First Person Shooters With A High Skill Ceiling (2024)

First-Person Shooter games are the type of video game that you play either casually or competitively and the difference between the kind of game you play for those two different moods is vast. If you’re in it to master the game, enough to outshine almost anyone with your skills, then you have to put in a lot of time and effort.

Unfortunately, with high-skill games, you need to learn a lot, which means, as a new player, the barrier for entry is high enough to turn people off of the experience. But if you stick around and have fun with the different strategies and skills you master, these video games can be more fun than any other genre of video games.

Updated on May 3, 2024: We've added our video version of this list for you to check out, so you can decide which FPS you're going to be committing all your time to in order to learn the ropes.

7 Halo Infinite

Although from the outside, Halo Infinite doesn’t look like it takes that much skill to be good at, the skill requirement for ranks beyond silver climbs up fast. The thing with Halo is that it’s a bit different from modern FPS shooters that everyone is used to. The first thing to master when playing Halo is movement. You must think fast when peaking, because mindless shooting doesn’t get you that far ahead.

Understanding the mechanics is fundamental too, but even if you master everything, there’s still some RNG gun jamming and similar elements that you also have to predict when playing the game. The best players in Halo don’t just have a good aim, they have years of experience and skills that they’ve consistently polished.

6 Apex Legends

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A combination of smaller than average hitboxes, fast movement, and a high health pool means that out of all the battle royale games, Apex Legends is considered the hardest. You have to be consistent with your aim and learn the recoil for guns through constant practice. Besides aim and movement, there are many other factors, one of which is good game sense.

In Apex Legends, knowing when to attack another group is key and identifying points to defend all takes more skill than the average battle royale game. Just like Halo Infinite, movement is a skill that many people overlook but is essential in Apex and with so many things to keep in mind, it’s no surprise that people consider this game one of the highest skilled First-Person Shooters out there.

5 Valorant

In simple terms, Valorant is essentially a combination of the class system in Overwatch and the gun mechanics of Counter Strike and is a fairly recent game in the FPS genre. Valorant took the world by storm and that’s because it’s deceptively simple and fun. But as the player base increased, people learned that there is so much more to this game than just selecting a class and shooting enemies.

You have to have a deep knowledge of the maps and what characters perform best. Beyond that, practicing every agent is a must and is the only way to constantly evolve your skill. The element of teamwork and managing your resources at the start of every round is vital and is the difference between victory and defeat.

4 Rainbow Six Siege

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Rainbow Six Siege is one of the more widely recognized skill-based games because of some of its mechanics and gameplay. The standout mechanic is, of course, teamwork, which means you must carefully coordinate your actions with that of the team while communicating effectively and adapt to changing situations.

The intricacies of different operators and understanding how to utilize their abilities effectively is also crucial and requires a lot of time to be invested. There’s also the fact that you can breach walls, create lines of sight, and manipulate the environment to gain an advantage. Understanding how to leverage the destructibility of the environment requires skill and creativity that’s unheard of in most casual FPS games, for which Rainbow Six Siege deserves credit.

3 Rust

Rust is a first-person survival shooter game that requires a lot of time investment to get to the FPS part. You are stranded on an island with a bunch of other players and your goal is to survive the environment and other people while gathering resources and building a base. It’s tough, but once you graduate from bows to revolvers, the game shows just how difficult gun play is.

There’s a lot of recoil for good weapons and controlling it requires hours of practice. If you do manage to get a gun, you can just as easily lose it if someone with an Eoka sneaks up on you. Beyond just being cautious of your surroundings, there’s so much strategy involved with every move you make in combat, that you can easily overthink a situation and lose a fight.

2 Escape From Tarkov

Escape from Tarkov requires research before a new player can even begin to understand the goal of the game. There are so many ammo types and just as many points of interest on the map to find the specific loot that will give you an edge over who you’re competing with.

Most of the time, fighting with other players is strategic in that you pick your fights and find an advantage in your location instead of just relying on good aim. You have to spend a tremendous amount of time on Escape from Tarkov to even begin learning the game. That’s the only way to get better though, keep playing till you eventually memorize the map and are able to execute the best strategy for your extraction.

1 Counter Strike 2

Counter Strike has been a staple of the FPS genre since its inception and what started with a mod for Half Life grew into its own competitive shooter that is now one of the most played games on Steam. Counter Strike 2 is the latest addition to the CS family and, despite having the same maps and weapons as it’s predecessor, CS:GO, there’s still a lot to learn for new players. Most Counter Strike 2 players have been playing and polishing their skills for years.

Every new map has its own grenade line-up to learn, and every weapon has its own recoil pattern to understand. You have to calculate exactly what time to peak and slowly over time elevate your game sense, just to escape the bottom tier of players. The skill and aim as well as the knowledge of every other aspect makes Counter Strike 2 one of the highest-skill FPS shooters out there.