The 5 best shooters on Steam that you can play on the side

It doesn’t matter whether you’re beaming at a longer video on the YouTube homepage, you want to watch your Guilty Pleasure on Netflix for the tenth time or you finally want to listen to that one podcast – not everything needs your full concentration. That’s why we’re giving you 5 Steam shooters that you can play great while doing something completely different at the same time.

Be honest: how many true crime podcasts have you listened to while driving? Watched YouTube videos while ironing? Squatting in online conferences while standing at the kitchen sink?

Some things just don’t need your full concentration. You don’t have to stare at your screen for the full 2.5 hours while a video essay on YouTube finally explains NFTs to you in an understandable way.

But you don’t always have to do the housework on the side. We give you 5 great shooters that are fantastic to play at low volume while something completely different is playing on your second monitor. So you keep your fingers busy while your thoughts are elsewhere. This makes multitasking really fun.

destiny 2

In Destiny 2 you feel like a god. And also quite casually.

The best thing about this incredibly popular loot shooter is that you play as a literal immortal force that can use giant guns, electro-magic or freeze hurricanes to rivet everything at the touch of a button.

But once you’re on autopilot thanks to Destiny 2, you don’t need to focus too much on the game. In the grind for the next new weapon, you hardly need to strain your brain cells, instead you can jump meters away as if in a trance, launch rockets at zombie aliens and completely ignore the dialogues.

That’s why Destiny 2 is the perfect companion to that new rock album you’ve been wanting to hear uninterrupted and uninterrupted for so long. Let the tones guide and beguile you as song 4’s guitar solo takes you to seventh heaven.

Warframe

Warframe works so well as a “podcast game” like Destiny 2 for very similar reasons. Warframe is also a giant sci-fi loot shooter where you can spend hours farming better gear.

But where Warframe sets itself apart from Destiny 2 is in particular the progression system. Destiny 2 opens up the whole universe to you very early on, but you then primarily play what is currently popular in the current season.

In Warframe, as a newcomer, you work through one planet after the other without much of the story distracting you. As an overpowering space ninja, you slice your way through countless aliens, robots and alien robots and always make progress.

All of this is effortless, because whether you’re on a planetary surface or a spaceship, your tasks are clear, fairly easy, and always fun. Accordingly, you can easily activate the effortless brain cells for the court case between Hollywood stars, which you have run at the same time.

Risk of Rain 2

Risk of Rain 2 is an absolute indie secret. This roguelite shooter throws you onto alien planets where endless enemies appear. The longer you play a round, the more difficult and numerous the hordes that pour in – and with them the rewards they leave behind when you scrape them off.

Each level in Risk of Rain 2 is therefore a balancing act: How long do you want to stay in a level? Do you really want to take all the items with you, or do you pull the ripcord, call the boss and fight your way to the next level?

Perseverance is rewarded in the game with an incredible power fantasy. Hundreds of enemies explode, sizzle or freeze in front of you while you diligently bag the gold. But if you get careless and die, you’ll have to start all over again.

Risk of Rain 2 is an excellent side game because of how effortless it is to play despite the high level of difficulty. You don’t have to think much here, there are no dialogues either. Instead, you can let your gaming instincts guide you. So the massive spectacle on the first screen distracts just enough for you to diligently follow the dialogues on the second screen.

split gate

If you’re less interested in loot than in PvP duels, then Splitgate is a great side-gaming game.

This clever F2P shooter is best described as a highly successful mix of Halo and Portal. You blast sci-fi weapons in arena-style maps at enemies who, like you, can quickly create portals through which to flee or shoot.

With a comparatively slow TTK, it hardly matters to hear opponents well or to react to them at the speed of light. In Splitgate, fundamental shooter basics count far more than reaction times fueled by energy drinks.

So it doesn’t matter whether you’re completely focused on the game or casually watching sports – Splitgate can always keep you entertained as a PvP shooter without giving yourself a huge handicap.

Deep Rock Galactic

Deep Rock Galactic is one of the best co-op games in recent years. You play hard-drinking space gnomes who dig for valuable stones together.

This co-op shooter has a pace that lends itself very well to casual gaming: between intense waves in which you have to shoot down alien insects, there are many completely still moments. Here you can watch the YouTube video, make your shopping plans in your head or have pleasant conversations with your colleagues. Then it starts again, with hordes of critters who want to make your life difficult.

So you can spend a simple, pleasant evening with the game with each other and alien bugs.

What do you think of this list? Do you have a favorite game that you play on the side? If so, is this a shooter for you too? Tell us in the comments.

Maybe you already have such a game in your Steam library. There are some games that you simply have:

7 types of games that each of us has in the Steam library