Games

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.

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

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

I miss No One Lives Forever.

Serious Sam is mindlessly dumb in the good way.

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

I'm now imagining something like a gardening game where you shoot seeds/water/fertilizer into the dirt or something... or an Animal Crossing game where you fire furniture out of a gun for the animals to collect...

Might be cozy because of the nostalgia more than anything else, but I’ve been cruising through the Turok remasters

Doom 2 was already covered so I'll go with Roboquest, indie arena roguelike shooter with randomized weapons and perks but static arenas/mobs/bosses. Once you get a handle on the movement it's one of the comfiest shooters I've played in years.

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.

I've been enjoying the flow state I get into while playing Space Marine II. It is a mix of melee and shooting, but the melee aspect is very simple - no memorizing combos and the timing of parries is fairly forgiving. It's all very satisfying once you get the feel for it. Cinematics are skippable, you can change the difficulty level to your liking, and you can set your lobbies to private if you don't wanna play with others

Risk of Rain 2

Gunfire Reborn does that for me, even though I have to play with a controller. Roboquest looks like it's kind-of between Gunfire Reborn and Borderlands, but I haven't tried it yet.

Ravenfield with some mods on Workshop maybe? Or Operation Harshdoorstop with some Workshop.

I do have a recommendation for a cozy FPS: The Signal from Tolva.

Basically you're a robot in an old robot battlefield planet and you've got to shoot other robots, sometimes team up with other robots and go around getting upgrades.

The coziness comes from the environment, which has some strong outworldliness vibe and it feels slightly lonely but in a "journey" way. Plus the guns feel good and it's probably really cheap right now.

The cons is that the game doesn't feel finished, after a while it gets repetitive and then it just ends.

If I had to describe it, I would say it's an FPS+walking simulator.

"Generation Zero" would be my second recommendation, which is a mixture of Red Dawn, Swedish 80s and big robots.

Note: I haven't played them except for the 2nd entry, but the Far Cry series feels like it is a mixture between FPS and holiday island.

Give GUN JAM a try. It's a rhythm shooting game, the stakes are as high or as low as you want them. There's only a minimal story and you just focus on the music, aiming and staying on the beat. Can be a lot of flow state fun.