SWAT 4 is a 2005 tactical first-person shooter video game developed by Irrational Games and published by Sierra Entertainment exclusively for Microsoft Windows. It is the ninth installment in the Police Quest series and the fourth installment in the SWAT subseries. In SWAT 4, the player commands a police SWAT team in the city of Fairview, New York. Unlike its predecessor, SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle, SWAT 4 does not have an overarching plot. Instead, gameplay takes place over a series of unconnected deployments of the player's SWAT team, as they are sent to apprehend criminals, terrorists, gangs, and cults in and around Fairview.
A SWAT team clearing a subway maintenance tunnel during a multiplayer co-op match in SWAT 4
Tactical shooter is a sub-genre of first- and third-person shooters, associated with using strategy, planning, and tactics in gameplay, as well as the realistic simulations of ballistics, firearm mechanics, physics, stamina, and low time to kill. Dating back to strategy games from the late 1980s, the genre first rose to prominence in the late 1990s with the releases of several well-received tactical shooters. The popularity of the genre saw a decline in the late 2000s as fast-paced "arcade"-like action shooters rose to prominence, it has seen a revitalization since the mid-2010s with the successful releases of several modern tactical shooters.
Arma 3 (2013) is a modern example of a tactical shooter and a milsim. Variants of it are also used by real militaries for military simulation training.
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (1998) has been considered "the first true tactical shooter".
