A first person shooter that moves at a blistering pace, in Wolfenstein 2 you step once more into the big stompy shoes of William Blazkowicz and mow down armies of Nazis. But Wolfenstein 2 s easiest-to-miss scene has a chilling implication, which calls into question the reality of the game s entire second half. It s this:

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If you’re in the UK, this weekend is one of those three-day affairs thanks to the August Bank Holiday finally arriving. While that probably means you’ll have an extra day to spend nursing a hangover, it’s also a chance to get in more time treating yourself. Case in point: I’m likely to spend a truly unhealthy portion of this weekend immersed in Shenmue HD, because I’m a glutton for both nostalgia and tedium. In the meantime, however, we’ve got another batch of gaming deals to check out, so let’s get to that.

As usual, we ve got deals that ll work in the UK, deals that ll work in the US and some deals that will work in both the UK and US, as well as presumably many other places. Let s get started.

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After decades of banning swastikas and such symbols of Nazis and other “unconstitutional organisations” from games, German authorities will now potentially allow them – if they serve an artistic or educational purpose. This “social adequacy” clause has allowed these symbols to be used in other artistic mediums but wasn’t previously applied to video games (which only became art, as we all know, through BioShock Infinite in 2013), requiring developers to replace or otherwise remove the iconography to get a German release. This change isn’t a green light for swastikas galore, as laws controlling the symbols still apply, but the German ratings board are now willing to consider their artistic merit in games.

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Not satisfied with bringing snow trolls and hellspawn to expensive cyber goggles, Bethesda are bringing two more of their games to VR Prey and Wolfenstein. Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot and Prey: Typhon Hunter are set in their respective universes and, of the two, Typhon Hunter seems the most interesting. It s a prop hunt-like bit of multiplayer hide and seek, in which five players are mimics pretending to be everyday objects, and one player is Morgan Yu, trying to find and kill them. “Typhon Hunter is a deadly game of cat and mouse,” say Bethesda, “except in this instance the cat is sometimes a trashcan or a bottle of cleaning supplies and the mouse has a shotgun.” (more…)

The splendid new line of Wolfenstein first-person shooters from MachineGames will continue next year with Wolfenstein: Youngblood, a cooperative game starring BJ Blazkowicz’s twin daughters. It’s set in 1980, see, 19 years after Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus. Would you be surprised to hear that the twins are also very keen on shooting Nazis? Meet ’em in the game’s announcement trailer. (more…)

The best shooters endure. While the state of the art moves on in other genres and leaves old designs in the dust, it’s as fun to fire a well-made shotgun from an early 90s FPS as from one released today. For that reason, this list runs the gamut from genre classics to those released in the last year. There’s bound to be something for you inside.

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For a series built around the deconstruction of Aryan bodies, it s taken a long time for players to take the hint that Wolfenstein s ubermensch William Blazkowicz is Jewish.

That hesitation betrays our definitions of Jewish identity as old-fashioned, and also reflects that the few prominent Jewish characters in games play into and reinforce stereotypes. While Blazkowicz is the most high profile character to break the mold, what does it say about games that the most diverse representation of a Jew we ve seen is simply whiter than most? (more…)