Insurgency : Sandstorm
I think it requires steam but iirc there are community servers so maybe there are non-vac servers (which shouldn't require steam)
this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2025
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Insurgency probably has the best human-like AI I've seen in a shooter game.
And human like damage. You get hit, you go down.
I don't think you'll find a replacement because the distinguishing feature for CS is that it's a service game that you can play online with other people, any game that is not a service game will not be the same, because the single player campaign will be finite and playing against bots gets boring very fast. But that's okay, as far as service based gaming goes CS is not bad, it doesn't require payment and at least last time I checked the micro transactions were all cosmetics so no pay to win either.
How about Wolfenstein:Enemy Territory? Old but fun. It used to have a mod named True Combat:Elite that was a counterstrike clone which was very much fun as well, but that seems to have vanished.
I also loved the old Delta Force series and I have heard good things about the ARMA series. However, I am not sure how much ARMA will work without Steam.
The tactics in Wolfenstein: ET were brilliant.
You can get the earlier Arma games up to A2 on disc which afaik don't require steam, they run from their own launchers. Arma 3 has a physical edition as well, but during activation you have to link to Steam.
Squad is fun
Terraria on steam doesn't actually require steam. Btw it's entirely drm free.
Most indie games on steam are.
Steam is just a download platform same as gog for most indie games.
Then how do we play it? I tried before with an Account that dont have it and didnt work out. Do I Need to use steamless or sum?
Just navigate to the steamapps folder, look for Terraria.exe and have at it
At least that is my understanding of what the other comment claims
Im pretty sure you Need some steam dll or sum to start the Game that way
That would be DRM, the original comment claimed absence of that. I have no idea what's true, I just tried translating for you.
Yeah me neither, still thanks for the effort
The COD2 single-player campaign is good. Any of the boomer shooters like Doom, System Shock. Far Cry, Arma, maybe UT.
https://www.gog.com/en/games?genres=shooter&tags=tactical&order=desc%3Abestselling
Does Arma run well on Linux these days? I remember trying to run Arma 2 on my Linux box back in the day and failing.
gaming on Linux has come a long way, proton is great and can be used outside of steam, like with Lutris or Heroic Launcher
Reforger seems to work as well as it does for me as my friend who games on Windows. I've never had any issues running it.
Ready or Not, maybe? Pretty cool with a realistic bodycam mod.
Or go back to SWAT 4.
Seconding for SWAT4. It's available on GOG and still has an active modding community. Imo the AI is better in this game than in Ready or Not, although RoN is certainly more visceral overall.
Worms. It is definitely tactical shooter, but also arcade tactical ballistic turn based strategy, and doesn’t requires account.
I know a good one I found was Operation Harsh Doorstop, which is a fantastic AA game made by Drakeling Labs (owned by Connor "Bluedrake42" Hill). I hadn't played it in a while though. An open-source option is Unvanquished, which is not a movement shooter, but I think is based upon Quake 3 with the Daemon engine. That's what I found, though.