While First-Person Shooters aren't necessarily known for their world-building, there are quite a few out there that are better at it than one might think. Even in the early days of games like the original Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM titles, when there was admittedly very little story to speak of and the player occupied the role of the silent protagonist, each game's environment design was able to convey a surprising amount of important details about the world the player was exploring.
That was then, however. With the continued advancement of video game technology (among other things), First-Person Shooters' world-building capabilities have improved drastically over the years. This is especially evident in some of the genre's longest-running I.Ps. Here are some FPS series that have great world-building.
6 Wolfenstein
While the original Wolfenstein was light on story content, the modern games have been able to expand on its lore in very interesting ways. Nowhere is this more impressive than in Wolfenstein: The New Order, which is set in a world where the Nazis, with the aid of mysteriously advanced technology, have won the Second World War and more or less taken over the world.
Occupying the role of B.J Blazkowicz after emerging from a catatonic state, the player has numerous opportunities to learn about not only the concluding events of the war but how the state of the world has been affected by Nazi rule during his 14-year absence.
5 S.T.A.L.K.E.R
Set in the Chernobyl exclusion zone in Ukraine, STALKER takes quite a lot of inspiration from the novel Roadside Picnic as well as the Andrei Tarkovsky film Stalker. It is admittedly closer to an RPG than it is to a straight-up FPS game than something like Halo, for instance. However, it benefits greatly from this genre-bending when it comes to lore and world-building.
The series is a cross between Sci-fi and paranormal survival horror and, as such, presents the player with a fascinating and unique world to explore. One filled with interesting factions, nightmarish creatures, and existential terrors.
4 DOOM
The old DOOM games were pretty good when it came to world-building, just from the level and enemy design alone. Each level seemed to tell this story of Hell gradually swallowing the moons of Mars, twisting the landscape and structures while corrupting their inhabitants. The modern DOOM games (especially DOOM 2016), however, have done a great job of building a whole new world for Doomguy to rip and tear his way through.
Granted, it's the same Doomguy from the original games, but the player can learn all about his journey across universes and how he became the Doom Slayer via collectibles like codex pages, data entries, and so on. All of these help to put the events of each game into a much wider context if the player keeps their eyes open.
3 Halo
As one of the more innovative games in the genre when it came to storytelling in the early 2000s, Halo has always been rather great at dropping the player onto a mysterious new world and tasking them with unlocking its secrets. Whether it's by simply playing the missions or by going the extra mile and hunting for hidden terminals and data logs, the Halo universe created by Bungie has always offered a sense of mystery and wonder that few shooters, if any, have been able to match, let alone surpass over the years.
The games feature a grand narrative that really spans over a hundred thousand years, with the player playing a pivotal role as they learn about the past via exploring ancient, alien worlds and using that knowledge to survive the present threat of annihilation.
2 Half-Life
The Half-Life series was among the first fps games to break new ground when it comes to story. The first game makes use of the always fun premise of "science experiment gone wrong," but the second game is really where the series starts to craft an interesting world for the player to sink their teeth into.
Half-life 2 drops Gordon Freeman back on Earth 20 years after the events at Back Mesa. In the years since, it has been almost entirely overrun by malevolent alien invaders who've seen fit to repress the human race at every possible outlet. Over the course of the game, the player witnesses just what kind of society the Combine has enforced on humanity; sometimes in exhaustive and even gruesome detail.
1 Metro
The Metro franchise is kind of like a spiritual successor to the STALKER series in more ways than one. Set in the metro system beneath Moscow during the 2030s, the series (which comprises both games and books) is known for its genre-bending world design. Though there was a great nuclear war in 2013, even that only partially explains the state of Metro's setting.
The player, Artyom, must navigate the irradiated metro tunnels, surviving enemy factions, mutants, and anomalous creatures along the way. Through its characters, environment, enemy design, and much more, there is plenty for players to discover about this strange universe whilst exploring the blackened and toxic ruins of former Russia.