I have spent a lot of time playing tactical shooters of all types over the years. When I say I love the genre, please believe me. I actively participated in the milsilm community in Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead in the summer following high school. I would man the LMG. Even today, I gravitate towards realistic war games like Arma Reforger and Gray Zone Warfare in my spare time.
Here is how a handful of today’s best war games rank in the eyes of The Guide Hall!
Hell Let Loose
If you ever want to time-travel back to World War 2 in one of the most immersive and jaw-dropping tactical shooters on the market, then few titles compare to Hell Let Loose. Yeah, it occasionally features plenty of unrealistic gameplay elements. You’ll spot a German sniper bunny-hopping through the hedgerows, but almost everyone plays as intended.
The community itself is one of the most significant selling points of the game, so long as you have thick skin. They’re not unkind, but they’re rough around the edges. They take comms seriously, for instance, so don’t abuse your microphone.
If the idea of a one-shot-kill sounds enticing, the screen shake and disorientation that follow an artillery strike, or hiding in a foxhole as an enemy tank roars overhead, you’ll find a home in Hell Let Loose!
Squad
In the same vein as Hell Let Loose, Squad offers enough realistic gameplay to satisfy hardcore milsim players while still ensuring the overall experience remains fun and accessible. That said, use your mic. It’s one of those games, and the community will shame you for not actively communicating with your squad. After all, it’s in the game’s name and an integral part of the experience. How can you tell anyone about the enemy squad flanking your position if you can’t communicate?
One of the best parts about Squad is just how massive the game feels. You’re simultaneously thrust into small squad tactics, clearing houses and sweeping streets with two or three other players, but still part of a more extensive operation. In fact, it’s a big operation. Many of the servers you’ll play on support up to 100 players, with all manner of vehicles—ground and air—zipping through the battlefield.
Related: What We Want From Ghost Recon Project Over
Six Days in Fallujah
I can’t begin to count the number of attempts I’ve made over the past few months to play Six Days in Fallujah solo. It’s possible yet seemingly impossible at the same time. You genuinely need at least one other player to join you, as the tight quarters of Fallujah prove dangerous. Ideally, you’ll find a full squad. But that leads to my biggest gripe with Six Days in Fallujah, as it’s incredibly hardcore, unforgiving, and niche. These factors make it challenging to find a willing and capable group to play with regularly.
Where other tactical shooters and war games simulate the entire battlefield, Six Days in Fallujah condenses the experience. It creates a cutthroat, claustrophobic, yet remarkably detailed environment while ensuring you never have time to stop and admire the developer’s work. Why? Because just ahead of you, poking their head out of a hole in the facade, is an insurgent with an RPG aimed at your escort vehicle. It’s chaotic and memorable from start to finish!
Arma Reforger
Arma Reforger launched with relatively poor reviews due to countless bugs, glitches, and crashes that ultimately marred the overall experience. Even worse, this comes from a community that doesn’t mind the occasional hiccup or bug, as there were many in the previous Arma titles. But Reforger redeemed itself since launch, as Bohemia Interactive pushed countless updates, introducing new and expansive content and squashing bugs left and right. Today, there’s nothing quite like Arma Reforger.
If you want to recreate the Vietnam War experience, community servers have the proper mods in place. Do you prefer a survival experience like in DayZ? Yep, that’s available, too. Or, better yet, why not join up with 63 other players in an all-out battlefront experience, with choppers roaring overhead, rocket-propelled grenades smashing into armored personnel carriers, and trench warfare like it’s the olden days?
Related: How to Build the M4 CAR-15 in Gray Zone Warfare
Gray Zone Warfare
Welcome to my current obsession! Gray Zone Warfare offers an expansive landscape to traverse, mostly riding shotgun in a Little Bird, as you explore various points of interest within Lamang. Along the way, you’ll complete quests, customize weapons, and partake in some PvP if you’re playing the standard game mode. There is a PvE mode, and it’s home to one of the most welcoming and helpful communities you’ll find in the genre. I’ve had high-level players go out of their way to help me unlock doors at YBL-1 for The Negotiator.
Alongside realistic ballistic mechanics (that do require a few tweaks, as the game is in Early Access), there’s also an extensive health system. You’ll wind up with numerous injuries of varying severity, including a bit of dizziness, a destroyed organ, or even a coma that requires outside help to pull you back from the brink. It pays to travel with a partner!
Arma 3
If you don’t count the alien expansion, Arma 3 is one of today’s most immersive and realistic war games. It’s made exponentially better and more realistic with the help of community-made mods. Still, the base game already features realistic weapon modeling, including ballistics, reconnaissance missions, night-vision raids, scuba diving insertions, and a community of diehard milsim players running gaming clans like private military companies. They even hold training sessions weekly!
If you want a more realistic experience, start venturing into community-made mods like ACE. It’s a medical mod that extends the base game’s first aid system by introducing unique interactions and aid items, like morphine, to treat wounds and injuries.
More so than anything, Arma 3 is a platform with limitless creativity—so long as that creativity involves warfare of some type.
When it comes to the most realistic war games, do you have a favorite? Tag us on X to let us know, and maybe we can hop in a squad one day!
The Guide Hall thoroughly enjoys covering the most realistic war games because, first and foremost, we play them in our spare time. We’ll have new features and guides for you soon!