Games

Serious Sam is mindlessly dumb in the good way.

Warframe is my go to when I just want to blast tunes and murder everything without too much thought.

I don't know if it counts as "cozy," but Metal:Hellsinger is an extremely vibey shooter, as you can kind of just zone out, bop your head to the music, and vibe to the music in flow state while playing. Kind of zen, actually.

Risk of Rain 2

Even though they're not traditional shooters, the Ratchet and Clank games are really fun. There's a pretty big genre difference in the games in the franchise, with generally the earlier games being more platform-ey, especially 1 & 2. A lot of the humor from the original trilogy still holds up today.

There's definitely some "unfun" parts in the games (giant mech fight from rac2 and the hacker from rac3 come to mind) but overall cozy imo. Some of the most unique and fun guns in any game.

If you're looking for strictly more shooter, check out Ratchet Deadlocked. There's barely any platforming and no mini games that I can remember, it's pretty much all shooting. NG+ makes it super cozy. It's really nice to play emulated.

Cyberpunk on easy with aim assist is pretty chill. Popping heads and blowing off limbs. It’s a comfort game for me.

I’ve been feeling this with Cyberpunk a bit. But you may think it’s too quest driven to be considered.

I've been replaying Borderlands 3, so honestly I'd recommend any of those games for a cozy shooter. The stories don't take themselves too seriously, if you die you can just respawn immediately in the vicinity, and it can be pretty relaxing to just mow down waves of bandits or whatever other enemies.

Combat Master, a free to play CoD like.

Earth Defence Force: nothing better than blowing up 5 million bugs a minute after a tough working day

I felt the first Mass Effect was cozier than the sequels, though I never finished the sequels.

Vermintide 1 is a top notch flow state game where your mind can melt while you dodge-dance and kill with fluidity. Highly recommend. Very chill.

The original Sniper Ghost Warrior games were really chill. More about stealth than action

Bulletstorm. It's not about survival as much as killing enemies as creatively as possible. And the writing is brilliant in its stupidity. One of my favourite games of all times.

Maybe Destiny 2? The gunplay is unmatched and popping alien heads off in an explosion of alien blood or exploding robots in an explosion of robot blood is very satisfying.

Some parts are free to play too.

Left4Dead 2

Great flow game

Deep Rock Galactic, play solo on the lower difficulties and just vibe and mine. Bosco the robot that follows you on solo missions can kill pretty much everything for you most of the time, or you can have it do the mining and tasks while you shoot everything in sight.

Is slime rancher technically a shooter game?

Absolutely second the recommendations of Doom and Quake here in the thread. Boomer shooters in general. Even if the movement can be really fast, playing them on your own can be extremely cozy. Just get into the rhythm of circle strafing, shooting and weaving in and out of cover and you'll be in the zone very quickly. Bonus point, that both Doom and Quake have 30 years of EXCELLENT quality player created content that can keep you playing fresh new levels for as long as you want to. You could play them for the rest of your life, at your own pace and preferred difficulty.

The new rereleases of both games even bundle a mod browser that you can access with zero knowledge of modding, just hop on.

Maybe check out Roboquest? I was looking for a mindless FPS a few weeks ago (my usual go-to is UT2004, I’m old :]) and the Roboquest demo scratched the itch pretty well. Planning to pick up the full version when I see it go on sale

Doom 1 and, to some extent, 2. Honestly.

I know exactly what you are looking for and the classic Doom games are perfect for this, because they are simple, yet they still feel good to play.

Not too fast, not too slow. No jump scares, only some light puzzles if you want to hunt secrets. There is almost a rhythm to the combat, especially if you play with the shotgun. Try them.

I really like some of the Halo games for this, especially any levels that don't involve The Flood. The inventive hit-boxes, slow movements, the vehicles that are fun to just drive around, and the addition of gameplay modifiers, they're pretty cathartic for me.

Really not sure how to interpret 'cozy' here, but tbh the Farcry series are great for me in that they're my casual shooters. I say this meaning that I do the shooting when I want to do the shooting -- otherwise I'm off paragliding or picking flowers or something else low stress and soothing. To me, in that regard, they're very cozy.

Well, as others have noted I think "cozy" is probably a loaded term in this context. However, I will throw these recommendations into the ring also: The first couple of Serious Sam games, and also Painkiller. Both of them are firmly in the "murdering tons of dudes" genre, and are significantly less tactical than the likes of Medal of Honor/Call of Duty/Battlefield.

That is to say, not at all.

There is none of that sucking your thumb to regenerate health, popping out from the chest-high walls inexplicably strewn everywhere taking potshots with your gun like a hillbilly jack-in-the-box. Rather, their gameplay loop involves herding and managing a massive horde of enemies, prioritizing your targets, and keeping yourself moving. Like a sheep dog with a chaingun.

People try to call the original Doom games a horde shooter. They really aren't. These two, however, definitely are.

Borderlands is like that. You can even tune the difficulty in 3 and Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

If your looking for a shooter with a flow state, give Neon White a look. It's a FPS platformer where you pick up gun cards and you choose if you want to use the card as a gun to shoot demons, or throw it away for a movement ability (double jump, dash, etc.) as you try to get to the end of the level as fast as possible.

If the platforming and racing doesn't sound like it's for you, I saw someone else brought up Ultrakill and I wanted to recommend that as well

Give Ultrakill and Gunfire Reborn a look.

I don't play actual shooter myself, however, both Pokemon Snap games fit your description - might be worth a shot.

Splatoon singleplayer maybe? Side Order is built for casually grinding out runs.