10 Terrible FPS Games You Should Avoid at All Costs

They lurk in every generation. Hiding in plain sight between the classics we still play today, for every Counter-Strike 2 or Fortnite that dominates the conversation, there's a shelf of forgotten shooters that never should have shipped, and Jake Valentine, a Staff Writer at DualShockers with more than two decades covering the video game industry, has sifted through the wreckage. So what follows are the first-person shooters that deserve their permanent place in the bargain bin.

The Curse of the Beloved License

Some terrible FPS games wear a familiar face. That almost makes them worse. You walk in with warm memories of a film or a classic title, and you walk out wondering how anyone signed off on the final build.

RoboCop Deserved Better

The Xbox, PS2, and GameCube era delivered plenty of great shooters. 2003's RoboCop was not one of them. On the surface, it nails the look and feel of the film. Everything underneath is a different story. Buggy, boring, and deeply frustrating, the game earned an infamous reputation that some critics punctuated with a brutal comparison. It was called the worst video game since Superman 64.

Some even called it the worst video game since Superman 64. That is a list nobody wants to be on.

Bond Goes Off Mission

GoldenEye Reloaded: 007 was advertised as a modern reimagining of the 1995 film and a remake of the legendary Nintendo 64 game. What players got instead had far more in common with Call of Duty. To call it a massive disappointment is an understatement. This was not the first time someone slapped the GoldenEye name on a subpar shooter, either. 2004's GoldenEye: Rogue Agent was equally bad. At least that one did not try to pass itself off as the modern-day version of the classic.

Sequels That Burned the Blueprint

A great first game does not guarantee a worthy follow-up. These sequels prove that handing the reins to a different studio can torch everything that made the original special.

The Illusion of Choice

Medal of Honor was once the premier World War 2 FPS franchise. By 2007, Call of Duty had caught up and surged ahead. Medal of Honor: Airborne teased an interesting gimmick: choosing where you drop into battle. The issue is that it was merely the illusion of choice. All roads led to the same miserable gameplay experience. Enemies unload their magazines in your direction constantly. The game is short. It feels long because you keep dying, not from difficulty, but from encounters that are blatantly unfair.

Painkiller Without the Painkiller Magic

2004's Painkiller is a cult classic that brought together the best of Quake and Serious Sam. When a sequel arrived in 2009, the original developer, People Can Fly, was nowhere to be found. Painkiller: Resurrection landed as a massive disappointment. Rather than a full-fledged sequel, it felt like an expansion. It mimicked its predecessor in everything except quality.

A Sequel That Shut Down the Studio

2004's Shellshock: Nam '67 was developed by Guerrilla Games before they moved on to bigger things. It was not a bad game. It was not a good one either. When a sequel arrived in 2009, Guerrilla did not return. Rebellion Derby took over. The studio closed just a year later.

Remakes and Ports Gone Wrong

Sometimes the bones of a good game are already there, but a studio still finds a way to break them, and these terrible FPS games took existing concepts and sanded off every good edge. They're broken.

XIII Gets a Makeover Nobody Wanted

2003's XIII is an unheralded gem full of style and personality, a cult classic lost in the shuffle of a golden era for the genre. When word of a remake arrived in 2020, longtime fans were thrilled. Finally, a chance for the game to get the recognition it deserved. Then the art style changed. Then the gameplay design changed. The result was not a remake. It was a far worse game dressed up like the modern-day version of a beloved original.

Chicago Enforcer Stumbles to Console

On paper, an original Xbox era FPS where you play as part of the mafia sounds like a home run. Chicago Enforcer squandered that promise immediately. It was a console port of a formerly PC-exclusive game called Mob Enforcer, which was already average at best. The port to Xbox only made things worse. Long load times, uneven enemy AI, and repetitive gameplay buried any remaining potential.

The Bottom of the Barrel

Some terrible FPS games defy easy categorization. They are not failed sequels or botched remakes. They are simply baffling decisions committed to a disc.

2009 was a brutal year for the genre. Rogue Warrior was marketed as an FPS based on U.S. Navy SEAL Richard Marcinko's 1992 autobiography. Despite sharing the title, the game shared nothing in common with the book. Development restarted and the studio changed. That is a recipe for disaster, and the result was a game both boring and a technical mess. Developer Rebellion did eventually bounce back. Their 2025 title Atomfall was a pleasant surprise.

And this is where it gets interesting. America's Army: True Soldiers came from Red Storm Entertainment, the studio behind several entries in the Tom Clancy series. They had just delivered Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, one of the Xbox 360's best early shooters. That momentum evaporated. Everything that made Red Storm's previous work great was absent. The multiplayer focus raised an obvious question: who was the target audience? The game was not fun and quickly landed in the discount bin.

Then there is Blackwater. The first warning sign sits right on the box art: the word "Kinect." This is an FPS that encourages you to play without a controller. Let that sink in. Few concepts age worse than that one.

Here is what ties these games together:

• Studios losing the original creative team and handing sequels to developers who missed the point
• Licensed properties coasting on name recognition with no substance underneath
• Remakes that actively removed what made the originals memorable
• Gimmicks that replaced gameplay instead of enhancing it

The market today is flooded with incredible shooters. Boomer shooters like Mouse: P.I. for Hire. Extraction games like ARC Raiders. The endless juggernaut of Counter-Strike 2. But terrible FPS games still lurk on digital storefronts and in used-game bins. The lesson is simple. A cool idea cannot save broken design. A famous name cannot patch over technical disaster. And no amount of nostalgia can make a bad game play well. Check the studio, check the history, and never trust a shooter that has the word Kinect on the box.

What You Can Actually Learn From These Failures

Every terrible FPS game on this list made at least one fatal mistake. Some lost their original developers mid-stream. Others chased trends that did not fit the source material. A few were never really games at all, just marketing exercises in disguise. The takeaway for anyone who plays shooters is straightforward. Look past the box art. Look past the franchise name. Find out who is actually making the game. That tells you more than any trailer ever will.

If you are hunting for your next FPS fix, here is what actually holds up:

• Stick with developers who have a proven track record in the genre
• Be skeptical of long-dormant franchises revived by new, untested studios
• Read past the marketing. A gimmick like drop-zone selection means nothing if the core shooting is broken
• When a game gets banned in multiple countries for violence, it is rarely because the gameplay was too good

Blackwater for Kinect exists. But the FPS genre's produced some of the greatest games ever made, and knowing the difference between those and Blackwater for Kinect is what separates a great weekend from a wasted one.