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!
Valve style is gameplay first and foremost. While the environment tries to feel rooted with reality it fell short on several aspects. For example, ever notice how you never encounter a single washroom besides the one at Sector C? The physics puzzle too, it’s fun and shows off the physics engine but it’s impractical irl. And dear lord, the car battery puzzles…
Btw check out the new HL2 mod Swelter. Takes environmental design up to 11. Personally the best atmosphere of any HL source mod I’ve ever seen.
I honestly don’t notice that kind of thing. I usually play games once, and I’m not that into exploration on that first playthrough.
What strikes me about Valve games is that details are way better than I expect. Maybe not realism as you mentioned, but the narrative feels really compelling even with a silent protagonist and no cutscenes. A lot of first person shooters and puzzle games have weaker narratives despite including cutscenes and whatnot.