42 Best FPS and Shooting Games for Android (2026): Online + Offline

The best FPS game on Android in 2026 is Call of Duty: Mobile, and the best one you can play with no signal is DOOM. Call of Duty: Mobile is free, was updated on 23 June 2026, and is the only huge free shooter with official Xbox, DualSense and Backbone controller support. DOOM costs $4.99, has no ads and no in-app purchases, and still got a patch on 30 July 2026.

Below are 42 shooters checked on the US Play Store on 26 August 2026, each with a price, an ads flag, an offline tier and a gamepad verdict.

In a hurry? Jump to: quick picks · the offline honesty test · the gamepad table · the 120fps fine print · how we picked · the 42 games · comparison · the dead shooters graveyard · the India split · low-end phones · free vs pay once · fake offline shooters · the PPSSPP route · how to set one up · bottom line · FAQ

The pages ranking for this search have a date problem and an honesty problem. Several still rank Apex Legends Mobile, Warzone Mobile, N.O.V.A. Legacy and Infinity Ops, and none of those four has a Google Play listing any more. Others file Modern Combat 5 under “offline” when its campaign will not start without a live connection.

We opened every listing on this page on 26 August 2026, wrote down the store’s own numbers, and put the last-update date next to each pick so you can audit us.

Quick picks: the best shooter for each need

You want	Install this	Price	Offline?
Best overall FPS	Call of Duty: Mobile	Free	No
Best offline shooter, pay once	DOOM	$4.99	Tier 1
Best free offline campaign	Cover Fire	Free	Tier 2
Best battle royale	PUBG MOBILE	Free	No
Best battle royale in India	BGMI	Free	No
Best competitive aim test	Standoff 2	Free	No
Best extraction shooter	Arena Breakout	Free	No
Best shooting game (not FPS)	Sniper 3D	Free	Tier 3
Best for low-end phones	Combat Master	Free	No
Best looking, pay once	Bright Memory: Infinite	$4.99	Tier 1

The offline honesty test: three tiers, not a checkbox

“Offline shooter” is the most abused label in this genre. We use the same three tiers as our best offline games for Android guide, so the labels mean the same thing across the site.

• Tier 1 — Fully offline. Install it, switch on airplane mode, play everything. DOOM, DOOM II, Delta Touch, Bright Memory: Infinite, Hitman Sniper, Space Marshals 2, PPSSPP.
• Tier 2 — Offline after first launch. One connected start to pull data or clear a login, then the campaign runs anywhere. Cover Fire, Into the Dead 2, Dead Trigger 2, Dead Effect 2, Alien: Isolation.
• Tier 3 — Offline core, online extras. Missions play without signal, but rewards, events, energy and multiplayer do not. Sniper 3D, Pixel Gun 3D, Bullet Force, UNKILLED.
• Not offline at all. Every battle royale, every arena shooter, every extraction shooter here. They will not reach the menu without a server.

Three things matter for shooters specifically, and no other list checks them.

One-time activation. A Tier 2 shooter can look broken on a plane if you never opened it at home. Dead Trigger 2, Cover Fire and Into the Dead 2 all pull extra data on that first run.

Bot quality. An offline shooter is only as good as the AI you are fighting. Bullet Force’s offline bots walk into walls; Cover Fire’s scripted enemies at least shoot back on a timer.

Post-install footprint. Google Play no longer prints a size for most of these games. The number that matters is what sits on your phone after the resource packs land, and for Call of Duty: Mobile, PUBG MOBILE and Delta Force that is far more than the download you first agreed to.

One honest limit: we read every listing, but we did not reinstall all 42 games in airplane mode. Tiers come from the developer description, the store’s offline tag and the game’s own mode list. Test yours before you board.

The gamepad table: supported, segregated, or banned

Controller support on Android shooters is not a yes or no. It splits three ways, and one of those ways can cost you your account.

Game	Controller status	What it means for you
Call of Duty: Mobile	Officially supported, separate lobbies	Xbox, DualShock 4, DualSense and Backbone One are listed by Activision. Detected controller players are matched with other controller players.
DOOM / DOOM II	Officially supported	A pad turns both ports from awkward to excellent. There is no vertical aim, so a stick is plenty.
Delta Touch	Officially supported	Gamepad and keyboard mapping are part of the app. This is the enthusiast route.
Bright Memory: Infinite	Officially supported	FYQD-Studio says Xbox pads, custom on-screen buttons and gyro aiming all work.
Alien: Isolation	Officially supported	Feral’s own guidance points at a controller. Touch works, badly.
Shadowgun Legends	Supported	Rare for a free looter shooter, and the reason it plays better than it reads.
PPSSPP	Supported, close to required	Dual-stick PSP shooters are near unplayable on glass.
PUBG MOBILE / BGMI	Not supported, ban risk	Gamepad input is treated as third-party manipulation. Do not do it on an account you care about.
Standoff 2 / Critical Ops / Combat Master	No official support	Some pads partly work, none of it is sanctioned, and none of it is safe to rely on in ranked.
Warframe / Fortnite	Pad strongly advised	Aerial movement and build mode are the two things touch controls handle worst.

Google publishes a game controller overview for developers, and Activision lists its supported pads on its own Call of Duty: Mobile help page. Controller support was announced back in November 2019 and the separate matchmaking pool has stayed. For the full picture across genres, see our Android games with gamepad support guide.

The 120fps fine print

Almost every shooter that advertises high frame rates hides a condition. Here are the ones that matter in 2026.

• PUBG MOBILE and BGMI. The Ultra Extreme 120fps option only appears when Graphics is set to Smooth. You trade every visual setting for it, and the lobby itself stays capped at 90fps.
• Call of Duty: Mobile. 120fps is device-gated, not universal. It arrived as a Sony Xperia exclusivity deal and plenty of 120Hz phones still never see the toggle.
• Bright Memory: Infinite. FYQD-Studio states a ceiling of up to 120 FPS. Reaching it needs flagship silicon; a mid-range chip will throttle long before the end of the two-hour campaign.
• Battle Prime. Built as a high-refresh showcase, which is why it is the frame-rate demo to install when you do not want to touch PUBG.
• DOOM, DOOM II and Delta Touch. The only picks here that hit your screen’s refresh rate on any phone, because the engines are thirty years old.
• Everything else. Assume a 60fps ceiling unless the settings menu proves otherwise.

High frame rates cook phones. If yours drops to a slideshow after fifteen minutes, that is thermal throttling, and our Android phone overheating fixes apply to games as much as to chargers.

How we picked (26 August 2026)

• Live US Play Store listing, opened by hand. If the official page did not load, the game is not recommended here. That rule alone removed five titles that page-one competitors still list.
• Store numbers only. Price, the Contains ads flag, the In-app purchases flag, the last update date, the install band, the star score and the rating count all come from the listing, not from memory.
• Package IDs printed. Four IDs that rival lists still print are dead ends. Critical Ops is com.criticalforceentertainment.criticalops, not com.critical.ops. FRAG moved to com.ohbibi.fps. Mech Arena is com.plarium.mechlegion. DOOM is case-sensitive: com.bethsoft.DOOM.
• Last update date next to every pick. A competitive multiplayer game with no patch in two years has no future, whatever its download count says.
• Sub-genre spread. Battle royale, arena, tactical, extraction, hero, mech, WW2, sniper, offline campaign and premium ports. “Best shooting games for Android” is not a synonym for “best FPS”.
• What we did not do. We did not measure install sizes, because Play no longer exposes them for most of these games and a table of guesses helps nobody. We did not re-test every offline claim on a plane. We used the US store, and results change by region, which is why BGMI gets its own entry.

Games we deliberately kept out of the recommendation table: Modern Combat 5, PUBG MOBILE LITE, Special Forces Group 2 and T3 Arena. The reasons are in the graveyard section, with dates.

The 42 best FPS and shooting games for Android

Grouped by sub-genre. Every line carries price, ads, in-app purchases, offline tier, the store update date, the install band, the score and the rating count from the listing on 26 August 2026.

Battle royale and big free shooters

1. Call of Duty: Mobile

Free · Contains ads · In-app purchases · Online only · Updated 23 June 2026 · 100,000,000+ installs · 4.3 from 16,545,745 ratings · Mature 17+ · com.activision.callofduty.shooter

The best all-round shooter on the platform, and the only free giant with documented controller support. You get 5v5 multiplayer, a 100-player battle royale, ranked ladders and a map list pulled from twenty years of Call of Duty. Activision matches detected controller players against each other, so a pad is an option rather than a cheat.

The catch is storage and money. The install keeps growing as the multiplayer and BR resource packs land, and the strongest attachments sit behind seasonal grinds or crates. Progress is server-side, so there is no offline anything.

Best for: anyone who owns a controller. Skip if: storage on your phone is already tight.

2. PUBG MOBILE

Free · Contains ads · In-app purchases · Online only · Updated 1 July 2026 · 1,000,000,000+ installs · 4.3 from 48,603,940 ratings · Teen · com.tencent.ig

Still the centre of gravity for the genre at a billion installs, and still the best-feeling gunplay in a mobile battle royale. Level Infinite ships version 4.5.0 with the frame-rate tiers laid out in settings, an FPS and TPS toggle, and gyro aiming that is genuinely competitive once you tune it per scope.

Two catches. Controllers are not supported and using one carries real ban risk, and the 120fps option costs you every visual setting. If you are chasing titles rather than kills, our guide to the On a Mission title in PUBG Mobile and BGMI has the exact grind order.

Best for: serious BR players. Skip if: you are in India — you need BGMI instead.

3. BGMI: FPS Battle Royale

Free · Contains ads · In-app purchases · Online only · Updated 10 July 2026 · 100,000,000+ installs · 4.3 from 7,548,190 ratings · Teen · com.pubg.imobile

This is the listing Indian readers should tap. KRAFTON runs Battlegrounds Mobile India as a separate app with its own servers, events and esports circuit, on the same 4.5.0 build number as global PUBG MOBILE.

It is region-locked, progress does not transfer from the global client, and it inherits every PUBG drawback: no controller support, the same Smooth-only 120fps compromise, the same heavy footprint.

Best for: players in India. Skip if: you are anywhere else; it will not matchmake.

4. Free Fire MAX

Free · No ads · In-app purchases · Online only · Updated 3 August 2026 · 500,000,000+ installs · 4.5 from 31,691,929 ratings · Teen · com.dts.freefiremax

Fifty players, ten-minute matches and a hardware floor low enough that half a billion phones cleared it. Garena keeps account progress shared with the standard Free Fire client, so switching devices does not cost you anything.

MAX is the heavier of the two builds. Character abilities are purchasable and they change fights, so the pay-to-win floor sits higher than PUBG’s or Call of Duty’s. There is no offline mode of any kind.

Best for: short sessions on mid-range hardware. Skip if: your phone has 3GB of RAM — MAX is the heavier of Garena’s two builds and it will struggle.

5. Blood Strike

Free · No ads · In-app purchases · Online only · Updated 13 August 2026 · 100,000,000+ installs · 4.3 from 1,086,115 ratings · Teen · com.netease.newspike

NetEase’s answer to “I want Warzone but I have 4GB free”. It is a deliberately compact battle royale with hero abilities, fast respawn modes and one of the most frequent patch schedules on this page.

The listing is currently retitled around an Attack on Titan crossover, which tells you how hard the game leans on limited-time events. Content you like can vanish on a schedule, and the low requirements come from visuals that look dated next to Delta Force.

Best for: small storage, quick matches. Skip if: you want a game that looks like 2026.

6. Fortnite

Free · No ads · In-app purchases · Online only · Updated 13 August 2026 · 10,000,000+ installs · 4.7 from 485,660 ratings · Teen · com.epicgames.fortnite

Fortnite is back on Google Play as a normal install, after years of sideloading. That is the single biggest change to this list since 2024, and cross-progression with PC and console works out of the box.

Epic gates it to specific high-end chipsets, so plenty of capable mid-rangers simply cannot install it. Build mode on touch controls is punishing, and cosmetics are priced like a PC game.

Best for: flagship phones with a controller. Skip if: your chipset is not on Epic’s list; there is no workaround worth trying.

7. NEW STATE MOBILE

Free · No ads · In-app purchases · Online only · Updated 16 July 2026 · 50,000,000+ installs · 3.7 from 1,727,334 ratings · Teen · com.pubg.newstate

People write this one off every year and it keeps shipping patches. KRAFTON’s near-future battle royale has deeper gun customisation than PUBG MOBILE and a lower device floor, and the 16 July 2026 update is proof it is alive.

The 3.7 score is the honest signal. The population is a fraction of PUBG MOBILE’s and heavily region-dependent, so lobbies fill with bots outside Asian peak hours, and nothing transfers from PUBG or BGMI.

Best for: gun-attachment tinkerers. Skip if: you want full human lobbies at 9pm in the US.

8. Farlight 84

Free · No ads · In-app purchases · Online only · Updated 9 April 2026 · 10,000,000+ installs · 3.4 from 536,252 ratings · Teen · com.miraclegames.farlight84

The most distinctive-looking battle royale on Android: jetpack movement, drivable vehicles, hero Capsuleers with real ability kits, and cross-play with the Steam build. When it flows, nothing else here moves like it.

This is a liveness warning. The last Play update was 9 April 2026, which is four and a half months of silence for a live-service battle royale, and the 3.4 score reflects thin off-peak matchmaking. Play it for the movement, spend nothing.

Best for: a weekend of jetpacks. Skip if: you were about to buy a battle pass.

Arena and tactical shooters

9. Standoff 2

Free · Contains ads · In-app purchases · Online only · Updated 8 July 2026 · 100,000,000+ installs · 4.3 from 12,026,252 ratings · Teen · com.axlebolt.standoff2

The purest aim test on mobile. Axlebolt builds Counter-Strike-shaped defuse rounds with a real ranked ladder, a skin economy and recoil patterns you can actually learn, and version 0.39.2 keeps the seasons coming.

Below Gold, matchmaking is full of smurfs and bought accounts. There is no offline content beyond the training range, the skin market is a genuine money sink, and gamepads are not officially supported.

Best for: players who want skill to decide the round. Skip if: you cannot stand losing to a level-3 account with a knife skin.

10. Critical Ops: Multiplayer FPS

Free · Contains ads · In-app purchases · Online only · Updated 20 August 2026 · 100,000,000+ installs · 4.4 from 2,475,473 ratings · Teen · com.criticalforceentertainment.criticalops

The most recently patched competitive shooter on this page, nine years after release. Critical Force sells purity: no character abilities, no loadout perks, no weapon that beats yours because someone paid. Map knowledge and spray control are the entire game.

It looks its age next to Standoff 2, lobbies thin out off-peak in some regions, and case-opening is the whole business model. Check the package before you install — com.critical.ops is a dead URL that clone apps love.

Best for: people who hate pay-to-win. Skip if: graphics matter to you.

11. Combat Master Mobile FPS

Free · No ads · In-app purchases · Online only · Updated 25 July 2026 · 10,000,000+ installs · 4.6 from 248,556 ratings · Teen · com.AlfaBravo.CombatMaster

The closest thing to modern Call of Duty movement on a phone: slide-cancelling, fast time-to-kill, near-instant matchmaking, a famously small install, and no forced ads at all. The 4.6 score is the highest of any big arena shooter here.

There is effectively no anti-cheat. Alfa Bravo relies on manual account wipes and community reports rather than an automated system, and cross-play with the Steam build makes it worse. Some sessions are brilliant, some are unplayable.

Best for: small phones, small storage, fast rounds. Skip if: one aimbotter ruins your evening.

12. Rainbow Six Mobile

Free · Contains ads · In-app purchases · Online only · Updated 19 August 2026 · 10,000,000+ installs · 4.5 from 128,487 ratings · Mature 17+ · com.ubisoft.rainbowsixmobile.r6.fps.pvp.shooter

Siege on a phone, and it works better than it had any right to: destructible walls, operator gadgets, drones, attack versus defend, 5v5. Ubisoft Nova is still shipping updates as of 19 August 2026 and nothing else on Android fills this slot.

The catch is a business one. Ubisoft closed its Winnipeg studio on 10 June 2026 and cut roughly 65 jobs including the core Rainbow Six Mobile team, four months after global launch. The app is still being patched, but think twice before spending.

Best for: tactical players who want thinking, not twitch. Skip if: you need to know a game will still exist in 2028.

13. Warface GO: FPS shooting games

Free · Contains ads · In-app purchases · Online only · Updated 26 June 2026 · 10,000,000+ installs · 4.3 from 452,021 ratings · Teen · com.my.warface.online.fps.pvp.action.shooter

The only class-role shooter on the list. You pick Rifleman, Medic, Engineer or Sniper, and the classes actually change what you do, which puts it between arcade Combat Master and tactical Standoff 2. There is a PvE co-op mode as well.

The battle-pass and weapon-crate economy is heavy, and the franchise has been rebranded and relaunched enough times that older guides point at dead packages. The PvE mode still needs a connection.

Best for: squad players who like defined roles. Skip if: you want to unlock guns by playing rather than paying.

14. Bullet Force

Free · No ads · In-app purchases · Tier 3, offline core · Updated 16 July 2026 · 10,000,000+ installs · 3.9 from 750,470 ratings · Teen · com.blayzegames.iosfps

A long-running indie FPS with deep weapon customisation, 20-player lobbies and, unusually, a real offline mode against bots that survives a flight. The store listing carries no ads flag, which surprised us given its reputation.

The bot AI is weak enough that offline play is target practice rather than a game. The player base is far smaller than Standoff 2’s, so ranked lobbies fill slowly off-peak, and animation quality is budget-tier throughout.

Best for: a shooter that still opens on a plane. Skip if: you want bots that flank.

15. World War Heroes — WW2 PvP FPS

Free · Contains ads · In-app purchases · Online only · Updated 18 August 2026 · 100,000,000+ installs · 4.5 from 3,378,778 ratings · Teen · com.gamedevltd.wwh

The only credible WW2 shooter left on Android, and the only mainstream combined-arms game after Battlefield Mobile was cancelled. Period weapons, drivable tanks and planes, large maps, and a 4.5 average across 3.3 million ratings.

Ads and premium-currency prompts are constant, and weapon unlocks are slow enough that paying feels like the intended route. Lobbies skew toward long-tenured players with fully modded loadouts, so early matches are rough.

Best for: tanks, planes and bolt-action rifles. Skip if: a store popup between rounds ruins the mood.

Extraction shooters

16. Delta Force

Free · No ads · In-app purchases · Online only · Version listed as “Varies with device” · 10,000,000+ installs · 4.4 from 303,458 ratings · Teen · com.proxima.dfm

The most significant new Android shooter since 2024. Team Jade launched the mobile build alongside PC in April 2025 with full cross-progression, giving you both large-scale Havoc Warfare and Tarkov-style extraction raids in one app.

It is a PC game wearing a phone’s clothes. Mid-tier hardware thermal-throttles inside twenty minutes, and cross-play means mouse-and-keyboard players regularly outgun you. The Play listing does not show a fixed last-updated date, so check it yourself before committing.

Best for: flagship phones and long sessions. Skip if: your phone already gets hot in PUBG.

17. Arena Breakout: Realistic FPS

Free · No ads · In-app purchases · Online only · Updated 6 July 2026 · 50,000,000+ installs · 4.3 from 967,542 ratings · Teen · com.proximabeta.mf.uamo

The game that proved extraction shooters work on a touchscreen. Armour zones, real ballistics, an economy you have to think about, and raids where the tension comes from what you are carrying rather than the kill count.

It has the steepest learning curve here and the loss loop is real: one bad raid deletes hours of gear. Premium currency and larger secure containers exist to sell you a way past that pain. Do not confuse it with Arena Breakout: Infinite, which is the separate PC game most trailer results are for.

Best for: players who want stakes. Skip if: losing your kit would make you delete the app.

18. Lost Light

Free · No ads · In-app purchases · Online only · Updated 18 August 2026 · 10,000,000+ installs · 4.3 from 464,596 ratings · Teen · com.netease.h75na

The friendlier extraction shooter. Lost Light keeps the ballistics and the raid tension but adds PvE-leaning modes and an insurance system that returns some of your gear, which softens the exact barrier that stops people playing Arena Breakout.

The listing title is currently built around a weapon-skin promotion, which is a fair signal of where the money comes from. Seasons wipe progress on a schedule, and the smaller player base means queue times vary by region.

Best for: your first extraction shooter. Skip if: season wipes feel like wasted time.

Hero shooters and top-down shooters that suit a touchscreen

19. Bullet Echo: PVP Shooter

Free · Contains ads · In-app purchases · Online only · Updated 22 July 2026 · 10,000,000+ installs · 4.6 from 850,749 ratings · Teen · com.zeptolab.bulletecho.google

The smartest design on this page. ZeptoLab cuts your vision to a flashlight cone, so the game becomes about sound, positioning and patience instead of flick aim — which is exactly what a touchscreen is good at. Every hero has a different vision shape.

Hero progression is a card-collection gacha borrowed from the Clash template. Your damage and health scale with hero level, so a maxed-out rival beats you on stats no matter how well you play.

Best for: stealth players and short bus rides. Skip if: stat-based losses annoy you.

20. FRAG Pro Shooter

Free · Contains ads · In-app purchases · Online only · Updated 18 August 2026 · 100,000,000+ installs · 4.3 from 2,188,710 ratings · Teen · com.ohbibi.fps

The live hero shooter to install now that T3 Arena is abandonware. Oh BiBi gives you a squad of characters you swap between mid-match, over 100 heroes, and matches that fit into a bus ride. Note the package: com.ohbibi.frag, which most lists still print, now returns a 404.

It is a card-collection game wearing a shooter’s clothes. Hero cards, chest timers and a level-based power curve decide close fights, and aiming is heavily assisted.

Best for: two-minute matches. Skip if: you came here for real aim.

21. Battle Prime: FPS gun shooting

Free · Contains ads · In-app purchases · Online only · Updated 1 August 2026 · 10,000,000+ installs · 4.4 from 293,409 ratings · Teen · com.blitzteam.battleprime

The best-looking 6v6 hero shooter on Android and the easiest way to show off a high-refresh screen without touching PUBG. Press Fire built it as a graphics showcase, and it still looks the part in 2026.

The player base is small next to Standoff 2 or Critical Ops, so off-peak matchmaking leans on bots. It is a heavy install for what it is, and prime hero abilities are a paid progression lever.

Best for: testing a 120Hz phone. Skip if: you play at 2am and want humans.

22. Tacticool: PvP Action Shooter

Free · Contains ads · In-app purchases · Online only · Updated 12 August 2026 · 10,000,000+ installs · 4.6 from 749,351 ratings · Teen · com.panzerdog.tacticool

Top-down 5v5 with ragdoll physics, destructible cover and drivable cars. Like Bullet Echo, it works because it stops pretending a phone is a mouse, and the physics produce moments no first-person mobile shooter can.

Weapon and operator upgrades are card-based, so stat gaps decide close fights and the grind between tiers is long. Ads and starter-pack pressure are constant.

Best for: chaos with friends. Skip if: you want a level playing field.

23. Pixel Gun 3D

Free · Contains ads · In-app purchases · Tier 3, offline core · Updated 6 August 2026 · 100,000,000+ installs · 4.2 from 5,795,844 ratings · Teen · com.pixel.gun3d

A decade of continuous support and one of the very few big multiplayer shooters with a real single-player campaign that runs without a connection. If you are looking for a shooter for a younger player, this is the honest answer.

Monetisation is relentless: hundreds of weapons, gacha chests, battle passes, and paid guns that beat free ones outright. The blocky art reads as childish to anyone who arrived from Delta Force, and multiplayer is online-only.

Best for: younger players and offline campaign runs. Skip if: chest-opening loops put you off.

Mech and vehicle shooters

24. War Robots Multiplayer Battles

Free · Contains ads · In-app purchases · Online only · Updated 24 August 2026 · 100,000,000+ installs · 4.3 from 5,186,783 ratings · Everyone 10+ · com.pixonic.wwr

Patched on 24 August 2026, two days before this article went up, and second only to Sniper 3D for freshness on this page. Slow, weighty 6v6 mech combat suits touch controls far better than twitch FPS does, and the Everyone 10+ rating makes it the rare shooter you can hand to a kid.

It also has the clearest pay-to-win economy here. New robot and weapon tiers arrive on a schedule and outclass everything below them, and grinding to parity takes months.

Best for: touch players who hate aiming under pressure. Skip if: you refuse to lose to a wallet.

25. Mech Arena

Free · Contains ads · In-app purchases · Online only · Updated 31 July 2026 · 50,000,000+ installs · 4.2 from 609,535 ratings · Everyone 10+ · com.plarium.mechlegion

The lighter, faster counterpart to War Robots: five-minute 5v5 matches, a small install and genuine shooting rather than lane-brawling. It runs well on mid-range hardware that struggles with everything else in this section.

Plarium’s economy is built on mech and weapon tiers plus an XP-crate loop, and matchmaking regularly puts you against higher-tier hardware. Value packs are priced like PC games. The package com.plarium.mechbattlearena, printed by several lists, is a 404.

Best for: quick mech matches on a budget phone. Skip if: tier gaps in matchmaking annoy you.

Offline shooters with real campaigns

26. Cover Fire: Offline Shooting

Free · Contains ads · In-app purchases · Tier 2, offline after first launch · Updated 31 July 2026 · 100,000,000+ installs · 4.6 from 2,570,670 ratings · Teen · com.generagames.resistance

The most-recommended offline shooter on Android, and for once the reputation holds up. The campaign genuinely runs in airplane mode after the first launch, with a squad of characters, sniper missions and a zombie survival side mode. Among the free picks here only Fortnite scores higher than its 4.6, and Fortnite does it on 485,660 ratings against Cover Fire’s 2,570,670.

Movement is on rails between cover points, so it plays like a very good shooting gallery rather than a shooter. Later missions are tuned to make you feel underpowered, upgrade currency is deliberately scarce, and the free path is ad-heavy.

Best for: flights, trains and metered data. Skip if: you need to control where you walk.

27. Into the Dead 2: Zombie Killer

Free · Contains ads · In-app purchases · Tier 2, offline after first launch · Updated 19 August 2026 · 10,000,000+ installs · 4.5 from 716,513 ratings · Mature 17+ · com.pikpok.dr2.play

The most reliably offline pick here and a genuinely well-made game: seven chapters of story, weapon swaps, companion dogs and multiple endings. PikPok patched it on 19 August 2026, so it is fully current on Play.

It is an on-rails runner, not a free-look FPS — you aim and shoot, you do not choose where to walk. Upgrade currency is throttled to sell packs, and the free path forces mission repetition. The package is com.pikpok.dr2.play; the original Into the Dead is a different app.

Best for: zombies with no Wi-Fi. Skip if: “runner” is a dealbreaker.

28. Dead Trigger 2

Free · Contains ads · In-app purchases · Tier 2, offline after first launch · Updated 21 July 2026 · 100,000,000+ installs · 4.5 from 3,243,885 ratings · Mature 17+ · com.madfingergames.deadtrigger2

Still the benchmark for how an offline mobile FPS should look. Hundreds of missions, 70-plus weapons and lighting that embarrasses games half its age, now maintained by Deca_Games and patched on 21 July 2026 — remarkable for a 2013 release.

The offline claim needs an asterisk. Campaign missions run without a connection, but the global war map, tournaments, gunsmith timers and reward claims all sync online, so long offline stretches lock you out of progression.

Best for: the best-looking free offline shooter. Skip if: real-time upgrade timers make you close apps. More like it in our zombie survival games guide.

29. UNKILLED

Free · Contains ads · In-app purchases · Tier 3, offline core · Updated 7 July 2026 · 10,000,000+ installs · 4.4 from 747,587 ratings · Mature 17+ · com.madfingergames.unkilled

The tighter, better-shooting companion to Dead Trigger 2: shorter missions, stronger weapon feel, cleaner art direction, and an actual patch on 7 July 2026 rather than a legacy listing.

It is less offline than its reputation suggests. Energy, mission unlocks and reward syncing all expect a connection, so it is a poor pick for airplane mode — which is exactly why most people install it. Content dries up faster than Dead Trigger 2’s.

Best for: short zombie missions at home. Skip if: you are packing for a long flight.

30. Dead Effect 2

Free · Contains ads · In-app purchases · Tier 2, offline after first launch · Updated 12 April 2026 · 10,000,000+ installs · 3.9 from 241,871 ratings · Mature 17+ · com.badflyinteractive.deadeffect2

The closest thing on Android to a full premium campaign shooter: a spaceship horror story, looting, implants, character builds and roughly twenty hours of content that runs offline.

Only Space Marshals 2, Destiny: Rising and Farlight 84 have gone longer without a Play update, and the 3.9 score reflects the rest. Free entry is really a trial that pushes hard toward a paid unlock, premium currency sits over an economy that would have been better as a one-off price, and the writing is rough.

Best for: an offline sci-fi campaign. Skip if: you want a game with a future.

31. Space Marshals 2

Free · Contains ads · In-app purchases · Tier 1, fully offline · Updated 4 September 2023 · 10,000,000+ installs · 3.9 from 125,391 ratings · Teen · com.pixelbite.sm2

The smartest offline shooter on Android. Pixelbite’s sci-fi western is top-down tactical stealth: flank, distract, use cover, and win fights you cannot win head-on. No energy timers, a proper campaign, a premium feel.

Its last update was 4 September 2023, and that is a real problem. Apps on old target API levels stop being served to new users on modern Android, so it may not even appear in your Play search. Its sequel is worse off and is not recommended.

Best for: tactical thinkers. Skip if: the store will not serve it to your phone — do not go looking for an APK.

Sniper and shooting-gallery games

32. Sniper 3D: Gun Shooting Games

Free · Contains ads · In-app purchases · Tier 3, offline core · Updated 25 August 2026 · 500,000,000+ installs · 4.6 from 18,308,857 ratings · Mature 17+ · com.fungames.sniper3d

Half a billion installs, updated the day before we published, and the single most popular answer to “best shooting games for Android” on Play itself. Missions take thirty seconds, they play offline after install, and it runs on almost anything.

Energy timers and rewarded-ad gates are the entire business model, and the offline mode is really “offline until you need to sync”. It is a tap-and-shoot mission game, not a twitch FPS, and we are filing it honestly rather than padding an FPS count.

Best for: five-minute sessions on any phone. Skip if: you want to move and aim at the same time.

33. Hitman Sniper

$2.99 · Contains ads · In-app purchases · Tier 1, fully offline · Updated 9 June 2026 · 10,000,000+ installs · 4.0 from 903,999 ratings · Mature 17+ · com.squareenixmontreal.hitmansniperandroid

One estate, one scope, and dozens of layered ways to make a death look like an accident. It is the smartest shooting game on mobile and it works entirely offline, for $2.99 once.

Two corrections to what other lists say about it. The listing does carry the Contains ads and In-app purchases flags, so “paid and clean” is not accurate. It is also one map for the whole game — a puzzle box with a rifle, not a campaign.

The free-to-play follow-up was shut down. This is the original.

Best for: puzzle players. Skip if: you expected levels.

34. Zombie Gunship Survival: AC130

Free · Contains ads · In-app purchases · Online only · Updated 27 July 2026 · 10,000,000+ installs · 4.5 from 393,720 ratings · Teen · com.flaregames.zgs

You shoot down through an AC-130 gunship’s thermal camera at a base you also build and defend. The black-and-white thermal view is unlike anything else on Android, and the shooting is genuinely satisfying.

Under the guns it is a base-builder. Construction and upgrade timers gate everything and premium currency exists to skip them. Despite the offline-sounding premise, missions need a connection to launch and to bank rewards.

Best for: something visually different. Skip if: you were promised an offline shooter.

Premium shooters and ports: pay once, own it

35. DOOM

$4.99 · No ads · No in-app purchases · Tier 1, fully offline · Updated 30 July 2026 · 100,000+ installs · 4.4 from 5,674 ratings · Mature 17+ · com.bethsoft.DOOM

Bethesda’s official release of id’s 1993 original: all four episodes, a tiny install, official gamepad support, and a frame rate your phone cannot fail to hit. It runs offline forever, and it was still patched on 30 July 2026, which is more than most 2024 releases can say.

It is paid with no trial, the touch controls are serviceable at best, and there is no vertical aim because the engine never had one. The 2019 re-release also opens with a launcher and an add-on download flow that irritated a lot of buyers.

Best for: anyone with a controller and five dollars. Skip if: you need modern level design and waypoints.

36. DOOM II

$4.99 · No ads · No in-app purchases · Tier 1, fully offline · Updated 30 July 2026 · 100,000+ installs · 4.3 from 3,204 ratings · Mature 17+ · com.bethsoft.DOOMII

Thirty-two levels, the Super Shotgun, and the Master Levels as bonus content. Same engine, same offline-forever guarantee, same 30 July 2026 patch date as DOOM.

Buying both means paying twice for what most people think of as one product, and the ID is case-sensitive — com.bethsoft.doom in lowercase is a dead link that clone apps target. Pick DOOM first if you only want one.

Best for: people who already finished DOOM. Skip if: $10 for two 1990s shooters is a stretch.

37. Bright Memory: Infinite

$4.99 · No ads · In-app purchases · Tier 1, fully offline · Updated 23 July 2026 · 10,000+ installs · 3.8 from 1,883 ratings · Teen · com.FYQD.BMI

The best-looking shooter on Android, ported by essentially one developer. FYQD-Studio states that it supports Xbox controllers, customisable virtual buttons, gyro aiming and up to 120 FPS, and it plays entirely offline. The gun-and-sword combat is closer to Devil May Cry than to Call of Duty.

Be clear-eyed about it. The main run is roughly two hours, the 3.8 score and 10,000+ install band tell you how niche it is, and mid-range chips will throttle long before that 120 FPS ceiling. Buy it if you own a Snapdragon 8-series phone and a pad.

Best for: showing off a flagship. Skip if: you want more than an evening of content.

38. Delta Touch [10 x Doom engine]

$2.99 · No ads · No in-app purchases · Tier 1, fully offline · Updated 3 May 2026 · 50,000+ installs · 4.8 from 8,953 ratings · Teen · com.opentouchgaming.deltatouch

A 4.8 average is the highest score on this page, and it is earned. Delta Touch bundles ten Doom source ports — GZDoom, PrBoom+, Chocolate Doom, Doom Retro and more — with gamepad and keyboard support, so you can run modern total conversions at your screen’s full refresh rate, offline.

It ships no game data. You must supply your own WAD files: the shareware WAD is free and legal, commercial ones you have to own.

Setup is fiddly and the interface is functional at best. This is not a one-tap install.

Best for: people who know what a WAD is. Skip if: that sentence lost you.

39. Alien: Isolation

Free download · No ads · In-app purchases · Tier 2, offline after first launch · Updated 22 April 2026 · 500,000+ installs · 3.8 from 8,124 ratings · Mature 17+ · com.feralinteractive.alienisolation_android

The most complete AAA first-person port on Android: the full 2014 game plus all DLC, with full controller support and no ads. Play lists it as a free download with in-app purchases, which is Feral’s usual free-trial-then-unlock model — you try it, then pay once inside the app.

It is not really a shooter. Ammunition is scarce and hiding is the correct answer to most encounters, so calling it an FPS would mislead you. The install is large, the game is demanding, and touch controls are poor enough that Feral points you at a pad.

Best for: the best single-player experience on the platform. Skip if: you wanted deathmatch.

Online co-op and looter shooters

40. Shadowgun Legends: Online FPS

Free · Contains ads · In-app purchases · Online only · Updated 5 August 2026 · 10,000,000+ installs · 4.4 from 369,647 ratings · Teen · com.madfingergames.legends

A Destiny-shaped loot shooter with a social hub, gear rarity tiers, co-op raids, PvP arenas and controller support — rare in this bracket. Now run by Deca_Games, and patched on 5 August 2026.

The title says the quiet part out loud. It is online-only, so despite being a campaign-driven game it is useless without signal, and every list filing it under “offline” is wrong. Gear progression is heavily monetised and it heats mid-range phones fast.

Best for: loot-chasers with a controller. Skip if: you needed something for the commute tunnel.

41. Warframe

Free · No ads · In-app purchases · Online only · Updated 29 July 2026 · 1,000,000+ installs · 4.1 from 29,976 ratings · Mature 17+ · com.digitalextremes.warframemobile

The real Warframe, not a spin-off, with cross-save to PC and console. It has the most generous free-to-play economy on this page: everything premium can be earned in game and traded between players, and Digital Extremes patched it on 29 July 2026.

The onboarding is famously hostile, throwing hundreds of systems at you with almost no explanation, and the mobile UI compresses menus that were already dense on a monitor. Aerial movement on touch is rough, so treat a gamepad as close to mandatory.

Best for: people with a hundred hours and a controller. Skip if: you want to understand a game in ten minutes.

42. Destiny: Rising

Free · No ads · In-app purchases · Online only · Updated 23 March 2026 · 1,000,000+ installs · 4.2 from 75,334 ratings · Teen · com.netease.g108na

Lead with the number that matters: the Play listing was last updated on 23 March 2026. Five months of silence on a live-service gacha is a warning, and its 1,000,000+ install band is one only Warframe shares on this page.

What it does well is real. NetEase built a standalone Destiny under Bungie licence with its own campaign, PvE and PvP queues, social hubs and a first-person or third-person toggle. But characters and weapons come from banners, so the endgame chase is a pull economy, not a loot economy.

Best for: a look, not a commitment. Skip if: you were about to spend on a banner. See our gacha games guide for how its pity system compares.

Every pick compared

Game	Sub-genre	Price	Ads	Offline	Updated	Installs	Score
Call of Duty: Mobile	Arena + BR	Free	Yes	No	23 Jun 2026	100,000,000+	4.3
PUBG MOBILE	Battle royale	Free	Yes	No	1 Jul 2026	1,000,000,000+	4.3
BGMI	Battle royale (India)	Free	Yes	No	10 Jul 2026	100,000,000+	4.3
Free Fire MAX	Battle royale	Free	No	No	3 Aug 2026	500,000,000+	4.5
Blood Strike	Battle royale	Free	No	No	13 Aug 2026	100,000,000+	4.3
Fortnite	Battle royale (TPS)	Free	No	No	13 Aug 2026	10,000,000+	4.7
NEW STATE MOBILE	Battle royale	Free	No	No	16 Jul 2026	50,000,000+	3.7
Farlight 84	Hero battle royale	Free	No	No	9 Apr 2026	10,000,000+	3.4
Standoff 2	Tactical arena	Free	Yes	No	8 Jul 2026	100,000,000+	4.3
Critical Ops	Tactical arena	Free	Yes	No	20 Aug 2026	100,000,000+	4.4
Combat Master	Arcade arena	Free	No	No	25 Jul 2026	10,000,000+	4.6
Rainbow Six Mobile	Tactical hero	Free	Yes	No	19 Aug 2026	10,000,000+	4.5
Warface GO	Class-based team	Free	Yes	No	26 Jun 2026	10,000,000+	4.3
Bullet Force	Arena + bots	Free	No	Tier 3	16 Jul 2026	10,000,000+	3.9
World War Heroes	WW2 multiplayer	Free	Yes	No	18 Aug 2026	100,000,000+	4.5
Delta Force	Tactical + extraction	Free	No	No	Not shown	10,000,000+	4.4
Arena Breakout	Extraction	Free	No	No	6 Jul 2026	50,000,000+	4.3
Lost Light	Extraction	Free	No	No	18 Aug 2026	10,000,000+	4.3
Bullet Echo	Top-down hero	Free	Yes	No	22 Jul 2026	10,000,000+	4.6
FRAG Pro Shooter	Hero shooter	Free	Yes	No	18 Aug 2026	100,000,000+	4.3
Battle Prime	Hero shooter	Free	Yes	No	1 Aug 2026	10,000,000+	4.4
Tacticool	Top-down tactical	Free	Yes	No	12 Aug 2026	10,000,000+	4.6
Pixel Gun 3D	Blocky arena	Free	Yes	Tier 3	6 Aug 2026	100,000,000+	4.2
War Robots	Mech TPS	Free	Yes	No	24 Aug 2026	100,000,000+	4.3
Mech Arena	Mech TPS	Free	Yes	No	31 Jul 2026	50,000,000+	4.2
Cover Fire	Offline cover shooter	Free	Yes	Tier 2	31 Jul 2026	100,000,000+	4.6
Into the Dead 2	Offline runner shooter	Free	Yes	Tier 2	19 Aug 2026	10,000,000+	4.5
Dead Trigger 2	Offline zombie FPS	Free	Yes	Tier 2	21 Jul 2026	100,000,000+	4.5
UNKILLED	Zombie FPS	Free	Yes	Tier 3	7 Jul 2026	10,000,000+	4.4
Dead Effect 2	Offline sci-fi FPS	Free	Yes	Tier 2	12 Apr 2026	10,000,000+	3.9
Space Marshals 2	Offline top-down	Free	Yes	Tier 1	4 Sep 2023	10,000,000+	3.9
Sniper 3D	Sniper missions	Free	Yes	Tier 3	25 Aug 2026	500,000,000+	4.6
Hitman Sniper	Sniper puzzle	$2.99	Yes	Tier 1	9 Jun 2026	10,000,000+	4.0
Zombie Gunship Survival	Gunship shooter	Free	Yes	No	27 Jul 2026	10,000,000+	4.5
DOOM	Premium port	$4.99	No	Tier 1	30 Jul 2026	100,000+	4.4
DOOM II	Premium port	$4.99	No	Tier 1	30 Jul 2026	100,000+	4.3
Bright Memory: Infinite	Premium action FPS	$4.99	No	Tier 1	23 Jul 2026	10,000+	3.8
Delta Touch	Doom source ports	$2.99	No	Tier 1	3 May 2026	50,000+	4.8
Alien: Isolation	Premium horror FPS	Free + unlock	No	Tier 2	22 Apr 2026	500,000+	3.8
Shadowgun Legends	Looter shooter	Free	Yes	No	5 Aug 2026	10,000,000+	4.4
Warframe	Looter shooter (TPS)	Free	No	No	29 Jul 2026	1,000,000+	4.1
Destiny: Rising	Looter shooter	Free	No	No	23 Mar 2026	1,000,000+	4.2

The dead shooters graveyard (do not install these)

Every game in this section is still recommended by pages that rank on page one for this search. None of them should be. We checked all of them on 26 August 2026.

Gone from Google Play entirely.

• Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile. Activision delisted it in May 2025 and switched the servers off permanently on 17 April 2026, saying it had not resonated with mobile-first players. CoD Points did not transfer. The listing returns nothing.
• Apex Legends Mobile. EA and Respawn shut it down in May 2023. There is no Play listing, and there has not been one for three years. It is still the most common wrong answer in AI summaries of this query.
• N.O.V.A. Legacy. Gameloft’s lightweight sci-fi FPS no longer returns a listing. It appears in almost every pre-2024 Android FPS list.
• Shadowgun War Games. No listing. The games from that catalogue we could still open on Play are Dead Trigger 2, UNKILLED and Shadowgun Legends, all now run by Deca_Games.
• Infinity Ops: Cyberpunk FPS. No listing. It still sits at number 11 on a 2023 ranking that competes for these keywords.

Still listed, still skip.

• Modern Combat 5. The listing is live, which is why naive checks pass it. The problem is always-online DRM: the single-player campaign will not start without a connection, so filing it under offline is simply wrong.
• PUBG MOBILE LITE. The default “shooter for low-end phones” pick on almost every rival list, and its listing has been frozen since January 2024. Install Blood Strike or Combat Master instead.
• T3 Arena. Last patched in June 2024. A competitive hero shooter with two years of silence has no future; install FRAG Pro Shooter or Battle Prime instead.
• Special Forces Group 2. The default “offline shooter with bots” pick, and its last update was October 2024. Native-code games that old are exactly the profile that breaks under Google’s new packaging rules.
• Space Marshals 3. Last patched in April 2022. Play Space Marshals 2 instead, and read the caveat in its entry.

There is a mechanical reason old shooters stop being installable, and it is worth knowing. Google now limits which users can be served apps built against old target API levels, documented in its target API level requirements. Separately, new submissions must support 16 KB memory page sizes, explained in the Android developer docs and announced on the Android Developers Blog.

An unmaintained shooter quietly disappears from Play for anyone on a new phone.

The rule of thumb: if a multiplayer shooter has not been patched in eighteen months, do not install it, whatever its download count says.

The India split: PUBG MOBILE or BGMI?

If you are in India, install BGMI (com.pubg.imobile). Everywhere else, install PUBG MOBILE (com.tencent.ig). They are two separate Play listings from two different publishers of record, and you cannot substitute one for the other.

BGMI is published by KRAFTON, Inc., was updated on 10 July 2026 and sits at 100,000,000+ installs with a 4.3 score from 7,548,190 ratings. PUBG MOBILE is published by Level Infinite, was updated on 1 July 2026, and has 1,000,000,000+ installs.

Both currently show version 4.5.0, so content lands at roughly the same time. Progress does not transfer between them, and matchmaking is regional, so pick once and stay there.

Two things to ignore. Do not use a VPN to get into the other client — it breaks matchmaking and puts your account at risk. And do not go looking for Indus Battle Royale as the India-exclusive alternative; that listing now serves SuperGaming’s rebuilt Prime Rush, relaunched in March 2026 for a Brazilian audience.

If you are grinding titles in either client, our walkthrough of the On a Mission title in PUBG Mobile and BGMI lists the exact kill counts and the order to do them in.

Best FPS games for low-end Android phones

On a phone with 3GB of RAM or less, install Combat Master, Critical Ops, Bullet Echo or Sniper 3D. All four are small, all four were patched within the last five weeks, and none of them needs a flagship chipset.

• Combat Master — no ads, near-instant matchmaking, 4.6 from 248,556 ratings, updated 25 July 2026.
• Critical Ops — deliberately plain visuals, updated 20 August 2026, and no weapon you can buy to beat other players.
• Bullet Echo — top-down, tiny, and the flashlight design means it never has to render much.
• Sniper 3D — runs on almost anything, and the missions are short enough that thermal throttling never gets going.
• Pixel Gun 3D — low-poly by design, with an offline campaign as a bonus.
• Blood Strike — the battle royale built for phones that cannot handle PUBG MOBILE.
• Bullet Force — light enough for old hardware, and its bot mode still opens with no signal at all.

What not to install on a weak phone: Delta Force, Fortnite, Warframe, Arena Breakout and Call of Duty: Mobile. All five will either refuse to run or throttle inside twenty minutes. And skip PUBG MOBILE LITE, whatever other lists tell you.

Free with ads, or pay once?

Five dollars buys you a shooter with no ads, no timers and no store — and that is a better deal than any free game on this page. There are only five real pay-once shooters on Android in 2026, and not one of them costs more than $4.99.

Pay once	Price	Ads	IAP	What you get
DOOM	$4.99	None	None	Four episodes, offline forever, gamepad support
DOOM II	$4.99	None	None	32 levels plus the Master Levels
Delta Touch	$2.99	None	None	Ten Doom engines, mod support, 4.8 score
Bright Memory: Infinite	$4.99	None	Yes	Two hours of the best graphics on Android
Hitman Sniper	$2.99	Yes	Yes	One map, dozens of solutions, fully offline
Alien: Isolation	Free + unlock	None	Yes	The full 2014 game and all DLC

Plenty of free shooters here carry no ads flag too, including Combat Master, Blood Strike, Free Fire MAX, Fortnite, Delta Force, Arena Breakout, Lost Light and Warframe. Every one of them still sells in-app purchases, which is where the money actually comes from.

Note the trap in that table. Hitman Sniper is a paid game that still shows the Contains ads and In-app purchases flags, and Bright Memory: Infinite carries an IAP flag on top of its $4.99 price. “Paid” does not automatically mean clean, which is why we print both flags for every pick.

For a wider list, see our roundup of games with no ads for Android and iOS.

What Play’s “offline shooter” search will try to sell you

Searching Google Play for “offline shooting games no wifi” mostly returns ad farms, not games. The results are packed with apps whose package names read like keyword lists, and many use store art lifted from real shooters.

Three tells that give them away:

• The package name is a sentence. Real games have short IDs like com.pixel.gun3d. Ad farms use strings that stuff every search term into the package.
• The screenshots do not match. Console-grade art next to an install band of 100,000+ and a developer name you have never seen is stolen art.
• The review pattern is flat. Thousands of five-star reviews with no text, posted in bursts, and no reply from the developer.

The same search also surfaces Modern Combat 5, which is a real game from a real studio and still the wrong answer, because its campaign cannot start offline. If a listing claims offline play, the safe test is the one in our offline games guide: install it on Wi-Fi, open it once, then switch on airplane mode before you leave the house.

The PPSSPP footnote: console shooters Android never got

PPSSPP is free, open source, has 100,000,000+ installs and was updated on 16 May 2026 — and it is the only way to play Resistance: Retribution, Killzone: Liberation, Coded Arms or SOCOM Fireteam Bravo on a phone. It carries no ads and no in-app purchases, scores 4.4 from 1,785,124 ratings, and runs entirely offline.

It is not a game and it never ships one. You have to supply your own ISO files, dumped from PSP discs you actually own. Downloading ROMs you do not own is piracy, and we will not point you at a site that hosts them.

Two practical notes. Dual-analogue PSP shooters are miserable on a touchscreen, so treat a gamepad as required rather than optional. And performance varies by game and by chipset, so check the developer’s quick-start guide before you assume a title will run.

Get PPSSPP on Google Play. If emulation is the part of this page you came for, our free Sega emulator guide covers the same ground for Mega Drive shooters.

How to set up an Android shooter for the best frame rate

1. Check the update date before you install. Open the Play listing, scroll to “Updated on”, and walk away from any multiplayer shooter that has not been patched in eighteen months.
2. Install on Wi-Fi and open it once. Let the resource packs finish downloading. Call of Duty: Mobile and PUBG MOBILE both pull large resource packs after the first launch, and Tier 2 offline games need this step too.
3. Set the graphics preset first, then the frame rate. The frame-rate options you can pick are decided by the graphics preset. In PUBG MOBILE, the 120fps tier only appears once Graphics is set to Smooth.
4. Turn on gyro aiming and tune it per scope. PUBG MOBILE, BGMI, Call of Duty: Mobile and Standoff 2 all support it. Start low, raise the sensitivity for red dots, keep it low for 4x and above.
5. Pair a controller only where it is allowed. Call of Duty: Mobile, DOOM, Delta Touch, Bright Memory: Infinite and Alien: Isolation support pads officially. Do not use one in PUBG MOBILE or BGMI.
6. Play twenty minutes, then check for throttling. If the frame rate collapses, drop one graphics tier, take the case off and try again before you blame the game.

Bottom line

Install Call of Duty: Mobile if you want the best free shooter and you own a controller — it is the only big free game where a pad is officially allowed. Buy DOOM for $4.99 if you want a shooter that works on a plane, forever, with no ads and no store.

Install Cover Fire for the best free offline campaign, and Sniper 3D if what you actually wanted was short shooting missions rather than a full FPS. Play Standoff 2 or Critical Ops if you want your aim to decide the match, and Arena Breakout or Lost Light if you want raids with real stakes.

Skip Warzone Mobile, Apex Legends Mobile, N.O.V.A. Legacy, Infinity Ops and Shadowgun War Games — all five are gone from Google Play. Skip Modern Combat 5 for offline play and PUBG MOBILE LITE for low-end phones, whatever other pages say.

Do one thing next: open the Play listing for whichever game you picked, check the “Updated on” date against the one printed here, then install it on Wi-Fi and let the resource packs finish before you play.

Related reading

• Android games with gamepad support, tested on Xbox and PS5 pads
• How to get the On a Mission title in PUBG Mobile and BGMI
• Best offline games for Android, no Wi-Fi needed
• Best zombie survival games for Android
• Best games with no ads for Android and iOS
• Best gacha games for Android, pity systems compared
• Best racing games for Android
• Android phone overheating? Fixes that actually work
• Best free Sega emulator for Android