I’m looking for recommendations for WWII single player fps games for the pc. In particular, I’m looking for older games from the 90s to early 2000s. I always hear how the market used to be over saturated with these games, but after playing through the early Call of Duties and Medals of Honor, I don’t know of any games that would scratch that itch. I’ve heard of Brothers in Arms, but it looks too focused on squad management to me. I’ve also tried looking at older shooters not set in WWII, but the main thing I miss is the openness of them? I guess I don’t like how most other games look like they’ll have walking in closed corridors all the time, but if you have any suggestions for any other “open” games, I’d be interested as well. Also, if you know of any total conversion mods for the games I mentioned, or a Doom wad that would fit the criteria, let me know as well. Thanks
I’d just throw out that my recollection is that it was really more of a mid-to-late 2000’s thing for the oversaturation of WW2 games, if you’re willing to move your window forward a bit. That and there weren’t nearly as many games being released at that time period, so it didn’t take much to saturate the market; there were roughly 1/50th the number of releases in 2008 as today (https://www.statista.com/statistics/552623/number-games-released-steam/ using steam releases as a rough approximation of total).
In terms of specific games, I don’t have any that aren’t already mentioned elsewhere. The Battlefield, Band of Brothers, and Call of Duty recurring releases are really the big ones. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_video_games has a good list if you want to browse more.
Honestly, try Battlefield 1942 on single player. It’s not half bad - the AI is about as smart as you would expect, but it’s still fun to fight them. Also, the multiplayer is still going if you wanna try that!
Also, not WW2, but I HIGHLY recommend giving Vietcong a try (both the base game and Fist Alpha). It’s one of the most engrossing games I’ve ever played. If you can get past the derpy (by today’s standards) character models, this game has a seriously compelling campaign and there are still occasional multiplayer matches. If there was ever a game to make the Vietcong and NVA scary as fuck, it’s that one.
Oh, I almost forgot - Hidden and Dangerous and Hidden and Dangerous 2 are also great. They’re very similar to Arma (but released before Arma afaik, and have smaller maps). Pretty solid, but I do feel that the controls have not aged well at all (for example, they use the “end” key to aim down sights by default). They are overall pretty enjoyable, but to be honest, nostalgia aside, you aren’t missing a ton if you don’t play them. There are a lot of rough edges, such as grenades not killing enemies that are close because a chair leg was in the way.
If you’re gonna play any of the games I recommend, I would say play Vietcong and give it a real shot. The game starts slow but by the 3rd mission it gets intense
Hidden and Dangerous was made free to promote the second game. It’s interesting, but it was already extremely outdated and clunky by the time the sequel came out in 2003. I can’t imagine time having been kind to it in the 21 years since. AI in particular is horrid in both games in the series, to the point of sabotaging much of the enjoyment one might have otherwise gotten out of these.
Yeah, you’ve really hit it right on the money. I grew up with H&D 2 and it really did have awful AI. The graphics also aren’t doing it any favors in 2024 - it was mildly ugly even by 2003 standards, in my opinion. Still, it had some very imaginative levels and overall the vibes are right for a tactical WW2 shooter. Also, the multiplayer is (somehow) still going!
The graphics I actually really liked, because of how similar they looked to Mafia, which ran on the same engine and shared a number of assets with it, including textures and animations.
I had no idea the multiplayer was still going. Are you still playing the game? Got any favorite mods or other tips for someone who might have an interest in trying this game again? For all of its faults, I’m tempted to give it another go.
I still play once in a blue moon, but only the tiniest amount haha. I’d say you should check out the subreddit for Discord links - there’s a “Royal Para Regiment” Discord with quite a few people that seems to be very active
Alright, thanks for the info!
Would Wolfenstein 3d count? :)
That was my first thought as well!
Though OP might prefer Return to Castle Wolfenstein.
I used to play Day of Defeat, but that’s more like a Counterstrike where there isn’t really an offline component. I don’t even know if there are servers still up, but I’d imagine there are.
There are definitely still servers for Day of Defeat’s spiritual successor, Day of Infamy
Brothers in Arms is fantastic and squad management is not a very intrusive part of it at all.
As for the saturation it wasn’t just FPS, it was that every genre (well, baring racing I guess, but there every game was heavily “Fast & Furious” inspired) had more than one WWII game, it was ridiculous…
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i remember playing Call of Duty after MoH:AA and being blown away by the graphics. i didn’t like any of the Modern Warfare stuff
waaaay out of the timeframe you have specified (it is a 2020 game that is still actively updated) but still with the same vibes, I’d check out Easy Red 2, as it scratches that specific itch of a WW2 shooter with scale. It is maybe too open at times for my taste but it is one of the very few modern games covering that niche. It does have optional squad management gameplay elements but you can ignore those in favor of playing a simple soldier, and the AI will do those jobs for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ziR73NhHjYIn the vein of multiplayer games with singleplay bot matches like Battlefield 1942 being mentioned, try the standalone mod for for Battlefield 2 called Forgotten Hope 2. Many maps have single player bot support (by launching coop server on your lan). Battlgroup 42 mod for bf1942 has a tons of singleplayer maps too. You can also get bots via third party plugins for the og Day of Defeat (sturmbot or shrikebot) and as mentioned Day of Infamy has built-in bot support. Worth mentioning are the Arma 3 WW2 mods and dlc.
Definitely throw in my hat for Hidden and Dangerous 2. It has by the the most varied environments of any shooter I’ve played. Everything from icebergs, pacific jungles, forests, fjords, deserts, mountains, no man’s lands, and more.
As a kid I liked the original Deadly Dozen, but I’ve tried replaying it about 10 years ago, and realized that the only reason it ever worked was because of save-scumming.
I’m a big fan of the sniper elite series, but they may be a bit newer than what you are looking for.
