Normally when you’re playing an FPS game, the choice to pull the trigger and initiate combat isn’t a choice at all. Half-Life. Doom Eternal. You’re waiting for the chance to use your guns – it’s all about wading into the crossfire. Dagger Directive is completely different. Visually, it’s reminiscent of shooters from the early ‘00s or even the ‘90s. Mechanically, its inspirations are similarly vintage, the elder Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six games, and milsim series including Arma and Operation Flashpoint. But Dagger Directive has more to offer than mere homage. One of the most exciting new FPS games, you can try it now.
You’re a lone operative working for the eponymous Task Force Dagger. Across three campaigns, your missions include infiltration, sabotage, and assassination. It starts on board the Poseidon, a battleship and aircraft carrier that serves as your base. You choose a mission, select a time of day to make your ingress, then customize your loadout in the extensive armory. Night-vision googles are useful, but you can’t use them while looking down a scope. Silenced weapons will help maintain stealth, but suppressors lessen the velocity and impact of your rounds. Every gun in Dagger Directive feels wonderfully tactile. If you’re aiming through a telescopic sight, you can turn the dial on the side to compensate for distance, while frag grenades will create hundreds of chunks of shrapnel. It’s an FPS game where the devil is in the details.
Available in the demo, the first mission tasks you with destroying two weapon caches hidden inside enemy outposts. The map is open ended – after stepping off the chopper, you’re free to attack your objectives however you like. But the pressure is high. Attack from range, and enemies will work towards you, deploying smoke grenades for cover and advancing in pairs. Get in close and you’re almost certain to wind up dead. You can drop targets with a single bullet – but a single bullet is all it takes to kill you, too. Every time you think about leaving cover or firing your weapon, you first need to calculate the odds.
Published by resurgent PC legend MicroProse and developed by Arcane Alpacas, right now Dagger Directive feels like one of 2025’s most promising shooters. It’s influenced by milsims gone by, but it’s more reactive and modern – combined with the authentic weapon sounds and bullet physics, the way that enemies respond to you makes it feel closer to ‘real’ than a lot of its contemporaries. We don’t have a full release date yet, but if you want to try Dagger Directive today, you can get the demo right here.
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