For example, I didn’t fall in love with Titanfall 2’s environmental art design—it felt a bit generic to me, like it was meant to be the backdrop for a shooter, as opposed to the Sevastopol in A:I or the station in SOMA that felt like existing locations.
Ditto BioShock: Infinite. The world felt like it was built around the premise of being an arena shooter, not the other way around.
BioShock 1 & 2 are exactly what I’m talking about though.
Even Borderlands 2 has great world-building: the corporate history that can be inferred from the level design, the weapons & the NPCs makes it one of the richer games I’ve played.
Would love to hear others’ thoughts on your favorite FPS environments!
I just finished playing Deathloop for the first time and I believe it fits your criteria. Very Bioshock, except 60’s pop art instead of 30’s art deco. I could spend hours just wandering around the island exploring all the detail they’ve crammed in.
I tried to play Deathloop not long after launch and I enjoyed it, the humor was a big selling point, but it was a buggy mess. I tried so many different iterations but no matter what I tried it always crashed near the end of the third area, I can’t think of any other game I’ve tried that has been so comprehensively bricked. In saying that if they’ve managed to patch the gaping holes I’d like to try it again.
Oh sick, I didn’t realize Deathloop was first-person (I assumed it was over the shoulder 3rd-person like Max Payne & Control).
I almost mentioned Control in my post because it did have great environmental design that felt like a cross between Aperture and The X-Files. I’ll stick Deathloop on the wishlist, thanks for the recommendation!