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.
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!
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.
I wouldn’t say “comprehensively bricked” but on my most recent playthrough (PS5) I did hit one or two crashes that caused me to lose a small amount of progress.