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!
Cyberpunk feels lived-in? In my experience, once the glamour of the visuals wear off, you notice how empty the world feels. The regular NPCs are completely lifeless, every location is just surface-deep and the atmosphere is severly lacking. I stood at the center of the city at a busy intersection and the most prominent sound I heard was the pedestrian traffic light. It’s just sad. You can absolutely see where they ran out of time. Locations might be wonderfully detailed, but there is nothin for you to interact with.
Yea I agree, exploring some of the densely populated areas of the game feel hollow (like you say “surface-deep”). But, when doing the main story line it felt very inclusive and full. I still remember the parade in the main story with Takemura, absolutely beautiful, a bit chaotic and massive feeling. OP talks about Bioshock 1&2 being what they’re talking about, but I could easily argue that both of those games were very linear and didn’t allow for much exploration outside of the main quest line.
At least there are some pretty kick-ass mods available on PC to liven it up. Highly recommend!