Best Boomer Shooters & retro-inspired FPS games: Turbo Overkill, HROT & more

The retro-inspired “boomer shooter” and other adjacent first-person-shooter games are some of the most exciting things to be happening in the genre right now. Here are our favorite boomer shooters.

Whether a straight-up clone of games of old, or pushing the genre into new territories, there’s nothing more exciting in first-person-shooters (FPS) than the boomer shooter. These games harken back to older titles like DOOM, Quake, and Duke Nukem, rather than pulling from modern titles like Call of Duty.

They’re often doing intriguing things with the genre that big studios just won’t even contemplate. It’s one thing to be inspired by the past, but a lot of these are taking it and running in a new, thrilling direction. That, or they’re just making a good “one of those”.

Here are the best Boomer Shooters, old and new, for you to check out in 2024.

Turbo Overkill

One of the newer boomer shooters on the market, this takes inspiration from games like Quake and Duke Nukem. It has an overt attitude, with a lot of flipping the bird and juvenile humor, but it drips style while doing it. This leaks all the way through to how the game is played too.

Turbo Overkill wants you to feel like an angry, hateful, and metal-filled god while shooting. Enemies explode into ludicrous gibs, while you’ll find yourself already moving onto the next batch to the meat grinder.

This is a game that has a minigun that upgrades into a flamethrower. The pistol has that neat target system from Titanfall 2. There’s a rocket launcher that does no splash damage so you’re never discouraged from using it. Once Turbo Overkill pushes the pedal down, it never lets it go.

It also dips into old-school 3D platforming, and while it is usually eye-rolling, Turbo Overkill’s super tight movement makes it a doddle.

Duke Nukem 3D

From modernity to 1996, a brave new world entered the FPS space. A character with a personality. It might be one-dimensional, but boy did it spark an entire ripple through everything.

Duke Nukem 3D is still a fantastic shooter. It’s managed to endure its overshadowed legacy by simply being so good. From the encounters in the blocky streets of L.A. to the moon-faring fights in space, it’s still one we fully recommend.

However, if you are going to play Duke Nukem 3D, it’s best to use something like eDuke32. This source port allows for some modern comforts to the old game. It’ll also probably fix Duke Nukem 3D: World Tour’s issues.

There are a couple of ways to get Duke Nukem 3D, one through Gearbox’s most recent release of the game, which comes with a new Episode 5. The 20th Anniversary World Tour is the easiest one to play out of the box, but it has issues. Fans recommend playing it through eDuke32, but you’ll also miss out on some of the expansions.

Zoom Platform actually still sells the now-delisted Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition for $5.99. This includes the expansions and a community pack of maps.

Post-Void

While more inspired by the old-school (namely Wolfenstein 3D), rather than a direct ‘boomer shooter’, Post-Void is a nightmare.

You have seconds left to live and the only way to survive is to kill. Post-Void is built on corridors and low ceilings like the aforementioned Wolfenstein 3D, rather than ultra-fast-paced arenas.

However, the entire game is a visual assault and an extended session made me feel ill. I’d recommend it, it’s cheap on Steam.

DUSK

Directly inspired by Quake, DUSK wouldn’t be out of place in 1999. It’s fast-paced, slathered in this grotesque horror style. Tonnes of deep browns, grotty hallways, and it’s immaculately put together.

Made by a single person, DUSK is this intricately built game that rarely drops in a consistent pure gold quality. It perfectly recreates that feeling of the ups of dominating a level and the downs of reloading into an unwinnable situation. But DUSK never feels frustrating. It’s revitalizing in a way. Succeeding against the hoard, it’s an unmatched feeling.

Warhammer 40K: Boltgun

Taking Warhammer 40K’s most iconic thing, the space marine, and letting you go at 60MPH invokes a fear. This heavy, hulking brute can casually move at speeds comparable to a car, while also obliterating everything in its path. Imagine it.

Anyway, Boltgun makes this a reality. It’s an excellent time, dripping with a deliberate 90s aesthetic and filled with arenas to eliminate. It offers a decent challenge too on higher difficulties.

HROT

A gloomy, Soviet-era-themed game, HROT is built on an entirely custom engine. It’s a bleak shooter, with haunting visuals as you explore the grim world it forces you through.

Its horror is balanced out with twitchy traditional boomer shooter goodness. HROT feels a lot like the original Quake, with a speedy weightiness as you lurk through metros and urban blocks. It’s quick to kill you, but even faster to provide you ammo to even the odds.

Half-Life

How can a list of retro shooters not include Half-Life? The game that completely changed the game. Revolutionary titles like Quake 2 paled in comparison to what Half-Life cooked up.

It’s filled with incredible action sequences, including fantastic shootouts with armies and figuring out the best way to blast your way through aliens.

It recently received an update, and is much easier to run on modern machines.

Black Mesa

If Half-Life is the action behemoth that changed the game, Black Mesa is its horror reimagining. Grounding the game in a darkly parallel reality, Black Mesa recreates the facility in a new light. Still retaining all the action set pieces, it’s a totally different ball game.

It also reimagines the entire ending sequence on the alien world Xen. That means they made it less insufferable than the original’s nightmarish browns and beige islands.

Half-Life 2, Episodes 1 & 2

You can’t stop there though. If you’ve never played Half-Life before, be sure to play the 2004 sequel and its subsequent episodes. It doesn’t matter how new you are, or how well you know about the devastating cliffhanger in Episode 2, it will feel like a gut punch.

Half-Life 2 takes the original boomer shooter attitude of the first game but streamlines it to make the action harder-hitting and much faster. Episode 1 features one of the best Half-Life tracks of all time, as well as an incredible close-quarters shoot-out with the menacing Combine.

Meanwhile, Episode 2 is a far more open and brief glimpse of what the future of Half-Life could have been. It’s fantastic, with its short 5-hour playtime packed with a variety of things to explore and do.

DOOM (2016)

Did you think I was going to include just regular DOOM and DOOM 2 on this list? We already know they’re great boomer shooters. DOOM 2016 needs more respect around these parts.

A total asteroid in the desolate wastes of the summer of 2016, still rocks. It rips straight through all the lore the characters try to set up while offering some of the best-controlled chaos and reviving the legendary series back to its former glory.

It’s hilarious, genuinely thrilling, and has an absolute ripper of a soundtrack.

F.E.A.R

Bringing slow motion to a gunfight might seem unfair, but F.E.A.R. does not care for you. You’re a squishy meat bag being haunted by an evil child. Without it, the quick save is your best friend. F.E.A.R expertly blends its new wave of smart enemies and raging difficulty with the classic boomer shooter staples of a shotgun that cuts through anything.

There’s a delight in being spooked and immediately having to regain your composure for an ambush by your foes. It’s another unique entry in the pantheon of boomer shooters.

Rise of the Triad

Wolfenstein might have been the launch pad for DOOM and more, an accidental launchee was Rise of the Triad. Rather than chasing after DOOM, Rise of the Triad went back to the Wolfenstein well of taking down those pesky Nazis.

Rise of the Triad doesn’t even try to askew to the normal. It immediately throws you into a world of magic, jump pads, and being turned into a dog.

It builds itself up, but once Rise of the Triad gets going, it’s an unmatched experience of early, unbridled energy.

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