Welcome to the FPS vibe shift

The FPS is once again in transition. It's a change that's been percolating for a while, but 2025 was the year a number of developing trends in PC gaming's favorite genre finally boiled over.

The time of extreme skill ceilings and the pursuit of metallic ranks defining every new multiplayer FPS is behind us. The escalation of gaudy, overpriced cosmetics created a distaste so palpable that Call of Duty had to desperately change its game plan. The two biggest shooters this year cost money, and there were no major free-to-play releases. The theme of this new era, as I see it developing so far, is remembering that shooters can be both casual and thrilling. High fun, low emotional investment.

An old guard of life-consuming live-service games remains a vibrant and popular part of this genre, but they're once again sharing the space with—and even adopting the attributes of—a more casual breed. Games that don't mind if you only play them once in a while. Games that let you make your own fun, encourage cooperation, or earn our respect by not bombarding us with ads.

Welcome to the FPS vibe shift. Here's how it happened:

Vibe shift: The biggest FPS of the year was Battlefield

I don't think any single event encompasses the changing attitudes of FPS fans more than the triumphant release of Battlefield 6, a game about large-scale chaos featuring zero ranked modes. The series that hasn't been truly relevant for nearly a decade came out swinging with guns, maps, and modes that appealed to the skillful yet unserious fun that the FPS genre once produced like every other week.

Flashback to 2018—the year Battlefield 5 released to indifference amidst the battle royale boom and continued dominance of hero shooters—and it's wild to watch sentiments swing back the other direction.

Battlefield Studios deserves plenty of credit for BF6's enhancements on the series, but I'd argue the appetite for Battlefield comes down to people burning out on the competitive games they've been playing for years and gloming onto something more casual and immediately rewarding. That, and a bunch of Call of Duty fans jumped on board, culminating in the best-selling FPS of the year.

Vibe shift: Arc Raiders won people over with wholesome interactions

Arc Raiders is not a first-person shooter, of course, but its unexpected popularity was more evidence of a vibe shift. Arc Raiders' slick shooting, surprising enemy AI, and fantastic maps make it good, but its unexpectedly wholesome community make it great.

The ways Embark tweaked the incentives of the Tarkov-style extraction shooter to make PvP truly optional and cooperation often preferable is a milestone for the subgenre, capturing the magic of early DayZ with slightly less potential for sociopathic fantasy. You can play it like an all-or-nothing deathmatch if you want, but honestly, that makes you the most boring person in the room. Instead, folks showed up by the millions for strange social interactions, pleasant exchanges, heartbreaking betrayals, and if you're me, roleplaying a medic. It is, in essence, the accessible extraction shooter, and also the best of its kind.

Vibe shift: People finally turned on bad cosmetics

Battlefield 6 was at the center of another big FPS development of the year: people finally got sick of terrible, overpriced cosmetics making every game super ugly. The boiling point happened in the summer, when a one-two punch of Beavis and Butthead and American Dad partnerships flooded Call of Duty with cel-shaded slop that underlined how detached the series had become from its military shooter identity.

The backlash was loud, and EA jumped on the opportunity to announce that Battlefield 6 was committed to "grounded" skins—though the shaky boundaries of that promise has since caused its own smaller kerfuffle. Battlefield 6 gained goodwill, and Activision saw where the wind was blowing: weeks later, it announced that Black Ops 7 wouldn't carry forward skins from past games and only feature cosmetics that "fit the world of Black Ops."

It was another sign that, at least in this corner of the hobby, people are recognizing how the profit-hungry habits of the live-service model can compromise a game's core qualities, like how it looks. A proper vibe shift.

Vibe shift: Competitive shooters added more variety, less sweat

This pendulum has been swinging for years now, but it sped up in 2025. FPSes that were once defined by their competitive scenes or notoriously high skill ceilings are broadening their horizons in an effort to attract a less sweaty audience:

• The Finals, which launched only with its complex 3v3v3 Cashout mode, debuted a casual 8v8 mode this month that's basically Battlefield Rush
• Rainbow Six Siege celebrated its 10-year anniversary by debuting a new primary mode with respawns and relaxed team rules
• Splitgate 2 un-launched out of beta, stripped out all the hero abilities and esports-y modes, and reemerged with classic arena shooter playlists
• Overwatch 2 debuted Stadium, a new main mode that injects chaotic, overpowered hero upgrades and entirely new abilities into its old format.

Vibe shift: Purely co-op shooters are going strong

I consider it a tremendous sign of health for the genre that purely co-op shooters are thriving. Folks are still playing Helldivers 2, last year's GOTY (in my heart), every day. It's not nearly as popular as it once was, but that's just fine, because folks show up for big updates and support the game if it's still great (which it is).

The same goes for Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, which got new classes and significant quality-of-life updates in 2024 and 2025, and Deep Rock Galactic, which remains a perennial friend group game ahead of its roguelike spinoff coming next year. Also, did you know tens of thousands of people still play Left 4 Dead 2 every day? Goes to show that if you make a truly great, replayable co-op shooter, you've got fans for life.

Vibe shift: People gladly paid for good, complete shooters

What do Battlefield 6, Arc Raiders, Helldivers 2, and Black Ops 7 have in common? None of them are free-to-play. 2025 was further proof that people will pay for great multiplayer shooters if they believe they're getting a "complete" product. It sounds obvious, but it's a standard that eroded at the height of free-to-play. We got used to games that debut with minimal content, but maximum microtransactions.

2025 gave us a bit of the opposite: Shooters that feel good and complete and valuable from day one. More of that please.