The Best Free FPS Games For Single-Player Content

Key Takeaways

• Destiny 2
  offers free single-player content, with optional multiplayer.
• Team Fortress 2
  is multiplayer focused but has an offline mode with bots.
• Cube, Marathon Trilogy, Unreal,
  and
  No More Room In Hell
  provide free single-player FPS experiences.

There are a lot of free games out there right now. However, so many of them revolve around multiplayer content, whether that be competitive or cooperative. What about those who cannot buy new games whenever they come around but prefer to go solo and do not want to test their skills against other players?

The pickings are slim, forcing those players to wait around for a promotion where a single-player journey is free for a limited time. Fortunately, the games below all have some form of single-player content within them. They are all first-person shooters, but vary from each other, ensuring that gamers who go through these titles will not be bored.

Most of the games listed below have multiplayer as well, but gamers can play solo outside of competitve modes.

6 Destiny 2

A Lot Of Free-To-Play Content

• Where To Find: PC And Consoles (Free Everywhere)

For gamers looking for single-player FPS content at no cost, Destiny 2 is probably the best one can hope for. The series has a long history. The first game came out as a traditional release that people bought and played before expansions came along to beef it up. Destiny 2 launched in much the same way until developer Bungie broke off from publisher Activision, taking the Destiny property with them.

They then made Destiny 2 free-to-play, rendering physical copies completely useless. New expansions cost money to access right away, but there is also a rotating door of free content. While the game allows players to team up, most missions are perfectly doable solo. It is possible to experience multiple games’ worth of content without ever interacting with other players.

5 Team Fortress 2

Play Games With Bots

Team Fortress 2 came out as the multiplayer portion of Valve’s The Orange Box, a collection that also included Half-Life 2, its two episodes, and Portal. On PC, the game received regular updates, while the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions remained relatively unchanged. The PC version changed so much that it eventually became a free-to-play title.

The game is multiplayer-focused, but an offline mode is available that allows players to jump into a match with bots. With the multiple classes and radically different ways that each one plays, there is a lot of fun to be had just playing with bots if one is so inclined.

Keep an eye out on Steam, since Valve sometimes offers
Half-Life
and its sequel for free.
Half-Life 2
and its two episodes were completely free for several days in commemoration of the game’s 20th anniversary in 2024.

4 Cube

Free Retro Shooter With A Single-Player Mode

• Developer: Wouter van Oortmerssen
• Release: 2001
• Platforms: PC
• Where To Get: Open-Source

Releasing parts of a game for free has been a strategy for a while. Doom and Wolfenstein were released on a sharware model. Cube goes a step further and is completely free. The engine on which the game is made is also free for people to download and make games and levels for.

Such a format seems ripe for endless multiplayer gaming, but Cube launched with a single-player mode, and plenty of additional single-player content exists for it as well. Coming out in 2001, Cube is perfect for anybody waxing nostalgic for that era of first-person shooters.

Cube 2
came out in 2004, and its release model is similar. It, too, has spawned a plethora of user-created content in addition to other games made on the engine.

3 Marathon Trilogy

A Classic Bungie FPS Trilogy All For Free

• Where To Find: Steam
• Developer: Bungie
• Publisher: Bungie
• Release: 1994 to 1996
• Platforms: PC

Long before Destiny and even Halo, developer Bungie made a name for themselves with the Marathon games. It’s easy to see a lot of similarities between it and Halo. These are very much games of their time, however, so do not expect to explore large, open areas like the ones that wowed players when Halo: Combat Evolved launched alongside the Xbox.

All the same, they are perfectly competent first-person shooters that hold up today in their own special way. Best of all, the whole trilogy is free and easy to find. The games had renowned multiplayer modes that are included in the trilogy release, but even without them, the single-player content is more than enough to keep people satisfied.

2 Unreal

The Start Of Gaming’s Most Legendary Engine

• Where To Find: Internet Archive
• Developer: Epic
• Publisher: GT Interactive
• Release: May 22, 1998
• Platforms: PC

It is hard to describe how mind-blowing the Unreal Engine was back when it was first showcased. Games run on Unreal Engine 5 now, so for modern gamers, the first iteration is nothing special. Still, consider what the average PC game looked like at the time and then imagine seeing Unreal in magazines for the first time.

While the graphics might not blow anyone away today, it is at least nice that this piece of gaming history has been made completely free to download and play. It is accessible through the Internet Archive, and developer Epic Games has given the go-ahead for it to be preserved and distributed through this method.

1 No More Room In Hell

Zombie-Survival On The Source Engine, But It Is Not Left 4 Dead

Who doesn’t love a good zombie survival game? Valve crafted the fast-paced Left 4 Dead series, but that did not stop other developers from making their own zombie game as a Half-Life 2 mod. No More Room In Hell is the antithesis of Left 4 Dead.

It is slower, more intense, and designed to really make players work and hone their skills to survive. The standalone title is still completely free. Players can play either with friends or solo. Playing solo makes certain maps a lot harder, but with a little planning and tact, it is a perfectly viable way to play.