Brace yourselves. We’re about to unveil the 11 best FPS multiplayer maps of all time. From the golden age of FPS titles in the late 90s and early 2000s, to the modern day era of gaming where there’s so much choice it’s overwhelming.
The order of these maps are based on personal opinion, so if you think differently, make sure to make your own opinion heard. With that being said, all 11 of these maps are undoubtedly some of the best FPS maps in the world.
#11 – Favela – Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Easily one of the best Call of Duty maps in Modern Warfare 2, and perhaps one of the best COD maps period. Favela is a medium sized map that was perfectly designed for quick action.
Despite the focus on quick, action packed close quarters encounters, there are a number of tall buildings on this map that opened up some opportunities for sniping. These days, multi-tiered maps are very common, but Favela was one of the first multi-story maps to get it right.
#10 – Vacant – Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Up next we have Vacant, perhaps the most popular Call Of Duty 4 map for public games and scrims.
Vacant was at the heart of what made Call of Duty so exhilarating. Vacant featured many close quarter indoor areas rewarded players for quick movement and quick reaction speeds.
Some outdoor areas were included on this map that helped to break up the flow of gameplay a little. The outside areas were usually used for setting up flanks on unsuspecting players.
#9 – House – Rainbow Six Siege
The interesting thing about House is that it seems like such a simple map on the surface. It’s hard to explain why it’s one of the best maps if you haven’t played Rainbow Six Siege. This is especially true when you have far more complex maps like Favela and Theme Park.
But the simplicity is what makes House so great. It’s a map that everybody can get to grips with quickly, and this creates the perfect environment for a healthy competitive scene. The simplicity of house has made it possible for players and pro teams to devise all sorts of strategies when both attacking and defending.
House should be the star model for what all Rainbow Six Siege maps should be like – easy to understand, but open to lots of potential options.
#8 – Strike at Karkand – Battlefield 2
Strike at Karkand will always go down as one of the best FPS multiplayer maps of all time. When you’re playing a public game, Strike at Karkand can be hectic and at times, a chaotic mess.
When you play with two organized teams, however, it’s a completely different experience. Karkand is easily one of Battlefield’s most tactical maps, players must work hard to capture the right points at the right time to control flow of the map.
The great thing about Karkand is that if you join the map with a group of competent players, you can usually dominate the game.
#7 – Nuketown – Call of Duty
It shouldn’t be a surprise that Nuketown is on this list. Whether you love it or hate it, Nuketown has become an icon in Call of Duty history. Nuketown has been remade multiple times, but the original map is where the most memories were had.
Nuketown is a great map because it’s incredibly small and open which makes it the perfect map for quick face-offs and duels.
#6 – Facing Worlds – Unreal Tournament
Unreal Tournament was one of the founding fathers of the first person shooter genre, so we have a lot of respect to pay when it comes to the franchise’s incredible map design.
One of the best maps to come out of Unreal Tournament is Facing Worlds. This map was incredibly simple and quite small, but this made it perfect. Like some of the other maps in this list so far, sometimes simplicity is key to making a good map.
Facing Worlds was often played as a Capture the Flag map.
Trying to capture the enemy flag and take it back to your base always proved difficult because you’d constantly have players overlooking the entire map. Players had to kill enough of the enemy team so that there was enough time during their respawn to get the flag across. There is something very exhilarating about this that has made Facing Worlds one of the best FPS multiplayer maps of all time.
#5 – Headlong – Halo 2
Headlong was one of Halo 2’s best maps for a variety of reasons. It was small enough that finding combat was easy, but it was large enough to feature a number of vehicles. Everything was placed out so that everybody had an equal chance to get the power weapons and vehicles.
Headlong wasn’t necessarily hectic, but you were never more than a few seconds away from the action.
#4 – Rust – Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2
Rust is without a doubt one of the most iconic FPS maps to ever grace this planet. The number of memes about Rust at this point is uncountable. Despite everything that is said about Rust, you can’t deny that it’s a good map.
Rust was the map that 1v1s were settled. It was where players tested their might and only the best players came out on top.
Because of the way Rust was designed, players had to rely heavily on their aim to perform well on this map. If your aim wasn’t as good as your opponent, you’d struggle to get a single kill in.
#3 – Lockout – Halo 2
Halo has had a lot of great maps over the years. Some Halo maps were great for unprecedented fun, whilst others were masterpieces for competitive play. The latter is exactly where Lockout fell in Halo 2.
Lockout was a map that perfectly defines what competitive Halo is all about. Playing lockout was all about controlling parts of the map to get the power weapons when they spawned and predicting the enemy spawns.
Lockout showcased just how important map and power weapon control can be in Halo and it’s the kind of map that somehow worked for 1v1s all the way up to 4v4s.
#2 – Dust 2 – Counter Strike
Out of every last multiplayer FPS map out there, the one map that has perhaps the most combined play time is Dust 2.
Dust 2 was popular back in the original Counter Strike back in 2001 and Dust 2 is still very popular today in CS:GO. Over the years, Dust 2 has had multiple visual reworks, but the overall map layout has stayed the same.
Dust 2 is the perfect introduction to Counter Strike – it shows how players should hold bomb sites whilst defending, and how players on the attacking side should work together to take control of one of the bomb sites.
What’s crazy is that for many people, Counter Strike is Dust 2 – many casual CS:GO players put hundreds of hours into this one map and very rarely touch the others.
#1 – Blood Gulch – Halo: Combat Evolved
Blood Gulch will stand the test of time as one of the best multiplayer maps of all time simply because it was such fun to play. Blood Gulch introduced the world to Halo and it showcased how much potential a multiplayer shooter really could have.
There wasn’t anything particularly special about Blood Gulch, and from a game design standpoint, it did little to impress. Somehow, despite all that, Blood Gulch stands to be one of the best maps ever, perhaps due to nothing more than nostalgia.
Special Mention
Shipment which is up there with the best maps but didn’t quite make it onto the list this time.
Summary
What are your thoughts on these multiplayer maps? Would you rank them differently?