May 5, 1992 — Release of Wolfenstein 3D
May 5, 1992
First-person shooters are one of the most important game genres. In these games, the player controls a character from a first-person perspective and, in most cases, uses firearms.
Over more than 30 years, thousands of games have been released in this genre. Some of the most notable series include:
- Half-Life
- DOOM
- Battlefield
- Call of Duty
- Halo
- Quake
- Overwatch
- Apex Legends
- Escape from Tarkov
- Far Cry
This is far from a complete list of major FPS franchises. It is worth noting that these are not single games but series, many of which have more than 10 major releases. This shows how popular and developed the genre has become.
On May 5, 1992, the first widely successful commercial FPS, Wolfenstein 3D, was released. Many people consider it the game that set the direction for the entire genre. Without it, FPS games might look different — or might not have reached the mass market at all.
Wolfenstein itself is also a series that (fans hope) will continue in the future — the latest release was in 2019. Wolfenstein 3D was not the first game in the series — it was the third. The first two games used a top-down view and were considered stealth-action games.
Despite its name, Wolfenstein 3D was not truly a 3D game. It ran on a 2D engine that simulated 3D using ray casting — a technique where rays are projected from the player’s position, and the distance to the nearest wall determines how a pseudo-3D scene is rendered. The player could not look up or down, only left and right, and move forward and backward. All enemies and objects were flat sprites.
The story of Wolfenstein 3D takes place during World War II. The protagonist, William Blazkowicz, escapes from a German prison and fights Nazi soldiers. At the end of the game, he confronts and kills Adolf Hitler, who appears in mechanized armor.
Later games like DOOM and Quake were built using the same basic ideas as Wolfenstein 3D. In turn, they influenced a huge number of other games and franchises, helping make first-person shooters popular all over the world.