A 3D game type that has grown to prominence in recent years, especially on consoles. It is a shooter with either a free-rotating camera or Always Over the Shoulder perspective. These games often combine the shooting elements of a First-Person Shooter or Light Gun shooter, with the jumping and climbing puzzles of a 3D platformer or a simple melee fighting system from a brawler.
Third-Person Shooter games with a free-rotating camera often incorporate an aim-assist feature, since aiming from a free-rotating camera is difficult. Many also have an optional first-person view, which allows for precise shots and looking around at environment features that are otherwise hidden from the default camera. In many cases, the player must stand still to use first person view, but some titles allow the player to play like a FPS; indeed, Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath requires the player to shoot from first-person, only allowing melee attacks in the chase camera view.
Modern third-person shooters have since adopted an Always Over the Shoulder perspective, influenced by Resident Evil 4. This style allows looking around and precise aiming, comparable to first-person shooters and light-gun shooters. This has eliminated the need for an aim-assist feature or optional first-person view mode.
The ability to Take Cover!, and a reliance on it for victory, makes a game a member of the "cover shooter" sub-genre.
Melee attacks are more important in a third-person game, if only because close up fighting is easier in that perspective type, as are jumping and dodging. Add too much and it turns into a Beat 'em Up or Hack and Slash game.
This genre is especially prone to incorporating sequences of other gameplay types, such as driving and puzzle minigames.
The Stealth-Based Game is a third person shooter with sneaking around in the dark elements and a stealth kill system (not to say that some FPS examples don't exist.)
Examples:
Over-the-shoulder locked or free floating camera- 007: From Russia with Love
- Afterfall: Insanity
- Agents of Mayhem
- Age of Gunslingers Online
- Alan Wake
- All Points Bulletin
- American McGee's Alice
- Anthem (2019)
- Army of Two
- Armed and Dangerous
- Asura's Wrath- plays with this, in that the main projectile button has the camera act like this.
- Bad Day L.A.
- Battlefield Heroes
- The Blair Witch Project
- Bloodrayne
- Binary Domain
- Bleeding Edge
- Blood Bros
- Blood Stone (a James Bond game)
- Broken Helix
- Border Break
- Bot Vice
- Brute Force
- Buck Bumble
- Bullet Girls Phantasia
- Bullet Witch
- The Bureau: XCOM Declassified
- Burning Rangers
- C-12: Final Resistance
- Cabal
- Caster
- Conflict Series
- Conker: Live & Reloaded
- Cosmic Break (MMOTPS)
- The Club
- Cold Fear
- Control
- Damnation
- darkSector
- Dark Void
- Days Gone
- Dead to Rights
- Dead Space series
- Death Jr.
- Death To Spies
- Defiance
- Destroy All Humans!
- The Devil Inside
- Devil's Third
- The Division
- Drake of the 99 Dragons
- Drawn to Death
- DynaMarisa 3D
- DYSNOMIA
- Earth Defense Force series:
- Monster Attack
- Global Defence Force
- Earth Defense Force 2017
- Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon
- Earth Defense Force 2025
- Earth Defense Force 5
- Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain
- Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard
- Elemental Battle Academy
- Everything or Nothing (a James Bond game)
- Exteel
- 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand
- Firefall
- Foreign Legion: Buckets Of Blood
- Fortnite
- Fracture
- Freedom Fighters
- Freedom Wars: Technically an Action RPG, but ranged combat works like this.
- Free Fall Tournament
- Front Mission Evolved
- Fur Fighters
- FUSE
- Gears of War
- The Getaway
- The Getaway: Black Monday
- Ghost Hunter
- Ghost In The Shell Stand Alone Complex for the PS2.
- Ghost Recon (the later games)
- Giants: Citizen Kabuto
- Global Agenda
- Gun
- Gungage
- Gunslinger Stratos: combines this with Light Gun Game
- GunValkyrie
- GunZ
- Grand Theft Auto, starting with GTA 3
- Haydee
- Headhunter
- Heavy Metal F.A.K.K.²
- Heretic II
- Hitman
- Homura Combat
- inFAMOUS
- Infected
- Infernal
- Inversion
- Iron Storm
- Jak and Daxter
- Jak II: Renegade
- Jak 3
- Jet Force Gemini
- Just Cause
- Kaede The Eliminator
- Kane & Lynch
- Kid Icarus: Uprising
- The Last of Us
- Lead And Gold
- Left Alive
- Loadout
- Lost Planet
- Machina of the Planet Tree -Unity Unions-
- Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven
- Max Payne
- MDK2
- Mega Man Legends
- Mega Man X7
- Metal Arms: Glitch in the System
- Mercenaries
- Metal Gear (later games)
- Metal Wolf Chaos
- Metroid: Other M
- Microvolts
- MindJack
- Mobile Suit Gundam Battle Operation 2
- Monday Night Combat
- Monster Madness
- MorphX
- NAM-1975
- Nightmare Creatures
- Nocturne
- Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath
- One
- The Order: 1886
- Outriders
- Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare
- PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds
- Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy
- P.N.03
- The Punisher
- Quantum Break
- Radical Heights
- Ratchet & Clank
- Ratchet & Clank (2002/PS2)
- Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando
- Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal
- Ratchet: Deadlocked
- Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters
- Secret Agent Clank
- Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction
- Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack In Time
- Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus
- Ratchet & Clank (2016/PS4)
- Red Dead
- Red Faction: Guerilla
- Reign of Fire
- Remnant: From the Ashes
- Reservoir Dogs
- Resident Evil
- Resident Evil 4
- Resident Evil 5
- Resident Evil 6
- Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D
- Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City
- Resident Evil: Revelations' HD version. The original has shooting in the First-Person.
- Umbrella Corps
- Returnal
- Risk of Rain 2
- Rogue Trooper
- S4 League
- The Saboteur
- Saints Row
- Second Sight
- Shadows of the Damned
- Shadow the Hedgehog (with some of the Platformer elements of its parent series.)
- Sin and Punishment
- Slave Zero
- Sniper Elite
- SOCOMUS Navy Seals
- Spacelords
- Spec Ops: The Line
- Splatoon
- Splinter Cell
- Star Fox
- Starhawk
- Star Wars: Bounty Hunter
- Stranglehold
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Fallen
- The Suffering
- Sunset Overdrive
- Syphon Filter
- Terminator: Dawn of Fate
- Tiny Tank
- Tomb Raider
- Total Overdose
- Transformers (2004)
- Transformers: Cybertron Adventures
- Transformers: Dark of the Moon
- Transformers: War for Cybertron
- Transformers: Fall of Cybertron
- Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark
- Transformers: The Game (Console)
- Transformers: The Game (NDS)
- True Crime: Streets of L.A.
- Uncharted
- Urban Chaos
- Vanquish
- Velvet Assassin
- Vigilance
- Vigor
- Wanted: Weapons of Fate
- Warframe
- Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade
- Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team
- Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine
- Warhawk
- WET
- Wing of Darkness
- Watch_Dogs
- World War Z (2019)
- Vortex
- Yakuza: Dead Souls
- Zombie Panic In Wonderland
- Zombies Monsters Robots
High/fixed camera (Top Down, 3/4, Isometric, etc)
- Alien Swarm
- Crusader
- The first two Grand Theft Auto games, and Chinatown
- Madness Project Nexus 2
- Metal Gear (earlier games, up until MGS4)
- Postal
- Red Hot Vengeance
- Super Animal Royale
- Voxatron
Primarily another genre, but with a significant TPS mode
- Crimson Sea
- Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls
- Dark Forces Saga
- Dirge of Cerberus
- Fallout:
- Futurama is this at least in Fry's levels, since the others don't carry weapons.
- Gigantic
- Insecticide
- Iron Brigade
- Mass Effect:
- Metroid Prime
- Nier
- Oni
- Operation Flashpoint
- Parasite Eve 2
- [PROTOTYPE]
- Shadows of the Empire
- Star Wars: Battlefront
- Starhawk
- Valkyria Chronicles