When it comes to first-person shooters, there aren't nearly as many options on Nintendo Switch as you might find on other consoles. That doesn't mean there aren't any excellent options, though. From free to play team-based shooters, to shooting through Nazis in an alternate timeline, there are some awesome games for you to check out. Of course, the best of the best is definitely Doom. This game brings you fast-paced combat, a fun campaign, and great graphics to boot.
Best Overall: Doom
Whoever was in charge of this research facility on Mars should be fired. That is if they haven't been ripped apart by the demons they released from hell in their search for new energy sources. With monsters overrunning the planet, you'll have to shoot, chainsaw, and rip your way through demons to survive. With access to shotguns, pistols, and a chainsaw, this is a game that revels in its violence.
Running and gunning is the only real way to survive everything Mars is throwing at you. You'll need to shoot your way through the waves of demons chasing you. This is a task that becomes a whole lot more difficult once you realize you'll never have enough ammo to do it. To survive, you'll need to snag boosts, ammo, and health packs as you run and gun. One of the few flaws of gameplay is the mechanic that keeps you in a room until you've managed to kill every demon inside of it.
Overall, Doom delivers a stellar experience that any fan of first-person shooters will love. You have access to great shooting mechanics, immersive graphics, and a fantastic campaign. While there are a few frustrating aspects of gameplay, it's quickly overshadowed by gameplay that is fun and fast-paced. Altogether it delivers the absolute best experience on Nintendo Switch.
Best Value: Paladins
Some of the most fun you can have with a first-person shooter is teaming up with friends to shoot through enemies. The battle royale model has gotten more popular than ever, and Paladins: Champions of the Realm shows precisely how much fun a game can be while staying absolutely free. With 16 maps, over 30 characters, and tons of in-depth gameplay that you won't find anywhere else, this is a game that should appeal to anybody who loves the genre.
Paladins works off of a system you've seen before. Two teams gang up on each other while trying to complete specific objectives. There are four classes of characters: Frontline, Support, Damage, and Flank. Each has its benefits and abilities. Additionally, there is a card-based system that lets you customize your character, which means the way you play someone won't necessarily be the same way your bestie does. Since this is a free to play game, there are some occasional issues with graphical stutters and small bugs, but overall it's a wickedly fun shooter that appeals to gamers whether they've been playing for years or are just getting started.
Best Sequel: Wolfenstein II: New Colossus
What would the world look like if the Third Reich won WWII and turned the world into a Nazi-run nightmare? Wolfenstein II: New Colossus drops you into the 1960s of this world as a member of the rebellion where your job is to kill the Nazis. Welcome to a world where New York is a ruined city, and New Orleans has become a walled up ghetto. With a backdrop that uses locations Americans know and love, the world comes alive in terrifying details, making it a compelling aspect of gameplay.
Of course, the main mechanics of gameplay are shooting through all of the Nazis that have taken over your country. You can dual-wield weapons with plenty of variety and customization options. You're free to mix and match machine guns, pistols, and even shotguns. Each weapon has different customization options and upgrades. If you prefer a quieter method, there are also stealth mechanics that let you pick off officers one at a time as you sneak around.
Best Co-Op: Payday 2
Have you ever wanted to rob a bank, but without the pesky breaking the law and going to jail for the rest of your natural life issues? Then you might want to check out Payday 2, a co-op heist experience making it's introduction on Nintendo Switch. While the original game released way back in 2013, you can now team up with your friends and rob that bank.
Payday 2 works off a pretty simple premise: complete a job and then get paid for it. Completing the task, however, gets a bit pesky. Payday 2 is built to be played co-op with up to three other players, and while you can play alone with the AI taking the place of your partners, it doesn't work very well. You also run into some Switch specific issues since there is no voice chat to communicate. With that said, what Payday 2 is here for, it does well. You'll still be able to pick heists off of Crime.net and choose between simple jewelry thefts or multiple location heists that take serious planning to pull off. Likewise, once you complete a job, you'll get paid which lets you buy new weapons and equipment to get ready for the next job.
Best Puzzle: Chromagun
Not all first-person shooters arm you with a gun filled with bullets meant to kill the enemy. Some of them give you a gun loaded with paint and dozens of different puzzles that will require some quick thinking and a basic grasp of color theory to complete. Meet the tricky puzzle shooter Chromagun.
You start the game with a shooter loaded up with three colors: red, blue and yellow. Using those colors, you'll paint walls and robots to solve physics-based puzzles, and while things start pretty simple, they don't stay that way. You'll quickly be dealing with harder challenges that require multiple steps, colors mixing to double the number of colors present in puzzles and droids that don't take kindly to being soaked with the wrong color. It all blends to deliver a fun FPS experience that pushes the boundaries of the genre for the better.
Most Anticipated: Wolfenstein: YoungBlood
Return to a world where Nazi forces won the second world war and spread their inhumanity to the far reaches of the Globe with Wolfenstein: YoungBlood. You play as the twin daughters of BJ Blazkowicz, the protagonist of Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus. It's been 19 years since dear old dad kicked off the second American Revolution, but things aren't as easy as they were the first go-round.
This time you'll be dropped into an alternate 1980s, and it isn't America where you'll be playing. Instead, you are in Paris as you search for your father, dodging Nazis as you do it. A co-op experience, you can play with a friend or have your twin sister played by an AI if you prefer a solo experience. You'll have access to new guns, skills, power armor, and all the training you got from dear old Dad. You'll need all the help you can get too, after all rescuing your father from Nazi clutches isn't going to be a cakewalk.
Wolfenstein: Youngblood releases on July 27, 2019.
Bottom line
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Every game on our list delivers a top tier first-person shooting experience on Nintendo Switch. With the variety in the types of games, there is an option here that anyone can love. While every entry here is fantastic, the absolute best first-person shooter is Doom. This game delivers an experience that gives you everything the genre is known. It has fast-paced shooting mechanics, a fun campaign, great graphics and plenty of monsters to shoot your way through. All together it delivers a stellar experience on Nintendo Switch.
Credits — The team that worked on this guide
Jen Karner has been a gamer for more than twenty years and has spent countless hours shooting through enemies whether they're Nazi scum or demons from another dimension. You can follow her on Twitter
