Be honest with yourself – how good are you really at your favourite First Person Shooter? Half as good as you think probably – unless you’re honest enough to admit you probably suck. It’s ok. We do too. Or at least we did. Like everyone who is now on some kind of professional team, everyone starts out bad at them. Fortunately for you and your bragging rights, you need not stay in the lower trenches of mediocrity forever.



Step one to Git Gud: Practice

We are here to help. Below are a few tips on how to stop sucking at your favourite FPS game(s). And no, these steps don’t include buying better equipment, which although fun, won’t help. It’s you buddy, not your mouse/keyboard, and it probably isn’t lag either. Sorry to tell you.

Step two to Git Gud: Research

Shocking, we know. This revolutionary practice involves repeatedly playing the game and challenging yourself to do a little better each time. If you absolutely cannot make progress, try practicing offline with bots or in a shooting range first. We won’t tell anyone, promise.Pick one weapon and master it. Then another, and so on. When you think you’re ready, try playing with actual people again. If you notice you’re doing better, congrats, you’re ready for the next step. If not, look at something else – maybe you’re really good with rifles but can’t handle pistols? You’re allowed to have a specialty, so focus on that first!

Step three to Git Gud: Ignore/mute the chat

Boring, right? This is about video games and not studying isn’t it? Well, we don’t want you to write a dissertation on the topic, but each game has its own unique elements. This could be quirky hit-boxes, spread patterns, or changes caused by recent upgrades.Stay on top of that and be aware of the specifics of your game – most of them feature headshots in one form or another, so it’s important to know what the game considers a headshot so you can save yourself the disappointment of missing constantly.

Unless your game specifically relies on in-game callouts, and at the level you’re playing, odds are it doesn’t, mute the chat. The text chat especially but also the voice chat. Why? Because odds are you’re playing with at least a few Russian/Polish kids that are screaming about the lovely things they did to your mother that morning, and you don’t need the distraction.

If you don’t want to mute everyone, just mute everyone that’s a disturbance. Getting into shouting matches is fun, and learning a new language via its curse-words is too, but there’s a time and a place – and it isn’t when you’re trying to get better. So tune them out and focus on your playing.

Step four to Git Gud: Watch better players

Step 5 to Git Gud: Git Gud

If you don’t already, find a couple Twitch streamers or the like, and watch some of their plays. You probably won’t be able to implement all of their strategies, but you may be able to see what they do differently and find something to improve in.Even if you don’t, you’ll at least get something to aspire to. And good news: The worse you are when you start out, the easier it is to make improvements to your play-style! So, don’t get discouraged, you can definitely get better.

Find a combination of things that works for you – and don’t hide behind excuses. Yeah, you will have days where you play badly for no reason whatsoever, lag may be an issue from time to time, and yes, your ten year old keyboard will need replacing eventually, but that’s not why you suck at FPS-games.If you really don’t improve even with practice and research and good gear, there is one last thing to do: Accept that you suck and move on. You can still play games you’re bad at. With good match-making, you’ll be playing against people as bad as you so don’t worry about it too much.You’re allowed to play badly and still have fun – even if an angry 12-year old says otherwise!