First-person shooters are some of the most action-packed and thrilling games on the market. Some offer the ability to fly through space or live through history as players battle Nazis and topple the German regime. These games have changed through time and have had new mechanics in them that players have argued for and against.
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Some of these first-person shooter mechanics are so bad that they were removed from the genre due to criticism from fans. Here’s hoping these mechanics never get put back into upcoming shooters.
Updated July 18, 2025, by Ritwik Mitra:FPS games became all the rage during the classic era of PC gaming and have become one of the most common genres that studios experiment in. The perspective allows for a ton of immersion as players use their great aiming skills to take down enemies, while also interacting with a bunch of other mechanics in these games. After all, FPS gaming has evolved for better or worse, with some of its aspects being highly annoying for most.
15Cover Shooting
Cover shooting is a mechanic that most people are split down the line about. Some people find it to be a nice tactical change to the gameplay, while others find it tedious and hamfisted.
Thankfully, cover shooting hasn’t presented itself in each and every FPS game around. However, the ones that do use it make it a critical mechanic, which can get slightly irritating after a point.
14Hamfisted Stealth Mechanics
Some first-person shooter games have started shoehorning stealth into their gameplay. While this initially gives the idea that the game has extremely diverse gameplay, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Instead, most games put stealth in as an afterthought, withWolfensteinbeing a great example of the same. For a run-and-gun shooter, it’s surprising just how many instances of stealth are present in this game.
13Annoying Challenges
Skill-based gameplaycan always have its fair share of challenges that test players on key mechanics. However, there are times when developers absolutely flood their first-person titles with these challenges.
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There needs to be a limit on the number of challenges for any particular activity, especially for some of the more tedious ones. After all, quality always beats quantity here.
12Over-The-Top Set Pieces
Most modern first-person shooters have the tendency to show blockbuster action sequences through elaborate cutscenes time and time again. This can be exciting the first few times but gets pretty tiring after a point.
To make this even worse, a ton of modern video games feature these set pieces so many times that these scenes lose their impact from the get-go. It’s a shame since it’s clear that a ton of work is put into piecing together these high-adrenaline moments.
11Damage Sponges
Artificial difficulty can make things really boring in games, regardless of whether they’re first-person shooters or not. Pumping enemies with a ton of lead loses its impact when the overall damage is fairly minimal.
Over time, most games have worked around the idea of lazy damage sponges with mixed results. However, they still plague the industry even now and are a pain to deal with when at their worst.
10Rocket/Grenade Jumping
Doomis one of the games most notorious for being able to use rockets to propel the playable character across a map full of enemies. Other games, likeHaloandBorderlands,popularized the same idea with grenades to allow players to reach higher areas.
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This concept doesn’t make any sense due to the fact that players would probably end up killing themselves in the process. It is amazing that this type of mechanic was even implemented in the first place due to the lack of realism it represents.
9Wall Running
Plenty of games have used wall running mechanics effectively, but the most famous example of bad wall running isCall of Duty: Black Ops 3. When it comes to realistic war-style shooters, people tend to want realism more than they want gimmicks that sound cool on paper.
It is understandable that the mechanic would be in the game since it takes place in the future, but they could have just stuck with exoskeletons. Wall running is fun when it comes to an adventure game, but it is something that shooters should stay away from.
8Explosive Barrels
Explosive barrels can usually be found sprinkled throughout the maps of various shooters ready to be shot by players to make the enemies suffer. Who thought that this should be a staple of every shooter out there?
This mechanic doesn’t make any sense. It would be better to think that these barrels would be kept in a safe location rather than placed next to walls, cars, and other areas that enemies are going to inevitably hide behind.
7Protecting Targets
Too many shooters rely on defending a location against an onslaught of enemy forces as players try to take back an area of control. Games likeDestiny,Call of Duty, andHalouse this mechanic to make the gameplay last longer.
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There comes a time that this mechanic gets annoying rather than fun like it is meant to be. After mowing down their fifth wave of enemies, players are finally free to proceed to the next area. Many players would rather be able to advance than have to wait around for enemies to make their move.
6Killing Every Enemy
Similar to the above mechanic, this one is another annoying aspect of shooters that makes it so players must kill every enemy in order to proceed to the next area. Rather than defending a location, they must kill every enemy while heading to their objective in order to proceed or simply get to the next checkpoint.
At a certain point, this becomes annoying, especially in games likeFallout 76where enemies frequently run away or have annoying spawn patterns that make them easy to miss.
