What's a boomer shooter – and is it even the right term?

Gaming has a rich (read excessive) vocabulary of genre names and sub-genres that's enforced with varying degrees of pedantry. It's a jargon that can be baffling to outsiders, and it doesn't always make sense to gamers either.

Amid this curious lexicon, one relatively recent addition has stood out in the last few years: just what is a boomer shooter? The term's origins are murky, its meaning can vary depending on who you speak to, and if you're a boomer yourself, you might be worried if its intended as an offence.

Fear not. A boomer shooter is not a game that involves shooting baby boomers. It doesn't even refer to games played by boomers since there weren't any (even Pong came during Generation X).

With so many pigeon holes for games, it might seem like we hardly need another, but the popularity of the boomer shooter revival could be of interest to developers, and it seems the term is here to stay (see our pick of the best game development software).

What is a boomer shooter?

Several years after a term's coined, its original intention can get lost. Some now think a boomer shooter refers to games where things go 'boom' in contrast to a tactical shooter, but that wasn't the idea.

The 'boomer' epithet was probably a reference to the 30-year-old boomer meme. Boomer shooters weren't played by boomers but by Generation X and Millennial gamers, who (in the eyes of younger players) were behaving like boomers by looking down moderns games and constantly complaining that things were better in their day, particularly in the Arena FPS community,

In that sense 'boomer' was used in a pejorative sense simply to mean old (pre-Halo, say). The term 'retro shooter' might make more sense (or 'X shooters?' '90s FPSs'?), but 'boomer' has stuck as fans of the genre reclaimed the term amid the growing revival of throwback FPS games since around 2018. After all, there's a nice assonance in that repetition of the double 'o's.

Today, the term is generally used to refer to FPS games that were popular in the 1990s (and later games that followed the same style). This was an era that saw the rise of console gaming. Games generally had minimal stories but became more realistic with faster combat. Players needed to dodge, could take more damage and could shoot constantly, fighting multiple on-screen enemies, often with quite inventive weapons.

Settings were often based on fantasy, populated with various types of creatures, and levels were intricate and non-linear, with lots of resources like powerups and ammo to collect. There was also a particular attitude – a dose of '90s snark, reflecting the humour and cultural references of the time.

What are the best boomer shooters from the modern era?

The best boomer shooters from the original wave are generally considered to include the likes of id Software's Wolfenstein 3D (1991), Doom (1993) and Quake (1996) and 3D Realms' Duke Nukem 3D (1996).

But boomer shooters have seen a revival, which is hardly a surprise in these days of 1990s and Y2K nostalgia. Modern titles like Dusk, Prodeus, Hrot, Cultic and Ion Fury emulate characteristics of the genre.

In 2025, the genre remains alive in well. Coming this year, we expect the releases of Interlopers, Breakky's Berserkers Domain, Gameshaped's Lost Anomaly's Blast Judgement, Ironworks' The Last Exterminator, Hydra Game Works' striking RetroBlazer and the 2nd chapter of Altered Orbit Studios' Selaco.

Boomers nor Generation Xs need be embarrassed. These are all exciting upcoming releases from a genre that still delivers. Also check out news of the Painkiller remake and MGS Snake Eater.

What do you think? Do you like boomer shooters, and do you have a better name for the genre? Let us know in the comments.