What games have what you’d call really good worldbuilding, and what in particular do you like about them?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldbuilding
Worldbuilding is the process of constructing an imaginary world or setting, sometimes associated with a fictional universe. Developing the world with coherent qualities such as a history, geography, culture and ecology is a key task for many science fiction or fantasy writers. Worldbuilding often involves the creation of geography, a backstory, flora, fauna, inhabitants, technology, and often if writing speculative fiction, different peoples. This may include social customs as well as invented languages (often called conlangs) for the world.
The Pegasus Expedition
The worldbuilding is mostly based around the Pegasus Galaxy and how humanity wants to exploit it. The premise is this: Humanity is getting torn apart by an aggressive alien race called the Colossals, so they sent three fleets to the Pegasus Galaxy to get some resources and reinforcements. These fleets consist of the Middle East, the US, and the EU (the EU is playable); the Chinese fleets are instead holding the line by Earth.
When humanity enters the Pegasus Galaxy, they get a very frosty reception. They appear in an organization’s territory who immediate try to push the humans back to their portal. The organization is instead wiped out by the humans, and the organization’s bosses - resembling the Roman Empire - tells humanity to back off or the Empire will kick them out.
There’s some politics stuff that happens in the Middle Eastern and US fleets later on, as well as a Flood/Thing-esque crisis that shows up. In the end, the EU gathers up all of its new friends in the Pegasus Galaxy to push through Flood/Thing turf and rescue the humans on Earth.
The gameplay is a bit dodgy but I think the worldbuilding and story are rock solid.