10 Video Games With Genuinely Impressive Level Design

Valve's Half-Life 2 has earned its place in the canon of great games for a lot of reasons. But while the game's physics took most of the spotlight upon release, it's the level design that has proven to be timeless.

The visual storytelling in places like City 17 and Ravenholm set a standard that many games continue to struggle with nearly 20 years later. You consistently enter locations where the set decoration tells a story that also aids your progression.

Take a shed full of zombie corpses, decapitated by buzz saws now embedded in the walls. First, the scene catches the eye, guiding your progress. Anytime something in Half-Life 2 sticks out like that, it's telling you where to go.

Secondly, it doesn't take Batman to figure out what went down here. People in the shed were defending themselves from zombies by launching buzz saws at them. They may have been outnumbered, but you can tell by the corpses that the saws were an effective weapon - a weapon you will now use frequently.

Almost every level in Half-Life 2 is this carefully crafted. If you have any interest in level design, playing it with the developer commentary turned on is required.