I'm mostly an RPG and stealth/immersive sim gamer nowadays. As a kid I enjoyed stuff like Doom 1 and whatnot, but as I've gotten older and focused more on my priorities I've found those games sorta... prepare for blasphemy... kind of boring. The shooting in a maze genre is super popular and I'm not saying it's bad, I just don't think it's for me anymore. I recently very much enjoyed Doom 3 because it had those immersive elements I'm looking for, and I would put it above Doom and Doom 2 for me now. That's just where I'm at as a gamer.

I still love the feel of older PC classics though, and play early 90s RPGs relatively often. So I'm looking for older shooters that have those elements in them. I installed Quake 2 today with vague memories of it having more to it than Quake, but it doesn't really. It has a mission HUD and the maps aren't as "level 1, level 2, level 3..." as the older id games, but it's still all about the combat.

What are the earliest FPS games with a stronger emphasis on story and immersive elements in your opinion? Games that aren't all the way into System Shock territory or RPG hybrids, but have those added elements I enjoy?

Thinking of trying Unreal next but I'm pretty sure it's the same type of thing as Quake 2.

Arguably, it is HalfLife 1. Unreal is really a collection of maps, as with Doom, which only have a narrative glue.

The Marathon trilogy has pretty heavy story elements.

Try Ion Fury if you haven't played it yet for a new game. Not an RPG, shit story but if you don't like it then you are dead inside and this is coming from someone who pretty much only plays games with stories.


For early:
Strife
Ultima Underworld (not a shooter)



FPS with RPG (not really) elements:
Bioshock series
Borderlands series (boring)
Chronicles of Riddick Dark Athena and Escape From Butcher Bay
Crysis series
Dead Island
Deus Ex series
Dishonored series
Dying Light
Elder Scrolls series
FarCry series (boring)
Fallout 3+
Metro series
No One Lives Forever series
Prey (2006)
Prey
Rage series
Resident Evil 7
SOMA (not a shooter)
S.T.A.L.K.E.R series
Subnautica (not a shooter)
System Shock series
Thief series
Strife
Tron 2.0
Ultima Underworld
Undying

Out of the old-school shooters, Strife is most likely what you are looking for. Plays like Doom but it has some voiced conversations, shops where you can buy stuff and even some decisions which can slightly change the outcome of certain events or take you to different levels etc.

Another game I can recommend is Dark Forces I and II.

When it comes to Unreal, it still has some interesting story elements and mystique to it. Most of it comes in the text form from the Universal Translator you get at the beginning of the game though.

Shogo might also be of interest. You get to play both as a giant mech and on foot.

SiN was also a really nice surprise when I played it.

I can also heavily recommend Tron 2.0. After having played it, I can say that it certainly is a hidden gem.

If you don't mind brutally linear games, Singularity or Prey (the old one) might also be worth a playthrough.

Something newer, the Shadow Warrior 2013 had an interesting story, at least to me. It also has slight RPG elements with ability/weapon upgrades etc.

These are definitely not all, but those that fit your criteria the most IMO.

Heretic and Hexen

Also, as an aside - I had to laugh a bit at the thinking of Quake 2 being more than Quake part. Mostly because it's the divide of that series. People who loved the style of the first dislike the second and often vice-versa. Quake 2 is a fun game, but it's no Quake as far as I'm concerned. I keep hoping one day Bethesda and id will go back to that well and pull something interesting out of it similar to Doom 2016 or the Wolfenstein reboot (up to a point, at least).

Modern stuff - Wrath is kind of aiming for it, but is not finished by any sense. 3D Realms are marketing Wrath a bit... oddly, in my view (which is just as an observer/consumer and not as someone versed in marketing strategy) since it's not the "adrenaline-on-steroids tear ass and rip enemies to pieces" whirlwind the marketing would try to pass it off as.

This is pretty much a list of my favorite non-RPG games, haha. Haven't played Dead Island or Undying though, I'll put those on the priority list. Great suggestions, thanks! Strife was mentioned before you as well, so it seems like one to put on the priority list. Dark Forces 1 and 2 are old games I still enjoy, yeah. I love Dark Forces' cutscenes and story segments, I wish they more plentiful. Shogo is a good early example too! I'll put Tron on the list. I didn't play these much and only have vague memories of playing the first one back in the day, Heretic I guess. If they have a good but more of these elements than Doom I'll try 'em out, for sure.

The Terminator (1991) had a whole open world where you must hunt down Sarah Connor, even came with a map and other hint items to help players navigate and locate the target.

It sprang to mind most immediately because I'm currently going back through Hexen II. It's a series that's definitely got more of a focus on things like story and pseudo-RPG stuff though, especially in comparison to Doom.

I have 1995's Cybermage in my backlog. It's a comic book super hero fps by Origin. I played the demo a long time ago and it seemed to have more of a story than DOOM.

This comment from a discussion on its mobygames page may be of interest:

"I played it along time ago, it definitely was my favorite FPS at the time. It really opened my mind to the possibilities of the genre. I don't really think the comparison to Dark Forces is valid. DF is a straight shooter with excellent level design. Cybermage tries to be something more. It largely pales in comparison to System Shock or Ultima Underworld, but still a great effort."

https://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/cybermage-darklight-awakening

Terminator: Future Shock & SkyNET were favorites back in the day. Wish they were here...

They're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl...

I've only played a couple of levels so far, but I don't think Heretic has that much more story than Doom. There are two or three pages of background story to read in the manual, but in-game, so far, there was none. Still a good shooter though. And it has usable items, apart from the weapons (e.g. flying spell).

Outlaws (1997) was an earlier FPS with a story, too. It's still divided into levels, and the levels are still somewhat Doom-like, but there are animated cutscenes in between them.

I was waiting for DarkXL to replay Outlaws but that will almost surely never happen now, so I should just give it another go on its own. Thanks for the suggestion.

Another modern game I recalled was E.Y.E.: Divine Cybermancy. But, that game as a whole is kind of... all over the place in what it tries to aim for. It's unique in that regard though.

Another is the modified Doom engine game Hedon, which exists as a mod and a stand-alone title. Not exactly what you're looking for, but maybe worth at least a look at the mod.

For the sake of clarity, most of Heretic's accepted lore is in its manual -yes. What story that gets presented in the game tends to contradict it. However, within that series overall, the focus is on keeping to the story and not just "drop player in, have them run through levels and kill things" like Doom tended to rely upon (after all, Doom's story was often intermission screens that read like mission briefings and mattered so very little that now that the modern Doom games are attempting to reroute that, it may seem jarring).

By the time you reach Hexen II, the levels are expansive and explorable (within as much of a sense as you got for the time the game was released) and the game incorporates the RPG elements (leveling up, passive abilities, etc.) more prominently. Granted, Hexen II was a Quake engine derived game so of course there's a bigger opportunity to explore in general compared to the Doom derived Heretic.