A gaming community free from the hype and oversaturation of current releases, catering to gamers who wait at least 12 months after release to play a game. Whether it's price, waiting for bugs/issues to be patched, DLC to be released, don't meet the system requirements, or just haven't had the time to keep up with the latest releases.
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I'm not young. But 25 years after the hype, I am finally getting around to playing half life (1)! Stupidly missed the free action, but paid a few eurocents for it. They're totally worth it! Awesome game, holds up very very well after two and a half decades!
There were a lot of FPS with story on them, like Hexen (I and II), System Shock, Ultima Underworld (although it was more of an RPG hybrid), Outlaws, Unreal, Witchaven 2, Goldeneye, Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, Rainbow Six, Dark Forces, etc..
A lot of these had complex puzzles beyond shooting everything and colored keys, but also cutscenes, character classes, convoluted stories and extensive lore. Hell, Marathon and Marathon Durandal had incredibly complex stories and lore for what they where.
The biggest difference was that HL was a story without cuts where there weren't "levels" nor cutscenes, but scripted sequences to push forward the story.
There were though "chapters" but the change between these was minimal. It was the closest to a cinematic feeling we had to the date.
A lot of those other games played like shit compared to HL1 too. System shock 1 is pretty much unplayable by modern standards purely due to controls, just as an example.