Shooter expert Daniel takes you into the hidden depths of his Steam Wishlist today

Daniel has been following the shooter scene closely every day for over 10 years. Here he presents 7 games from his wishlist that few people know about but are bursting with potential

I have to admit, without my Steam Wishlist, I would no longer have an overview. There are so many exciting new shooters being announced all the time – how could I possibly keep track of them all? That’s why I meticulously cherish and maintain my wish list

I regularly sort through exciting indie titles that I pick up on Twitter, for example, between the big reveals of the last trade fair or scour the global wishlist charts for shooters that I’ve overlooked.

Over time, one or two potential insider tips nestle in my collection. These are shooters that very few people will have heard of, but that I still definitely want to keep an eye on.

Here I would like to briefly introduce you to seven of these “secret favorites”. Maybe there’s a candidate for your own wish list!

The Forever Winter

What fascinates me most about this extremely dark co-op survival shooter is the atmosphere. It’s like trudging through a completely exaggerated version of the Terminator end times: the AI continues to wage a pointless and endless material battle while everything has long since been reduced to rubble.

And we? We are not heroes. We don’t belong to any faction. Powerless against armies of mechs, bombers and drones, in The Forever Winter we fight only for survival and the remnants of a lost civilization. An ingenious setting that is already giving me goosebumps.

Out of Action

I love Blade Runner, The Matrix, Akira and Deus Ex. And my cyberpunk heart immediately beat faster when solo developer Doku announced this multiplayer shooter in the spirit of Ghost in the Shell. What a simple but ingenious concept!

The shootouts in Out of Action take on a whole new dimension with cyber upgrades like implants, hacking, slow motion, invisibility and melee combat (yes, you can fend off bullets with your katana!). And the movement feels so buttery smooth that it suddenly makes some AAA big productions look old.

Trench Tales

Few games convey as much atmosphere and flair as Trench Tales already does in its first (and still very raw) clips. The single-player shooter paints an apocalyptic alternative scenario based on the First World War

We fight our way through dark trenches, nightmarish swamps and besieged castles with a combination of conventional weapons such as MGs, shotguns or grenades and supernatural powers.

Columns of smoke rise menacingly from the Gothic architecture, while undead soldiers stagger towards us. New abilities, extensive weapon tinkering and even stealth should open up a variety of solutions. And then there are also destructible environments with impressive physics!

Cruel

I’m not usually the nostalgic type, but Cruel immediately takes me back to the era of PS1 games. Graphically clearly based on the classics of the early 2000s, the first-person shooter stages a fantastically simple premise: We have to clear a hotel occupied by crazed cultists floor by floor.

Getting there ..aiming for about July/June for release.screenshotsaturday GodotEngine pic.twitter.com/2K6CgvIZhg

– Jamesy (@JamesDornanDev) March 23, 2024

If we die, we start from the beginning and all levels are randomly generated. There are new upgrades to buy between each run. The rich hit feedback of the weapons and the smacking sound are particularly cool. Cruel is fast, tough and uncompromising. It’s nice that games like this still exist today!

Executioner

Combine a Wild West shooter with a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk scenario in the style of Blade Runner and I get more than excited. Acute wishlist button alert!

The release of Exekiller is still a long way off, but the concept already sounds incredibly exciting: We’re on the road as bounty hunters for a mega-corporation, solving quests in neon-lit city streets or out in the Wasteland and pimping our bodies with cybernetic mods.

The retro-futuristic vibe is reminiscent of Fallout and Bioshock and at the same time I can feel a large portion of Call of Juarez: Gunslinger resonating here. Can a mega project like this work? I’m damn curious to see what comes of it

Ill

I have to admit that I know very little about Ill yet. But have you seen this graphic? I mean, holy shit, this little indie project could easily be one of the most technically impressive shooters currently in development! The monsters are hard to take in the trailer alone – how will it be when we meet them in the game?

Ill looks incredibly detailed and fascinatingly gruesome and could take survival horror to a new level. But it’s not just shredded flesh that is realistically simulated here: The developers promise an authentic weapon system with jams, maintenance and various types of ammunition, and on top of that a believable physics simulation.

Covert Ultra

Tactical shooters don’t always have to be slow &ndaash; at least that could be the motto of Covert Ultra. We play a mix of John Wick, Sam Fisher and Spider-Man, who shoots his way to his target single-handedly and at breakneck speed. And even in the trailer, it just looks “badass”!

We abseil down a skyscraper and shoot through windows, headshot enemies upside down or take them by surprise with daring kung-fu moves in close combat. We even strike from walls and ceilings – anyone can walk on the ground. Covert Ultra simply looks stylish and, for a change, is launching its new concept without any multiplayer bells and whistles.