Best FPS Series With Overarching Stories That Last Multiple Games

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 of the best first-person shooters of all time have 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.

8 Metro Series

Based On Dmitry Glukhovsky’s Post-Apocalyptic Novels

The story of Metro began with Metro 2033 (2010) and ended in 2019 with Metro Exodus. This excellent trilogy of survival horror FPS games was based 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 of Metro: Last Light, Artyom has a wife and a crew of loyal allies. In the third entry, Metro Exodus (one of the 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 like Mass Effect, each entry did force the player to make difficult decisions. In Metro Exodus, these decisions were particularly important as the whole franchise’s ending hinged on decisions made throughout Exodus. 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.

7 Halo Series

A Generic Humans Vs. Aliens Tale Evolved into Something More

The Halo franchise is up there with the likes of Call of Duty and Battlefield when it comes to massive FPS franchises. Some of the best FPS games for both single-player and multiplayer, Halo‘s overarching 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 with Halo: 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 in Halo 4 when Cortana, Master Cheif’s loyal AI companion and partner, began to deteriorate. This led to her breaking bad in Halo 5 and becoming a major antagonist. Since 2001, Halo has proved an FPS franchise can tell a compelling overarching story while still featuring the kind of exhilarating combat fans expect from an FPS.

6 Half-Life Series

An Awesome Overarching Story That Valve Needs To Finish

When the original Half-Life was 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 games was then followed up in 2004 with Half-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 as Half-Life Episodes One and Two chronicled 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 between Half-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.

5 Resistance Series

An Alternate History Shooter Centered Around An Alien Invasion

Once upon a time, Sony and Insomniac came together to give Sony fans a flagship shooter franchise called Resistance. 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 to Resistance 2‘s climactic ending. Following that, Resistance 3 jumped 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.

4 Wolfenstein Reboot Series

B.J. Bllazkowicz Never Stop Fighting The Nazis

There have been a lot of Wolfenstein games over the years and, for a long time, the franchise continuity could be described as messy at best. That changed with the release of Wolfenstein: The New Order in 2014, one of the best-ever Wolfenstein games. 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 Order reintroduced 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. Youngblood jumped 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. While New Blood received a lukewarm reception, we can only hope that Machine Games will return to the franchise to continue B.J’s story.

3 Borderlands Series

A Series More Story-Focused With Each Entry

To say the plot of the original Borderlands was 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 with Borderlands 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-Sequel acts as Jack’s villain origin story, while Assault on Dragon Keep was 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 for Borderlands 4 to carry on the story.

2 Call Of Duty

Modern Warfare, Black Ops, And Zombies All Have Overarching Stories

This might come as a surprise to some, but plenty of people play Call of Duty games for their single-player campaigns. In fact, there was a time when people were invested in each Call of Duty series’ overarching plot. This began with the original Modern 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. The Modern Warfare Reboot trilogy has tried to ape this storytelling success but has largely fallen flat on its face.

Black Ops has been even more successful than modern Warfare. World at War, BO1, BO2, Cold War, and the recent Black Ops 6 are all closely tied together and have 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 understand Black Ops 6’s story. Even Zombies, once just a bonus mode thrown in with World at War, has developed an oddly in-depth and complex overarching story. The focus for most Call of Duty fans may be the multiplayer, but some of us still come for the stories.

1 Killzone Series

Follows The interplanetary Conflict Between The ISA And the Helghast Empire

Killzone is 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 in Killzone: Shadow Fall, one of the 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 was Killzone and its excellent overarching story that helped earn Sony’s reputation for having exclusives with strong storytelling.