The Hero Shooter, also known as Character FPS, is a Sub-Genre of First-Person Shooter and Third-Person Shooter games, with MOBA and Fighting Game elements.

The roots of the hero shooter genre can be traced back as early as the Sega Genesis game Herzog Zwei (1989), the first shooter with MOBA elements. It can also be traced back to class-based shooters like the Battlefield and Team Fortress series, and several games that are now considered to be hero shooters were originally marketed as class-based shooters. The hero shooter genre also contains elements of arcade fighting games, such as Street Fighter, which are similarly character-centric. The Ur Examples of the hero shooter genre are Team Fortress (a 1996 Quake mod) and Outtrigger (1999), an arcade hero shooter developed by Sega AM2 and produced by Yu Suzuki. Other early examples of the genre include The Grid (2000), Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict (2005), Team Fortress 2 (2007), Cyber Diver (2009), and Gunslinger Stratos (2012). But the genre wouldn't explode in popularity until the release of Activision Blizzard's Overwatch in 2016, with its cast of colorful and developed characters, memorable locations and unique gameplay, that the tropes that codified the genre would be set on stone. The success of the game, as is the way of things, spawned countless of imitators overnight, with Gearbox Software's Battleborn in 2016, and id Software's Quake Champions and the Cliff Bleszinski-fronted Boss Key Productions's LawBreakers in 2017 being some of them.

In this type of game, instead of choosing which weapons to use or finding the weapons, the player can choose one out of multiple characters, or heroes, with different weapons and abilities. For example, one character may be able to Double Jump, while another can heal teammates, and another can build turrets. The characters may also have Ultimate Abilities that can vastly alter the course of battle. This, in turn, makes the characters more unique, and the game defined by the characters rather than the available weapons.

Games of this genre tend to rely on teamwork and a combination of abilities to cover for weaknesses. Some characters have abilities that are only useful in specific situations or are countered by a specific character. Some of these games are heavily focused on the MOBA aspects, including the ability to level up, learn, and upgrade abilities and buy items during matches, to the point where they are basically First Person MOBAs. Others are much more focused on the FPS aspects and use different weapons, abilities, and ultimates to increase the variety of playstyles in the game.

These are all-important because, in games like this, while the shooting is important, your objective isn't to obliterate your enemy team; they always respawn after a few seconds. The game contains an objective to be contested, usually an area to dominate or hold or a payload to escort or stop. Therefore, kill counts don't really matter, so long as you manage to hold onto your objective, so the mindset of 'frag-hunting' that is more common in earlier games such as your regular Arena Shooter or Counter-Strike would be counterproductive when playing games in this genre.

Ultimately, the frontier that separates a Hero Shooter from your regular FPS with customization is that the weapons and abilities are tied to a character or group of characters, though some (but definitely not all) abilities and weapons being shared between some characters isn't exactly unheard of.

Differentiates itself from the other FPS subgenres in the following ways:

• Arena Shooter: due to its emphasis on characters and their stats, as all characters and their loadouts are quite different between each other. Pickups are quite rare, but definitely not unheard of.
• Tactical Shooter: due to its emphasis on gameplay over realism.
• Looter Shooter: due to its emphasis on Competitive Multiplayer and that all weapons and items don't have stat variations.
• Battle Royale Game: due to its shortened (usually 5-on-5) player count in comparison to the gigantic numbers found in this genre (between 50-100) and its spawnpoints being predefined rather than the player being able to pick up one in a map.

Compare with Adventure Board Games, which also have characters with unique abilities.

Do not confuse with Hero Killer.

Examples of this genre:

• Atlas Reactor: A Turn-Based Tactics version.
• Apex Legends: A Battle Royale Game Spin-Off of Titanfall, but without the Humongous Mecha and Le Parkour. Unlike most hero shooters, each hero doesn't have a specialized weapon loadout (weapons are acquired in-match), and instead each Legend has a passive, active, and ultimate skill. In an unusual twist, several cast members of Apex Legends are pretty much Tactical abilities from Titanfall 2 developed into entire characters.
• Battleborn leaned harder into the MOBA inspirations than Overwatch or Paladins did, and was notable for having the misfortune of coming out just as Overwatch, then packed with lots of hype, was about to release.
• BattleCry
• Bleeding Edge
• Call of Duty: Black Ops III: Combines hero shooter elements with traditional Call of Duty multiplayer. There are 10 specialists, each with unique personalities and special abilities, but Create-a-Class and the standard selection of weapons and attachments, perks, and equipment are still available for all specialists.
  • Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare: Continues the specialist feature (called Rigs here), however there's only 6 and they lack the personalities of the Black Ops III specialists.
• Crucible
• Cyber Diver: Released by Taito in Japanese arcades back in 2009, this was an early example of the genre.
• Deceive Inc.: Combines the hero shooter with Stealth-Based Games.
• Depth is an asymmetric version — the sharks each have unique appearances, abilities, and health, while the divers can fill out certain roles with certain equipment, but aren't restricted.
• Dirty Bomb
• Evolve: It's an asymmetric example of this genre. The available characters are different if you are on the hunters side or on the monster side.
• Final Combat
• Foamstars
• Gears 5 incorporates elements of this into its PvE modes, Horde and Escape. Each character available in these modes now have a predetermined loadout which they spawn with, in addition to both an ultimate and passive ability.
• Ghost in the Shell: First Assault Online
• Gigantic: Combined with MOBA and a variant of capture-the-flag, wherein your heroes must lead a gigantic creature to the other team's base.
• The Grid: Coming out a year after Outtrigger, this was also an Ur-Example: a third-person shooter focused on multiplayer, where each character had one unique ability, such as digging a hole to teleport elsewhere or charging an opponent to knock out their weapons. It plays like a less jump-focused Unreal Tournament.
• Gundam Evolution: Released by Bandai Namco, it's a Hero Shooter starring various Mobile Suits and Gundams that roam the various Gundam worlds.
• Gunslinger Stratos: Released by Taito and Square Enix in Japanese arcades back in 2012, this was an early example of the genre.
• LawBreakers, leaning more towards Quake: Champions or Unreal Tournament than the rest of the genre.
• Mega Man 8-Bit Deathmatch isn't this on its own, but there are several Game Mods that allows the players to play as different Robot Masters and other characters with their own abilities and weapons instead of just being able to pick up and use weapons on the map.
• Monday Night Combat: Third-Person Shooter example
• Nosgoth: As with Monday Night Combat, it's a third-person shooter, along with asymmetric multiplayer.
• Outtrigger: The Ur-Example of the genre. It featured four unique characters, each with their own unique class and abilities.
• Overwatch
• Overwatch 2
• Paladins: A High Fantasy hero shooter that has a unique cards, items and talents system that makes each Champion have different ways of playing.
• Paragon (2016)
• Primal Carnage: Asymmetrical class-based game, with each human and dinosaur playing a distinct role with sidegrades. For example, the Scientist can tranquilize dinosaurs for a debuff that makes it easier for teammates to kill dinosaurs, or carry an anti-tank rifle instead.
• Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville
• Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare
• Quake Champions is a downplayed example, as a compromise between a Hero Shooter and the traditional "Arena Shooter" of previous installments. All characters have a special ability and up to two (three in a specific case) passive abilities, and their loadout include the standard Gauntlet for close combat, and a selectable weak ranged weapon (Machinegun/Nailgun/Shotgun). The rest of the "heavier" weapons, as well as their ammo and powerups, are scattered across the maps, and the game is otherwise a straight Arena Shooter.
  • Quake Champions: Doom Edition is its equivalent as a Game Mod for Doom, but with more, different characters and even includes monster packs.
• Rainbow Six Siege is a competitive Counter-Strike-styled multiplayer shooter mixed with some hero shooter elements. All of the "Operators" have distinct gadgets and personalities, and teamwork is absolutely vital to success. However, the game downplays the gadgets in combat (most are utility or tactical tools - even the ones that actually take the form of an extra weapon are generally bad for combat), and keeps the general gameplay style of most characters the same, with most only differing by weapon types available to them based on what CTU they hail from (e.g. Spetsnaz Operators get Russian weapons) and what role they play (e.g. a Defender will usually get shorter-ranged submachine guns and shotguns).
• Rogue Company: All the RoCo's have a special ability and a limited pool of weapons to choose from, but they all have special perks and devices to help in battle.
• Star Wars Battlefront (2015), specifically in Hero-focused modes like Hero Hunt and Heroes VS Villains.
  • Star Wars Battlefront II (2017), same as the above.
• Team Fortress Classic, a GoldSrc port of the original mod Team Fortress 1
• Team Fortress 2: Some, but not all characters have special abilities (such as double-jumping or cloaking) and each character has a distinctive appearance and personality and a unique set of weapons to fulfill their designated roles. The Medic's Übercharge and most Soldier's secondary weapons also count as ultimate abilities. The Sniper's Hitman's Heatmaker, the Pyro's Phlogistinator, and the Scout's Soda Popper also fall under the theme of being Ultimates, albeit are only single option weapons.
• Titanfall 2: Zigzagged - with regards to Pilots, who are generally similarly-shaped and have a wider variety of weapons and customizability with minimal personality to speak of, but each Pilot model is now attached to a certain tactical ability, such as a cloak, grappling hook or the ability to pop in and out of reality. The eponymous Titans, however, are markedly less customizable than the ones in Titanfall and have very specific silhouettes to signal who's who, and in turn, have relatively fixed loadouts that give them more personality.
• Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict is an early example which mixes elements of the Arena Shooter and Fighting Game genres (it even features Raiden as a Guest Fighter) and character-based abilities and stats, predating the popularization of the genre for nearly 10 years. Each character has a loadout composed of a melee weapon, a weak ranged weapon, a selectable Energy weapon (Bio Rifle/Shock Rifle/Sniper Rifle/Stinger), a selectable Projectile weapon (Flak Cannon/Rocket Launcher/Grenade Launcher/Ripjack), and six Adrenaline abilities: two that are shared across the roster (Nimble and Speed), three race-specific abilities, and a character-specific ability. Unreal Championship and Unreal Tournament 2004 with the "Species Statistics" mutator are even earlier but more bare-bones examples; characters get various boosts and penalties based on their race (e.g. Juggernauts have massive starting health and better resistance to damage in return for moving slower and jumping lower, Anubans move slower on the ground but have far better jump height and air control, etc.) but with no further differentiation between the individual members of that race, and they all still have access to the same array of weapons depending on what spawns in the current map.
• VALORANT: Like Rainbow Six Siege, this one is a mix of hero shooter elements with classic tactical shooter. Each playable "Agent" has a unique model, personality and a set of unique abilities (including an ultimate ability that needs to be charged over few rounds), but only few of them are used directly in combat. Furthermore, weapons have to be bought before every round, and their pool is the same for all Agents, instead of "every hero has a unique weapon" style common in hero shooters.