Counter-Strike creator's new game is the strongest, most original FPS of 2025

From the outside, Alpha Response resembles several other FPS games. Since it comes from Minh Le, the legendary Counter-Strike creator, Valve, and Rust developer better known as 'Gooseman,' it naturally whispers CS 1.0. You play as the police, which is likely to draw comparisons to SWAT 4 and Ready or Not, and it's also fully PvE and each mission involves a heist or a shootout in the street, which might make you think of Payday. But Alpha Response, in reality, is nothing like any of these games. It's fast, it's fun, it's a sensory spectacle, and it's totally unique - it's better than any other shooter on Steam this year.

You and your friends play members of the eponymous Alpha Response, an elite police unit that is having the worst day in the history of its existence. A group of extremely arch, cartoonish bad guys has stormed the city, planting bombs, taking hostages, and attempting to rob armored payroll vans. Each time you begin a match, you choose how many missions or 'scenes' you want to play through, and the game doesn't end until they're completed. The first section may be bomb disposal, where you have to hold back successive waves of goons while finding and defusing hidden explosives, but then you'll have to either drive or sprint to the next location for a hostage rescue, or to escort a VIP from one city block to another.

It creates the impression of an open world - you feel rushed, panicked, and under enormous pressure, battling to resolve one emerging crisis just in time for the next one to begin. But this isn't a realistic, somber, or tactical shooter. Instead, it's one of the best FPS games to play for sheer enjoyment.

Guns are ridiculously loud - the silenced weapons in Alpha Response make more noise than a .50 caliber rifle in Call of Duty. When enemies are shot, instead of flopping into ragdolls or staggering backwards via fastidiously modeled hit reactions, they leap into the air, backflip, and explode into big, squibby clouds of blood. The HUD is bright and bustling. Your police commander has one of the most bizarre but brilliant voices in gaming history. Tonally, Alpha Response feels closer to Virtua Cop, Silent Scope, or Konami's Lethal Enforcers, those erstwhile lightgun classics, themselves inspired by the high-concept action cinema of John Woo, Jackie Chan, and Ringo Lam.

And it's just so well paced. While the weapons and the bullet impacts feel weighty and strong, the actual gunfights are rapid, simple, and fierce. There's barely any learning curve - objectives are straightforward, the inventory is clean, the on-screen signage is clear and vibrant - but Alpha Response never stops giving you things to do, things to shoot. It's all action, all the time.

Even though there are a lot of great or even inventive new shooters right now, what Minh Le and Ultimo Ratio have created is something that feels totally individual. Like anything else, Alpha Response draws influences from elsewhere, but every single aspect of it, from the macro gunplay system to the tiniest aesthetical details, feels like its been authored, designed, and curated from scratch to work in harmony with everything else.

Alpha Response is still in early access, but an update from Saturday June 14 has just added Steam achievements, fps optimizatons, and performance fixes. More missions, enemy types, and even a single-player mode so you can play with CPU comrades are all on the way. In the meantime, you can get Alpha Response for $19.99 / £16.75. Just head here.

Alternatively, try some of the best co-op games, or maybe the best multiplayer games on PC today.

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