Last week we checked out some of the best military strategy games to put your tactical skills to the test. If you like your games to have a little more action than those real-time and turn-based games offer, then the name of three franchises are probably on the tip of your tongue – Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Tom Clancy. There are plenty of other military shooters out there though. So to help you out, we’ve gathered up 5 military shooters to check out when you tire of the big three.
Arma 3
- Developer: Bohemia Interactive
- Release Date: September 12, 2013
- Platform(s): PC
Arma 3 has been a go-to military simulator since it was released back in 2013. Light on content when it first launched, but now, thanks to both the official DLC from Bohemia Interactive and the wealth of community-created content, Arma 3 has grown well beyond its simple sandbox gameplay to encompass a wide range of single and multiplayer scenarios and game modes.
Enlisted
- Developer: Darkflow Software
- Release Date: March 2, 2021
- Platform(s): PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S
Don’t have any friends that like playing shooters but still want to enjoy some squad-based WWII shooter action? Then check out Enlisted. In Enlisted, you will level up, train, and equip a squad of soldiers you will personally lead into battle; you take direct control of one soldier with the AI controlling the rest. In battle, you give orders to the AI-controlled soldiers as you freely swap your control to the soldier best equipped to tackle the situation at hand. With each player controlling a squad, the scale of the battle is well beyond your typical assault and defend fights that other shooters have. And you’ll need those extra lives, especially if you fight for the Allied forces on the Invasion of Normandy map.
Post Scriptum
- Developer: Periscope Games
- Release Date: August 9, 2018
- Platform(s): PC
Rambo wannabes need not apply to Post Scriptum. Instead, the run and gun antics of arcade shooters are replaced by communication and group tactics. Pick a role, join up with a squad, then work in conjunction with other squads to capture objectives on realistic maps created from archival references. Or take on the role of the Commander, where you’ll help coordinate squad movements while providing them with artillery and air support. With realistic weapons and a lack of any heads-up display, it’ll take skill and teamwork if you expect to survive.
Escape From Tarkov
- Developer: Battlestate Games
- Release Date: July 27, 2017 (Closed Beta)
- Platform(s): PC
Your goal in Escape From Tarkov is simple – scavenge for gear, take out some AI and human-controlled opponents – then get to an evac site without dying. Make it out alive and you keep whatever you could carry out. Die and you lose everything you were carrying. You can expect a steep learning curve filled with a lot of deaths, but put in the time and you’ll slowly start turning those deaths into kills.
Hell Let Loose
- Developer: Black Matter Studios
- Release Date: June 6, 2019
- Platform(s): PC (Coming to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S soon)
Aiming for authentic platoon-based action, Hell Let Loose has authentic uniforms, weapons, and vehicles from WWII. HLL also recreates a realistic chain of command, with orders relayed from your commander to the squad leaders through a leadership-only voice chat, followed by the squad leaders then passing the order on to their platoon. War isn’t just about shooting rifles and driving tanks, though, so Hell Let Loose has engineers creating resource nodes to feed the supply chain that allows Commanders to deploy additional support to the battlefield.
