7 FPS Games With World-Building That Actually Rivals BioShock

Even though it’s almost 20 years old, most gamers today are familiar with BioShock. Developed by Ken Levine and Irrational Games, the game is set in the fictional underwater city of Rapture. While it’s renowned for its narrative and unique gameplay that’s part survival horror and part FPS action game, it’s the world-building that has helped BioShock (and its sequels) stand the test of time.

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Very few FPS games can rival BioShock on the world-building front, but these next games pull it off. They all share something in common with Irrational’s classic. Some are post-apocalyptic (Rapture has fallen by the time you arrive), others are based on novels (much of Rapture’s history is based on Ayn Rand’s book “Atlas Shrugged”), and others still simply share that unmistakable sense of place that Rapture evokes, where even a single screenshot is enough to identify BioShock’s unique setting.

Fallout: New Vegas

Widely Considered To Be One Of The Best-Written RPGs Of All Time

On the surface, Fallout: New Vegas might seem like your average post-nuclear apocalypse world, but there’s a reason why this franchise is so beloved. This is a retropunk world featuring sci-fi technology with a distinct 1960s flair, and it has suffered the devastation of multiple nuclear wars. As a result, disparate communities have sprung up from the ashes, which the game identifies as Factions.

Fit the 9 games into the grid.

Factions are the linchpin of Fallout: New Vegas’ world-building. Each one represents a twisted version of old-world ideologies, and you can align your character with any of them, potentially alienating the others in the process. Not only do Factions center the Nevada Wasteland in this unique apocalyptic world, but they also help cement your character as a key figure within that world.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart Of Chornobyl

Post-Apocalyptic Sci-Fi Based On A Classic Soviet Novel

The world of STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl is brutal. This is a survival game at its core, but not your typical “lost in a remote location, catch fish to live” kind of way. Your character, Skif, visits the Zone on purpose, seeking wealth and answers after a rogue anomaly leaves a strange artifact in the ruins of his home. Anomalies aren’t uncommon in the Zone; in fact, they’re expected. Stalkers frequently cross the dangerous lands within, seeking money and power from the items that the anomalies leave behind.

STALKER 2 is based on a cult classic Soviet novel called “Roadside Picnic” by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, in which an alien visitation creates the Zone, and the anomalies are the things the aliens leave behind after they depart. The STALKER games aren’t a direct adaptation of this story, but the parallels are obvious. Needless to say, with a strong foundation to build its world upon, excellent visuals, and gameplay that’s immersive through its punishing, gritty nature, STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl has no trouble conveying the depth and complexity of its setting to every player who ventures into the Zone.

Half-Life 2

An All-Time Classic Set In A Crumbling Dystopia

There’s an argument to be made that Half-Life 2’s world-building was an inspiration for BioShock. The two games don’t have a ton in common, but there are some similarities, including dystopian cities, oppressive regimes, and horrifying mutations. The difference here is that City 17 in Half-Life 2 is still standing, albeit rotting from within, whereas BioShock’s Rapture fell to ruin long ago.

There is lore behind City 17 and its rulers that involves interdimensional aliens and physics-breaking technology, but what makes Half-Life 2 so immersive is that you aren’t told any of it; you just exist within it. Playing as Gordon Freeman, you arrive in City 17 and can immediately identify the oppressors, the oppressed, and the alien headcrabs. Your own sensibilities guide you from there, taking you through the city sewers, to the dark and deadly Ravenholm and beyond. The world already existed before you arrived, and it will exist after you leave. You simply play a part in shaping its future.

Metro Exodus

A True Post-Apocalypse Set In A Brutal World

The Metro series is also based on a series of books, in this case written by Dmitry Glukhovsky. These games share a lot of similarities with both BioShock, STALKER, and Fallout, but the difference here is that this apocalypse is truly dead. Humanity is barely hanging on, and unlike the bustling settlements you’ll find in Fallout, anyone still alive in the world is hiding below ground in the rundown subway systems; at least, that’s what everyone thinks. Metro Exodus, the third game in the series, has you manning a working train that departs Moscow in search of other survivors.

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While the world-building in Metro has always been woven into the gameplay — bullets and currency are one and the same, weapons are rusted and feature makeshift attachments, and exploring above ground without a gas mask means certain death — in Metro Exodus, you see beyond the confines of the city, expanding the depth of the setting. Blind gorillas, humanoid bats, and giant shrimp are just a few of the mutated threats hiding in the wider world, showing how much there is to see outside the subway tunnels. This is a world where humanity isn’t rebuilding; it’s hanging by a thread, and any hope of truly rebuilding society is superseded by the need to survive for one more night.

Destiny 2

Some Of The Best World-Building You’ll Ever See In A Live-Service Game

Upon the release of the first Destiny,its narrative wasn’t particularly fleshed out, and it got a lot of hate as a result. The gameplay was great, but the story was brushed off as an afterthought, and the series never shook that feeling. Even as the narrative improved dramatically, Destiny never cast off the “wizard on the moon” meme. That’s unfortunate, because it’s one of the most unique settings in gaming, and easily one of the best in any live-service game.

Set 700 years in the future, Destiny 2 is hard sci-fi that verges on fantasy. Mankind has colonized the Solar System, but an event called “the Collapse” brings it all crashing down. Humanity is embroiled in an ancient war between two beings, the Traveler and the Darkness, while alien races have colonized the settlements left behind on Earth’s neighboring planets. You, as a Guardian, are thrown into this conflict, beating back the alien attackers and trying to rebuild after the Red Legion attacks Earth and destroys The Tower, the Guardians’ headquarters. This is just a cursory overview, as every Destiny 2 expansion released since 2017 has expanded on the setting and lore. It’s all there to interact with, and the deeper you go, the more satisfying the narrative becomes. Or, you can just take joy in the shooting and movement mechanics and ignore the plot entirely. Destiny 2 is great either way.

Cyberpunk 2077

A Perfectly Realized Sci-Fi Metropolis Down To Its Smallest Detail

There are a lot of iconic video game settings, but few can hold a candle to Night City in Cyberpunk 2077. This isn’t just an open-world sci-fi metropolis; it’s a perfectly realized living world. Everything from the bustling streets to the winding roadways to the dingy back alleys reinforces the setting. It’s gritty, gross, and futuristic, both familiar and completely foreign at the same time.

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The narrative is one of Cyberpunk 2077’s selling points (and one of the few bright spots during its disastrous launch), but what makes its world-building stand out is that the narrative is a tiny part of the overall setting, not its foundation. The world carries on throughout, no matter if you’re locked in a high-speed car chase, sprinting across the rooftops, or installing some new chrome with a shady ripperdoc. Johnny Silverhand, who in many ways is a co-protagonist to the player’s character, V, has left an indelible mark on Night City, and that bleeds through as well. Yet even in Johnny’s case, his legacy isn’t as immortal as the endless motion of the city itself. This is what makes the world so immersive. It feels like Night City is a real place, with all the details you’d expect to find in a major metropolis. Your role in events is larger than the average citizen’s, but it’s still tiny when compared to the scale of Night City.

Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus

A Perfect Blend Of Alternate-History Storytelling And High-Stakes Action

The Wolfenstein series has always been an alternate-history story about Nazis winning World War 2, but Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus explores that concept in much greater detail than any game before it. For one, instead of exploring Europe, BJ Blazkowicz returns to the West and is attempting to liberate the United States from Nazi control. This grants a brand-new perspective on the reimagined world that Machine Games established in the first game, drawing upon the series’ history to bring it into the modern era.

Nazi-occupied America is terrifying largely because of how familiar it is. Manhattan still looks like Manhattan, but there are swastikas all over the place, and Nazi robot dogs roam the streets. As ridiculous as the narrative gets (at one point, BJ’s head is removed, rescued, and grafted onto a super soldier body), it really just serves to reinforce what the world is trying to convey. The Nazis won the war with advanced, almost otherworldly technology, and so that technology is pretty commonplace among the resistance as well, as they continually steal and repurpose it. Does the narrative have the same impact as BioShock? No, but when taken as a whole — narrative, setting, lore, and world-building — Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus establishes and consistently reinforces its alternate history, both its present and its past, at every turn, ensuring that you never feel disconnected from the space you’re exploring.