Summary
Great storytelling isn’t usually associated with big FPS franchises. Instead, we tend to think of these games as focusing on fast-paced, bombastic action and violent gameplay. While this is often true, it isn’t the whole story. Some ofthe best first-person shooters of all timehave incredible stories.
Even better, some of the biggest FPS franchises have overarching stories that last multiple entries. Fans might come for the exciting gameplay but they often keep coming back for these stories. We’ve compiled some of the best.Each entry in this list is a “true” FPS, not just a game with a first-person perspective, and has a story that lasts for multiple entries rather than just a single sequel. They were chosen both for the quality of their FPS gameplay as well as how good their overarching stories are.
The story ofMetrobegan withMetro 2033(2010) and ended in 2019 withMetro Exodus. This excellent trilogy of survival horror FPS games wasbased on the novels of Dmitry Glukhivsky and followed the exploits of Artyom in irradiated Moscow’s metro tunnels. The first game dealt with Artyom’s struggle for survival against the mysterious “Dark Ones”, while the sequel dealt with the fallout of nearly irradiating said species.
By the end ofMetro: Last Light, Artyom has a wife and a crew of loyal allies. In the third entry, Metro Exodus (one ofthe best post-apocalyptic horror games), Artyom and his team discover the outside world isn’t as irradiated as they had thought and set out to explore the wasteland and start a new community. While the series didn’t have the kind of branching storylines seen in games likeMass Effect, each entry did force the player to make difficult decisions. InMetro Exodus, these decisions were particularly important as the whole franchise’s ending hinged on decisions made throughoutExodus. These games were always about hope in a world that seemed devoid of it, and depending on how Artyom behaved the ending was either hopeful or depressingly grim.
TheHalofranchise is up there with the likes ofCall of DutyandBattlefieldwhen it comes to massive FPS franchises. Some ofthe best FPS games for both single-player and multiplayer,Halo’soverarching story includes 8 main entries and several spin-offs. Most of them follow the iconic Master Chief as he continues to fight against the alien Covenant and the parasitic Flood. Beginning withHalo: Combat Evolved,the franchise’s main story was once pretty generic. A classic tale of good-guy humans versus nasty alien invaders. Throw in a supersoldier protagonist and giant superweapons called Halos, and it was all fairly unimaginative.
But over the last two decades, that story has evolved into something much better. Sequels delved into the structure of the Covenant and the political turmoil within and showed the humans in a less flattering light. The franchise’s lore was also expanded to include threats like the Flood, Forerunners, and Banished. A high point came inHalo 4when Cortana, Master Cheif’s loyal AI companion and partner, began to deteriorate. This led to her breaking bad inHalo 5and becoming a major antagonist.Since 2001,Halohas proved an FPS franchise can tell a compelling overarching story while still featuring the kind of exhilarating combat fans expect from an FPS.
When the originalHalf-Lifewas released in 1998, it single-handedly revolutionized the FPS genre. Not only were its graphics and gameplay groundbreaking, but it was one of the first FPS games to tell a proper story. Following Gordon Freeman, it began with the resonance cascade that unleashed alien forces upon the Black Mesa facility and ended with Freeman defeating the Nihilanth and freeing the Vortigaunt alien race. Unfortunately for him, the mysterious G-Man then puts Gordon on ice for several years.
One of the 90s best gameswas then followed up in 2004 withHalf-Life 2. Equally groundbreaking, this game saw Freeman being awakened just to discover Earth had been conquered by the alien Combine. That game as well asHalf-Life Episodes One and Twochronicled his efforts to take down the Combine alongside allies Elie Vance and daughter Alyx. Featuring excellent writing and themes of oppression and resistance, the story was epic. Unfortunately, it’s also been left unfinished since 2007.Half-Life Alyx, a VR reclusive, came out in 2020 but acts as a prequel (sort of) set betweenHalf-Life 1 and 2.Episode 2 ended on somewhat of a cliffhanger, and Valve doesn’t seem in a rush to offer long-suffering fans closure.
Once upon a time, Sony and Insomniac came together to give Sony fans a flagship shooter franchise calledResistance. Featuring 3 main entries and two portable spin-offs, the games were mostly excellent, combining everything we expected from Insomniac and Sony exclusives of old. Unfortunately, the games never sold well, and the franchise was killed off a decade ago. That was a great shame because the series, set around an alternate history where Earth was invaded by aliens in 1951, was awesome.
The first two games were set during the initial invasion and starred Sergeant Nathan Hale. He’s infected by a Chimera virus early on, but rather than transforming, develops superhuman abilities. Throughout these two games, Hale is gradually corrupted by the virus as he slowly loses his humanity, leading toResistance 2’s climactic ending. Following that,Resistance 3jumped ahead to 1957 and featured a new protagonist and returning character, Joseph Capelli. In the intervening years, humanity has fallen to the Chimera and the game’s plot revolves around humanity’s final attempt to defeat the invaders. Thankfully, this overarching story did conclude, as the game ends with Capelli defeating the Chimera and reuniting with his wife and son.
There have been a lot ofWolfensteingames over the years and, for a long time, the franchise continuity could be described as messy at best. That changed with the release ofWolfenstein: The New Orderin 2014, one ofthe best-everWolfensteingames. This game and its sequels made a more concerted effort to tell an overarching story that made sense while staying true to the spirit of the older games.The New Orderreintroduced B.J. Blazkowicz but quickly mixed things up by putting him in a coma and waking him up 14 years later.
When B.J. wakes up, he discovers the Allies lost WW2 and the Nazis control the U.S. He ultimately tracks down and kills the Nazi responsible for putting him in a coma, General Deathshead, but is blown up in the process. The sequel,The New Colossus, has B.J. waking up in a wheelchair and joining the resistance to rid America of the Nazis. In the process, his team discovers ancient technology, and B.J. receives both a new supersoldier body and a highly advanced battle suit.Youngbloodjumped ahead to 1980 and follows B.J.’s twins Jessie and Zofia. Set in Nazi-occupied Neu-Paris, it follows the girls as they hunt down their missing father. Each game in the reboot series features impressive storytelling that examines not just what would happen if the Nazis had won, but the psychological toll it would take on survivors like B.J. WhileNew Bloodreceived a lukewarm reception, we can only hope that Machine Games will return to the franchise to continue B.J’s story.
To say the plot of the originalBorderlandswas paper-thin would be an understatement. It introduced a team of four Vault Hunters who were given next to no characterization and tasked with opening a mysterious alien vault. On the way, they run into mindless thugs, evil corporations, and an ancient alien race, but the plot only serves to give us things to shoot at. Yet from this basic premise has arisen a surprisingly good overarching story.
This transformation began withBorderlands 2, which has a much bigger emphasis on the story. It introduced players to a cast of new vault hunters and an iconic new villain, Handsome Jack, leader of the Hyperion Corporation. The game fleshed out the history of the ancient Eridians and the true nature of the Vaults. Since then, the focus of the series has been on a growing resistance’s attempts to find the vaults and protect them from evil corporations as well as psychopaths like the Calypso Twins. The series has jumped into some impressive character studies—Borderlands: The Pre-Sequelacts as Jack’s villain origin story, whileAssault on Dragon Keepwas a surprisingly touching study of how one psychopathic little girl deals with grief.Borderlands 3’s ending was left open-ended, leaving the door wide open forBorderlands 4to carry on the story.
This might come as a surprise to some, but plenty of people playCall of Dutygames for their single-player campaigns. In fact, there was a time when people were invested in eachCall of Dutyseries' overarching plot. This began with the originalModern Warfare Trilogy, which gave us the likes of Captain Price, Soap MacTavish, and Task Force 141; not just amazing military shooters, but all three games had an overarching plot good enough to leave players open-mouthed at points. TheModern Warfare Reboottrilogy has tried to ape this storytelling success but has largely fallen flat on its face.
Black Opshas been even more successful than modernWarfare.World at War, BO1, BO2, Cold War,and the recentBlack Ops 6are all closely tied together andhave great campaigns. Focusing on CIA operations and conspiracies, these games tell epic spy stories inspired by real-life events.Playing earlier entries is pretty much mandatory for those wanting to understandBlack Ops 6’sstory. Even Zombies, once just a bonus mode thrown in withWorld at War, has developed an oddly in-depth and complex overarching story. The focus for mostCall of Dutyfans may be the multiplayer, but some of us still come for the stories.
Killzoneis another great example of an FPS series that started with a weak story but developed an excellent overarching plot over time. The first game introduced the ongoing conflict between the Interplanetary Strategic Alliance (ISA) and the evil Helghast Empire. What began as a Helghast invasion of an ISA colony grows into a massive interplanetary war, with the Helghast acting as a rather obvious Nazi analogy.
Thankfully, the overarching story became more nuanced with each entry. It turned out there was a reason the Helghst Empire was so antagonistic and that the ISA wasn’t as squeaky clean as the first game implied. Later games covered the ISA invasion of the Helghast home world, the assassination of their leader, Scolar Visari, and the power vacuum that was created. After Helghan is destroyed, the two sides are forced to coexist not so peacefully on Vekta, leading to a Cold War storyline inKillzone: Shadow Fall, one ofthe franchise’s best entries. Sadly, these days, the franchise is pretty much dead and buried. That’s a pity because once upon a time it wasKillzoneand its excellent overarching story that helped earn Sony’s reputation for having exclusives with strong storytelling.
