I want to play an easy shooter where you feel like you’re in a flow state aiming at targets, the only time I’ve ever felt like that was in the PS2 Medal of Honour, kneecap, helmet shot, head shot or up till MW4 original.
I’ve tried the latest CoD and the cinematics and cutscenes are just overblown.
Borderlands would be a kind of turn off your brain type but they haven’t made a new game in awhile.
Helldiver had great shooting but the grind, limited levels and multiplayer means I wasn’t too invested in it after a hard days work
Vermintide 1 is a top notch flow state game where your mind can melt while you dodge-dance and kill with fluidity. Highly recommend. Very chill.
Doom 1 and, to some extent, 2. Honestly.
I know exactly what you are looking for and the classic Doom games are perfect for this, because they are simple, yet they still feel good to play.
Not too fast, not too slow. No jump scares, only some light puzzles if you want to hunt secrets. There is almost a rhythm to the combat, especially if you play with the shotgun. Try them.
To add over it Quake 1 and 2 are also perfect complementaries to DOOM
No cutscenes, just throw you into the game and let you go wild, while still having a progression
2016 too. I wouldn’t call it “cozy” though.
I’d say Eternal actually fits the bill more. Once you get all the mechanics down every encounter becomes this deadly ballet of high speed chess where you really can enter a flow state of just reacting and acting.
2016 can be like that but it’s a little bit more forgiving, funnily enough managing to keep your brain more in the foreground.
Depending on your definition of cozy 2016 could win, because it is not as taxing as Eternal. At least I could manage 2016 much better than Eternal with my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. But if you manage to stick with Eternal I think it’s more conducive to get you into a meditative state.
See also: Chex Quest
Borderlands is like that. You can even tune the difficulty in 3 and Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands
I don’t play actual shooter myself, however, both Pokemon Snap games fit your description - might be worth a shot.
Gunfire Reborn does that for me, even though I have to play with a controller. Roboquest looks like it’s kind-of between Gunfire Reborn and Borderlands, but I haven’t tried it yet.
Roboquest is much closer to Gunfire Reborn than Borderlands.
Can confirm, Roboquest puts you into a flow state. Pretty high speed
I’ve been enjoying the flow state I get into while playing Space Marine II. It is a mix of melee and shooting, but the melee aspect is very simple - no memorizing combos and the timing of parries is fairly forgiving. It’s all very satisfying once you get the feel for it. Cinematics are skippable, you can change the difficulty level to your liking, and you can set your lobbies to private if you don’t wanna play with others
Well, as others have noted I think “cozy” is probably a loaded term in this context. However, I will throw these recommendations into the ring also: The first couple of Serious Sam games, and also Painkiller. Both of them are firmly in the “murdering tons of dudes” genre, and are significantly less tactical than the likes of Medal of Honor/Call of Duty/Battlefield.
That is to say, not at all.
There is none of that sucking your thumb to regenerate health, popping out from the chest-high walls inexplicably strewn everywhere taking potshots with your gun like a hillbilly jack-in-the-box. Rather, their gameplay loop involves herding and managing a massive horde of enemies, prioritizing your targets, and keeping yourself moving. Like a sheep dog with a chaingun.
People try to call the original Doom games a horde shooter. They really aren’t. These two, however, definitely are.
You’ve convinced me to finally play Serious Sam. I’ve had it on Steam for years.
It can be charitably described as above, and uncharitably described as “Hold down S and LMB for an hour at a time”. I kind of bounced off these. They aren’t bad games, in fact they were pretty popular but most of your gameplay loop is going to revolve around getting the attention of a horde of goons and then backpedaling while you whittle the group down from 80 dudes to none.
also, just noticed your username. Cool Eragon reference, took me a second to remember that it meant “dragon” in the elven language.
I mean, I played several other horde shooters. Firing continually while backpedaling is the most vintage of infantry tactics, after all. I get that these games are old and simpler, but their base gameplay must still be fun if they were so popular back in the day. I’ll at least give it a shot, since I already have them anyway…
Ravenfield with some mods on Workshop maybe? Or Operation Harshdoorstop with some Workshop.
Is slime rancher technically a shooter game?
Is Portal technically a shooter game?
It has a gun that makes holes.
All guns make holes.
A caulk gun fills holes.
It’s a farming sim. You’re just farming with a gun
but are you shooting the gun? if yes then it might fit the bill
Well it’s not bullets but you do shoot objects/creatures out of it
Gun/vacuum *
If your looking for a shooter with a flow state, give Neon White a look. It’s a FPS platformer where you pick up gun cards and you choose if you want to use the card as a gun to shoot demons, or throw it away for a movement ability (double jump, dash, etc.) as you try to get to the end of the level as fast as possible.
If the platforming and racing doesn’t sound like it’s for you, I saw someone else brought up Ultrakill and I wanted to recommend that as well
Neon White was my suggestion as well. Ultrakill is fun but is going for a more Devil May Cry style game where score and style matter significantly.
Neon White i found a little confusing at first until I got the feel of it. Its a movement puzzle game, with some shooting. Precision and repetition are key to learning the levels and beating them quickly, and once you get into its groove, time flies by. For being a time-challenge game, I find it surprisingly relaxing and forgiving.
Can’t believe I had to scroll down this far to find Neon White but I’m glad someone mentioned it! It is pretty much the flow state shooter, should be perfect for OP.
I miss No One Lives Forever.
Yeah, it really needs a Revival.
Wait a minute… There is a remake? Who is it by?
No remake. No One Lives Forever Revival is a site offering it for download with patches for Windows 10 and Widescreen.
Ohhh, Ok, thanks for letting me know!
Really not sure how to interpret ‘cozy’ here, but tbh the Farcry series are great for me in that they’re my casual shooters. I say this meaning that I do the shooting when I want to do the shooting – otherwise I’m off paragliding or picking flowers or something else low stress and soothing. To me, in that regard, they’re very cozy.
I’m now imagining something like a gardening game where you shoot seeds/water/fertilizer into the dirt or something… or an Animal Crossing game where you fire furniture out of a gun for the animals to collect…
In that vein, maybe Power Washing Simulator?
Smash Out has that aesthetic, although it can get infuriating. I also second the recommendation of Ravenfield.
Deep Rock Galactic, play solo on the lower difficulties and just vibe and mine. Bosco the robot that follows you on solo missions can kill pretty much everything for you most of the time, or you can have it do the mining and tasks while you shoot everything in sight.
Rock and stone!
