The multiplayer shooter space has become a bit crowded in recent years, in part thanks to the growing push for live-service games that last forever. There have been a few recent mega-flops too, with Concord from Sony performing so poorly the game got unreleased, and the company was forced to reconsider its live-service strategy. There have also been a few recent hits in the multiplayer shooter space, and there are always more games on the horizon for you to try out next. For this list, I have gathered four multiplayer shooters you can play right now, and one coming a bit later in 2025 that has the potential to be the next big hit.

5 Marvel Rivals

The new kid on the block

Marvel Rivals was released in December 2024 as a free-to-play shooter featuring characters from the Marvel Universe. Designed as an Overwatch 2 competitor, Marvel Rivals takes the hero shooter formula and a third-person camera view. But emulating hero shooters isn't what makes Marvel Rivals great. Yes, it has Marvel characters and a sleek art design, but it's also relatively simple in its take on hero shooters. It doesn't focus on esports, opting for no role queue, which means you can play any combination of tanks, DPS, and support heroes. This was a feature originally in Overwatch 2, before it shifted to a 5v5 instead of 6v6 format, and locked down players to their chosen roles. The post-launch support has been incredible too, with five new heroes added to the game since launch, with two heroes promised for each season moving forward.

4 Valorant

Counter-Strike for the youth

Valorant is another shooter that takes what has come before and improves upon it. Heavily inspired by Counter-Strike and Call of Duty search and destroy, Valorant takes the tactical shooter and mixes in some hero shooter elements. Those elements come from the Agents, who all have different abilities that they can use during a match. These abilities aren't as frequent as in other hero shooters, since Valorant is still a tactical twitch shooter. Rounds don't have respawns, tasking players with either defending two bomb sites or attempting to plant a bomb, although you can also win by taking out the entire enemy team. It can run on nearly any PC, and it came to Xbox and PlayStation in 2024, creating another free-to-play offering for everyone to enjoy. If you want a tactical experience and an intense ranked grind, Valorant is a perfect fit for you. If you prefer respawns, though, our next entry has you covered.

3 Overwatch 2

Despite what you may have heard, Overwatch is back

Overwatch 2 has been on a downward trend since the change was made from the original game to the sequel. Players were unhappy with 5v5 over 6v6, balancing that felt designed only for esports, and a lack of promised PvE content. While not everything has been fixed, the added pressure of Marvel Rivals eating the game's lunch has created a diamond. Overwatch 2 recently made a big change to the standard mode and added a new competitive mode that cribs elements from MOBA games. The standard Overwatch 2 experience now features perks, which you unlock a choice of two twice during a match, at level 2 and level 3. These are hero-specific, so it lets you tailor your hero to your play-style, and it discourages counter-swapping, a huge part of the Overwatch 2 meta.

Overwatch 2 also added Stadium, a competitive mode that features bite-sized rounds. In-between rounds, you get access to a shop where you can buy items or get special powers that drastically change how a hero is played. This mode adds a ton of variety, and it has a limited hero pool, making it a perfect introduction to Overwatch 2.

2 FragPunk

A new chaotic tactical shooter

FragPunk is a 2025 release and is another take on the tactical shooter. It has what you might expect: no respawns, round-based, and weapon buy screens between each round. But that ignores the big, unique element that makes FragPunk special. That unique element is the Shard Cards. Shard Cards are special cards that each round your team is presented with three of. You can buy them using points earned each round, and they create special effects for each round. Some simply increase magazine size, but they get wacky too. You can give the enemy big heads for easy headshots, create grass everywhere to hide in, turn into zombies on death, and so much more. These are present in competitive modes, creating a multiplayer match that does feel significantly different from match to match. It also has named characters, Lancers, who you play with pretty powerful abilities, creating a hybrid hero shooter tactical shooter vastly different from Valorant.

1 Marathon

Time to find out if extraction shooter is really a genre

Looking ahead to the future, Marathon, an extraction shooter made by Bungie, the developers of Destiny and Halo, launches on September 23, 2025. While the reactions to the closed test have been mixed, Bungie has an excellent track record when it comes to shooters, especially multiplayer ones. It's an extraction shooter, which means you drop onto a large map where both NPC enemies and real players are waiting for you. You have to battle it out, gather loot, and extract with it, death resulting in a loss of your stuff. This style of shooter was popularized by Escape From Tarkov, but there hasn't been another game to really break out in the genre. Marathon and other releases like Arc Raiders are looking to turn extraction shooters into a mainstream genre, but only time will tell if those games actually succeed. While we won't know if Marathon is any good until launch, it's hard not to be excited about the first non-Destiny game from Bungie in a decade.

Plenty of thriving multiplayer shooters to check out

There are tons of multiplayer shooters that still have thriving player bases, or have just been released and have a brand-new massive audience. Depending on whether you prefer shooters with respawns or not, you have tons of options in front of you, and there are more shooters releasing all the time. You won't know until you have your hands on them to know if they are any good, but there is no shortage of shooters to play.