A subgenre of shooters, these are shooter games in a third-person perspective. Featuring a free-rotating camera or Always Over the Shoulder perspective, third-person shooters often combine the shooting elements of a First-Person Shooter or Light Gun shooter, with the jumping and climbing puzzles of a 3D platformer and/or a simple melee fighting akin to brawlers.
Third-Person Shooter games on consoles, similar to First-Person Shooters, often incorporate an aim-assist feature. Though just like FPS titles, motion-based control schemes such as gyroscopic aiming and "flick stick" arose as popular alternatives in the late 2010s thanks to titles like Splatoon, due to offering comparable aiming and precision to the traditional keyboard and mouse setup used by computer players.
Many TPS games do give the player an optional first-person view, which allows for more precise shots and looking around at environmental features that are otherwise hidden from the default camera. In many cases, the player must stand still to do this, but some titles allow the player to forego the third-person framework entirely and play the title like a FPS; indeed, Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath actually requires the player to shoot from first-person, and in the chase camera view only melee attacks are allowed.
Most third-person shooters adopt an Always Over the Shoulder perspective, influenced by Resident Evil 4, and popularized and codified by Gears of War.
The ability to Take Cover!, and a reliance on it for victory, makes one of these games a member of the "cover shooter" sub-genre.
Many Stealth Based Games also tend to be third-person shooters, though some FPS examples certainly exist. It also isn't rare for there to be a heavy use of melee gameplay in these titles, though if there's more fisticuffs than gunplay, you may be better off defining it as a Beat 'em Up or Hack and Slash. Speaking of, this genre is especially prone to incorporating sequences of other gameplay types, such as driving and puzzle minigames.
Examples:
Over-the-shoulder locked or free floating camera- 007: From Russia with Love
- 25 to Life
- Advent Rising
- Afterfall: Insanity
- Agents of Mayhem
- Age of Gunslingers Online
- Alan Wake
- Alan Wake II
- Aliens Fireteam Elite
- All Points Bulletin
- American McGee's Alice
- Anthem (2019)
- Arc Runner
- Army of Two
- Apocalypse
- 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
- Call Of Gruty
- The Callisto Protocol
- Caster
- Chase the Express
- Conflict Series
- Conker: Live & Reloaded
- Cosmic Break (MMOTPS)
- The Club
- Cold Fear
- Control
- Damnation
- Danger Girl
- darkSector
- Dark Void
- Days Gone
- Dead to Rights
- Dead Space series
- Death Jr.
- Death to Spies
- Deep Black Reloaded
- Defiance
- Destroy All Humans!
- The Devil Inside
- Devils Hunt
- Devil's Third
- The Division
- Drake of the 99 Dragons
- Drawn to Death
- DynaMarisa 3D
- Dynamite Duke
- 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
- El Matador
- Everything or Nothing (a James Bond game)
- Evil West
- Exteel
- Extermination
- 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand
- Firefall
- Foreign Legion: Buckets Of Blood
- Fortnite
- Fracture
- Freedom Fighters (2003)
- Freedom Wars: Technically an Action RPG, but ranged combat works like this.
- Free Fall Tournament
- Front Mission Evolved
- Full Spectrum Warrior
- Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers
- Fur Fighters
- FUSE
- Gears of War
- The Getaway
- The Getaway: Black Monday
- Ghost Hunter
- Ghost in the Shell
- Ghost In The Shell Stand Alone Complex for the PS2.
- Ghost Recon (the later games)
- G.I. Joe: Operation Blackout
- Giants: Citizen Kabuto
- Global Agenda
- Goddess of Victory: NIKKE
- Gun
- Gungage
- Gunslinger Stratos: combines this with Light Gun Game
- GunValkyrie
- GunZ
- Grand Theft Auto, starting with GTA 3
- Haydee
- Headhunter
- Heated Barrel
- 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
- Kâbus 22
- Kaede The Eliminator
- Kane & Lynch
- Kid Icarus: Uprising
- kill.switch
- The Last of Us
- Lead and Gold
- Left Alive
- Loadout
- Lost Planet
- Machina of the Planet Tree -Unity Unions-
- Made Man
- Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven
- Max Payne
- MDK series:
- 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
- Mobile Suit Gundam Battle Operation Code Fairy
- Monday Night Combat
- Monster Madness
- MorphX
- NAM-1975
- Never Dead
- Nightmare Creatures
- Nocturne (1999)
- 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
- Quantum Theory
- 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: Quest for Booty
- Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time
- Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One
- Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault
- Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus
- Ratchet & Clank (2016/PS4)
- Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
- 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
- Riot
- Rise To Honor
- Risk of Rain 2
- Rogue Trooper
- S4 League
- The Saboteur
- Saints Row
- SAR: Search and Rescue
- Scars Above
- Scourge: Outbreak
- Second Sight
- Shadow Guardian
- Shadowgun
- 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
- Spinal Breakers
- Splinter Cell
- Star Fox
- Starhawk
- Star Wars: Bounty Hunter
- Stranglehold
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Fallen
- Steel Harbinger
- Strange Brigade
- The Suffering
- Sunset Overdrive
- Syphon Filter
- Terminator: Dawn of Fate
- Tiny Tank
- Tomb Raider
- Tomorrow Never Dies
- 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 LA
- Uncharted
- Urban Chaos
- Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodhunt
- Vanquish
- Velvet Assassin
- Vigilance
- Vigor
- Wall Of Insanity
- Wanted: Dead
- 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)
- The X-Files: Resist or Serve
- Vortex
- Yakuza: Dead Souls
- Zombie Army Trilogy
- 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
- Postal 2
- Postal III
- Postal 4: No Regerts
- 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
- Orange Cast
- Parasite Eve 2
- [PROTOTYPE]
- Shadows of the Empire
- Star Wars: Battlefront
- Starhawk
- Valkyria Chronicles