What was the first first person video game?

1998's "Half-Life"—along with its 2004 sequel "Half-Life 2"—enhanced the narrative and puzzle elements. In 1999, the "Half-Life" mod "Counter-Strike" was released and, together with "Doom", is perhaps one of the most influential first-person shooters. "GoldenEye 007", released in 1997, was a landmark first-person shooter for home consoles, while the "Halo" series heightened the console's commercial and critical appeal as a platform for first-person shooter titles. In the 21st century, the first-person shooter is the most commercially viable video game genre, and in 2016, shooters accounted for over 27% of all video game sales. Several first-person shooters have been popular games for eSports and competitive gaming competitions as well.

First-person shooter

First-person shooter (FPS) is a video game genre centered around gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective; that is, the player experiences the action through the eyes of the protagonist. The genre shares common traits with other shooter games, which in turn makes it fall under the heading action game. Since the genre's inception, advanced 3D and pseudo-3D graphics have challenged hardware development, and multiplayer gaming has been integral.

The first-person shooter genre has been traced as far back as "Maze War", development of which began in 1973, and 1974's "Spasim". Later, and after more playful titles like "MIDI Maze" in 1987, the genre coalesced into a more violent form with 1992's "Wolfenstein 3D", which has been credited with creating the genre's basic archetype upon which subsequent titles were based. One such title, and the progenitor of the genre's wider mainstream acceptance and popularity was "Doom," one of the most influential games in this genre; for some years, the term Doom clone was used to designate this genre due to "Doom"s influence. Corridor shooter was another common name for the genre in its early years, since processing limitations of the era's hardware meant that most of the action in the games had to take place in enclosed areas.

First-person shooters are a type of three-dimensional shooter game, featuring a first-person point of view with which the player sees the action through the eyes of the player character. They are unlike third-person shooters, in which the player can see (usually from behind) the character they are controlling. The primary design element is combat, mainly involving firearms.

First person-shooter games are also often categorized as being distinct from light gun shooters, a similar genre with a first-person perspective which use light gun peripherals, in contrast to first-person shooters which use conventional input devices for movement. Another difference is that first-person light-gun shooters like "Virtua Cop" often feature "on-rails" (scripted) movement, whereas first-person shooters like "Doom" give the player more freedom to roam.

The first-person shooter may be considered a distinct genre itself, or a type of shooter game, in turn a subgenre of the wider action game genre. Following the release of "Doom" in 1993, games in this style were commonly termed "Doom clones"; over time this term has largely been replaced by "first-person shooter". "Wolfenstein 3D," released in 1992, the year before "Doom", has been credited with introducing the genre, but critics have since identified similar though less advanced games developed as far back as 1973. There are occasional disagreements regarding the specific design elements which constitute a first-person shooter. For example, "Deus Ex" or "BioShock" may be considered as first-person shooters, but may also be considered role-playing video games as they borrow from this genre extensively. Certain puzzle games like "Portal" are also called first-person shooters, but lack any direct combat or shooting element, instead using the first-person perspective to help immerse players within the game to help solve puzzles. Some commentators extend the definition to include combat flight simulators where the cockpit or vehicle takes place of the hands and weapons.

Like most shooter games, first-person shooters involve an avatar, one or more ranged weapons, and a varying number of enemies. Because they take place in a 3D environment, these games tend to be somewhat more realistic than 2D shooter games, and have more accurate representations of gravity, lighting, sound and collisions. First-person shooters played on personal computers are most often controlled with a combination of a keyboard and mouse. This system has been claimed as superior to that found in console games, which frequently use two analog sticks: one used for running and sidestepping, the other for looking and aiming. It is common to display the character's hands and weaponry in the main view, with a head-up display showing health, ammunition and location details. Often, it is possible to overlay a map of the surrounding area.

First-person shooters often focus on action gameplay, with fast-paced and bloody firefights, though some place a greater emphasis on narrative, problem-solving and logic puzzles. In addition to shooting, melee combat may also be used extensively. In some games, melee weapons are especially powerful, a reward for the risk the player must take in maneuvering his character into close proximity to the enemy. In other situations, a melee weapon may be less effective, but necessary as a last resort. "Tactical shooters" are more realistic, and require teamwork and strategy to succeed; the player often commands a squad of characters, which may be controlled by the game or by human teammates.

First-person shooters typically give players a choice of weapons, which have a large impact on how the player will approach the game. Some game designs have realistic models of actual existing or historical weapons, incorporating their rate of fire, magazine size, ammunition amount, recoil and accuracy. Other first-person shooter games may incorporate imaginative variations of weapons, including future prototypes, "alien technology" scenario defined weaponry, and/or utilizing a wide array of projectiles, from industrial labor tools to laser, energy, plasma, rocket and grenade launchers or crossbows. These many variations may also be applied to the tossing animations of grenades, rocks, spears and the like. Also, more unconventional modes of destruction may be employed from the viewable users hands such as flames, electricity, telekinesis or other supernatural constructions. However, designers often allow characters to carry varying multiples of weapons with little to no reduction in speed or mobility, or perhaps more realistically, a pistol or smaller device and a long rifle or even limiting the player to only one weapon at a time. There are often options to trade up, upgrade or swap out in most games. Thus, the standards of realism varies between design elements. The protagonist can generally be healed and re-armed by means of items such as first aid kits, simply by walking over them. Some games allow players to accumulate experience points similar to those found in role-playing games, which can unlock new weapons and abilities.

First-person shooters may be structurally composed of levels, or use the technique of a continuous narrative in which the game never leaves the first-person perspective. Others feature large sandbox environments, which are not divided into levels and can be explored freely. In first-person shooters, protagonists interact with the environment to varying degrees, from basics such as using doors, to problem solving puzzles based on a variety of interactive objects. In some games, the player can damage the environment, also to varying degrees: one common device is the use of barrels containing explosive material which the player can shoot, destroying himself and harming nearby enemies. Other games feature environments which are extensively destructible, allowing for additional visual effects. The game world will often make use of science fiction, historic (particularly World War II) or modern military themes, with such antagonists as aliens, monsters, terrorists and soldiers of various types. Games feature multiple difficulty settings; in harder modes, enemies are tougher, more aggressive and do more damage, and power-ups are limited. In easier modes, the player can succeed through reaction times alone; on more difficult settings, it is often necessary to memorize the levels through trial and error.

First-person shooters may feature a multiplayer mode, taking place on specialized levels. Some games are designed specifically for multiplayer gaming, and have very limited single player modes in which the player competes against game-controlled characters termed "bots". Massively multiplayer online first-person shooters allow thousands of players to compete at once in a persistent world. Large scale multiplayer games allow multiple squads, with leaders issuing commands and a commander controlling the team's overall strategy. Multiplayer games have a variety of different styles of match.

The classic types are the deathmatch (and its team-based variant) in which players score points by killing other players' characters; and capture the flag, in which teams attempt to penetrate the opposing base, capture a flag and return it to their own base whilst preventing the other team from doing the same. Other game modes may involve attempting to capture enemy bases or areas of the map, attempting to take hold of an object for as long as possible while evading other players, or deathmatch variations involving limited lives or in which players fight over a particularly potent power-up. These match types may also be customizable, allowing the players to vary weapons, health and power-ups found on the map, as well as victory criteria. Games may allow players to choose between various classes, each with its own strengths, weaknesses, equipment and roles within a team.

There are many free-to-play first-person shooters on the market now, including "Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory", "Team Fortress", and "Planetside 2." Some games are released as free-to-play as their intended business model and can be highly profitable ("League of Legends" earned $2 billion in 2017), but others such as "Eternal Crusade" begin their life as paid games and become free-to-play later to reach a wider audience after an initially disappointing reception. Some player communities complain about freemium first-person-shooters, fearing that they create unbalanced games, but many game designers have tweaked prices in response to criticism, and players can usually get the same benefits by playing longer rather than paying.

The earliest two documented first-person shooter video games are "Maze War" and "Spasim." "Maze War" was originally developed in 1973 by Greg Thompson, Steve Colley and Howard Palmer, high-school students in a NASA work-study program trying to develop a program to help visualize fluid dynamics for spacecraft designs. The work became a maze game presented to the player in the first-person, and later included support for a second player and the ability to shoot the other player to win the game. Thompson took the game's code with him to Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where with help from Dave Lebling to create an eight-player version that could be played over ARPANET, computer-run players using artificial intelligence, customizable maps, online scoreboards and a spectator mode. "Spasim" had a documented debut at the University of Illinois in 1974. The game was a rudimentary space flight simulator for up to 32 players, featuring a first-person perspective. Both games were distinct from modern first-person shooters, involving simple tile-based movement where the player could only move from square to square and turn in 90-degree increments. Such games spawned games that used similar visuals to display the player as part of a maze (such as "" in 1979), and were loosely called "rat's eye view" games, since they gave the appears of a rat running through a maze. Another crucial early game that influenced first-person shooters was "Wayout", that while featuring the player trying to escape a maze, it used ray casting to render the maze, simulating visually how each wall segment would be rendered relative to the player's position and facing angle, allowing more freeform movement compared to "Maze War" and "Spasim".

"Spasim" led to more detailed combat flight simulators and eventually to a tank simulator, developed for the U.S. Army, in the later 1970s. These games were not available to consumers, however, and it was not until 1980 that a tank video game, "Battlezone", was released in arcades. A version of the game was released in 1983 for home computers and became the first successful mass-market game featuring a first-person viewpoint and wireframe 3D graphics, presented using a vector graphics display.

"MIDI Maze", an early first-person shooter released in 1987 for the Atari ST, featured maze-based gameplay and character designs similar to "Pac-Man", but displayed in a first-person perspective. Later ported to various systems—including the Game Boy and Super NES—under the title Faceball 2000, it featured the first network multiplayer deathmatches, using a MIDI interface. It was a relatively minor game, but despite the inconvenience of connecting numerous machines together, its multiplayer mode gained a cult following: 1UP.com called it the "first multi-player 3D shooter on a mainstream system" and the first "major LAN action game".

Id Software's "Hovertank 3D" pioneered ray casting technology in May 1991 to enable faster gameplay than 1980s vehicle simulators; and six months later "Catacomb 3-D" introduced another advance, texture mapping, in November 1991. The second game to use texture mapping was "", a March 1992 action role-playing game by Looking Glass Technologies that featured a first-person viewpoint and an advanced graphics engine. In October 1990, id developer John Romero learned about texture mapping from a phone call to Paul Neurath. Romero described the texture mapping technique to id programmer John Carmack, who remarked, "I can do that.", and would feel motivated by Looking Glass's example to do the same in "Catacomb 3-D". "Catacomb 3-D" also introduced the display of the protagonist's hand and weapon (in this case, magical spells) on the screen, whereas previously aspects of the player's avatar were not visible. The experience of developing "Ultima Underworld" would make it possible for Looking Glass to create the "Thief" and "System Shock" series years later.

"Wolfenstein 3D" (created by id Software and released in 1992) was an instant success, fueled largely by its shareware release, and has been credited with inventing the first-person shooter genre. It was built on the ray casting technology pioneered in earlier games to create a revolutionary template for shooter game design, which first-person shooters are still based upon today. Despite its violent themes, "Wolfenstein" largely escaped the controversy generated by the later "Doom", although it was banned in Germany due to the use of Nazi iconography; and the Super NES version replaced the enemy attack dogs with giant rats. Apogee Software, the publisher of "Wolfenstein 3D," followed up its success with "" in 1993. The game was initially well-received but sales rapidly declined in the wake of the success of id's "Doom", released a week later.

"Doom", released as shareware in 1993, refined "Wolfenstein 3D's" template by adding improved textures, variations in height (e.g., stairs the player's character could climb) and effects such as flickering lights and patches of total darkness, creating a more believable 3D environment than "Wolfenstein 3D's" more monotonous and simplistic levels. "Doom" allowed competitive matches between multiple players, termed "deathmatches," and the game was responsible for the word's subsequent entry into the video gaming lexicon. According to creator John Romero, the game's deathmatch concept was inspired by the competitive multiplayer of fighting games. "Doom" became so popular that its multiplayer features began to cause problems for companies whose networks were used to play the game.

"Doom" has been considered the most important first-person shooter ever made. It was highly influential not only on subsequent shooter games but on video gaming in general, and has been available on almost every video gaming system since. Multiplayer gaming, which is now integral to the first-person shooter genre, was first achieved successfully on a large scale with "Doom". While its combination of gory violence, dark humor and hellish imagery garnered acclaim from critics, these attributes also generated criticism from religious groups, with other commentators labelling the game a "murder simulator." There was further controversy when it emerged that the perpetrators of the Columbine High School massacre were fans of the game; the families of several victims later unsuccessfully attempted to sue numerous video game companies - among them id Software - which the families claimed inspired the massacre. In 1994, Raven Software released "Heretic", which used a modified version of the "Doom" engine that allowed for vertical aiming, an inventory system to store and select items, and gibs.

"" was released in 1995 after LucasArts decided "Star Wars" would make appropriate material for a game in the style of "Doom". However, "Star Wars: Dark Forces" added several technical features that "Doom" lacked, such as the ability to crouch, jump, or look up and down. "Dark Forces" also was one of the first games to incorporate 3D-designed objected rendered into the game's 2D engine. Apogee's "Duke Nukem 3D," released in 1996, was "the last of the great, sprite-based shooters" winning acclaim for its humor based around stylised machismo as well as its gameplay. However, some found the game's (and later the whole series') treatment of women to be derogatory and tasteless.

Most shooters in this period were developed for IBM PC compatible computers. On the Macintosh side, Bungie released its first shooter, "Pathways into Darkness" in 1993, which featured more adventure and narrative elements alongside first-person shooter gameplay. "Pathways" had been inspired by "Wolfenstein 3D", and bore out of an attempt to take their previous top-down dungeon exploration game "" into a 3D setting. In the subsequent year, Bungie released "Marathon", which streamlined concepts from "Pathways" by eliminate role-playing elements in favor of the shooter action. "Marathon" was successful leading to two sequels to form the "Marathon Trilogy", and "Marathon" the standard for first-person shooters on that platform. "Marathon" pioneered or was an early adopter of several new features such as freelook, dual-wielded and dual-function weapons, versatile multiplayer modes (such as King of the Hill, Kill the Man with the Ball, and cooperative play), and friendly non-player characters (NPC)s. The "Marathon" games also had a strong emphasis on storytelling in addition to the action, which would continue in Bungie's future projects, "Halo" and "Destiny".

In 1994, Exact released Geograph Seal for the Japanese Sharp X68000 home computer. An obscure import title as far as the Western market was concerned, it was nonetheless "a fully 3D polygonal first-person shooter" with innovative platform game mechanics and "free-roaming" outdoor environments. The following year, Exact released its successor for the PlayStation console, "Jumping Flash!", which placed more emphasis on its platform elements. "Descent" (released by Parallax Software in 1995), a game in which the player pilots a spacecraft around caves and factory ducts, was a truly three-dimensional first-person shooter. It abandoned sprites and ray casting in favour of polygons and six degrees of freedom.

Shortly after the release of "Duke Nukem 3D" in 1996, id Software released the much anticipated "Quake". Like "Doom," "Quake" was influential and genre-defining, featuring fast-paced, gory gameplay, but used 3D polygons instead of sprites. It was centered on online gaming and featured multiple match types still found in first-person shooter games today. It was the first FPS game to have a following of player clans (although the concept had existed previously in "MechWarrior 2" ("Netmech") with its "Battletech" lore as well as amongst MUD players), and would inspire popular LAN parties such as QuakeCon. The game's popularity and use of 3D polygonal graphics also helped to expand the growing market for video card hardware; and the additional support and encouragement for game modifications attracted players who wanted to tinker with the game and create their own modules. According to creator John Romero, "Quake"s 3D world was inspired by the 3D fighting game "Virtua Fighter". "Quake" was also intended to expand the genre with "Virtua Fighter" influenced melee brawling, but this was eventually dropped from the final game.

Based on the James Bond film, Rare's "GoldenEye 007" was released in 1997, and as of 2004 it was the best-selling Nintendo 64 game in the United States. It was the first landmark console first-person shooter and was highly acclaimed for its atmospheric single-player levels and well designed multiplayer maps. It featured a sniper rifle, the ability to perform head-shots, and the incorporation of stealth elements; (and all these aspects were also used in the game's spiritual sequel "Perfect Dark") as well as "Virtua Cop"-inspired features such as reloading, position-dependent hit reaction animations, penalties for killing innocents, and an aiming system allowing players to aim at a precise spot on the screen.

Though not the first of its kind, "Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six" started a popular trend of tactical first-person shooters in 1998. It featured a team-based, realistic design and themes based around counter-terrorism, requiring missions to be planned before execution and in it, a single hit was sometimes enough to kill a character. "Medal of Honor", released in 1999, started a long running proliferation of first-person shooters set during World War II.

Valve's "Half-Life" was released in 1998, based upon "Quake"'s graphics technology. Initially met with only mild anticipation, it went on to become an unprecedented commercial success. While previous first-person shooters had focused on visceral gameplay with comparatively weak plots, "Half-Life" had a strong narrative; the game featured no cut scenes but remained in the first-person perspective at all times. It featured innovations such as non-enemy characters (featured somewhat earlier in titles such as "") but did not employ power-ups in the traditional sense. "Half-Life" was praised for its artificial intelligence, selection of weapons and attention to detail and "has since been recognized as one of the greatest games of all time" according to GameSpot. Its sequel "Half-Life 2" (released in 2004), was less influential though "arguably a more impressive game".

"," also released in 1998, was a multiplayer online shooter allowing more than 32 players in a single match. It featured team-based gameplay with a variety of specialized roles, and an unusual jet pack feature. The game was highly popular and later imitated by games such as the "Battlefield" series. Id's "Quake III Arena" and Epic's "Unreal Tournament," both released in 1999, were popular for their frenetic and accessible online multiplayer modes; both featured very limited single player gameplay. "Counter-Strike" was also released in 1999, a "Half-Life" modification with a counter-terrorism theme. The game and later version "" (2004) went on to become by far the most popular multiplayer first-person shooter and computer game modification ever, with over 90,000 players competing online at any one time during its peak.

At the E3 game show in 1999, Bungie unveiled a real-time strategy game called ""; at the following E3, an overhauled third-person shooter version was displayed. In 2000, Bungie was bought by Microsoft. "Halo" was then revamped and released as a first-person shooter; it was one of the launch titles for the Xbox console. It was a runaway critical and commercial success, and is considered a premier console first-person shooter. It featured narrative and storyline reminiscent of Bungie's earlier Marathon series but now told largely through in-game dialog and cut scenes. It also received acclaim for its characters, both the protagonist, Master Chief and its alien antagonists. The sequel, "Halo 2" (2004), brought the popularity of online-gaming to the console market through the medium of Xbox Live, on which it was the most played game for almost two years.

"Deus Ex", released by Ion Storm in 2000, featured a levelling system similar to that found in role-playing games; it also had multiple narratives depending on how the player completed missions and won acclaim for its serious, artistic style. The "Resident Evil" games "" in 2000 and "" in 2003 attempted to combine the light gun and first-person shooter genres along with survival horror elements. "Metroid Prime," released in 2002 for the Nintendo GameCube, a highly praised console first-person shooter, incorporated action adventure elements such as jumping puzzles and built on the "Metroid" series of 2D side-scrolling platform-adventures. Taking a "massive stride forward for first-person games", the game emphasised its adventure elements rather than shooting and was credited by journalist Chris Kohler with "breaking the genre free from the clutches of "Doom"".

"World War II Online", released in 2001, featured a persistent and "massively multiplayer environment", although IGN said that "the full realization of that environment is probably still a few years away." "Battlefield 1942", another World War II shooter released in 2002, featured large scale battles incorporating aircraft, naval vessels, land vehicles and infantry combat. In 2003, "PlanetSide" allowed hundreds of players at once to compete in a persistent world, and was also promoted as the "world's first massively multiplayer online first person shooter." The "Serious Sam" series, first released in 2001, and "Painkiller", released in 2004, both emphasized fighting waves of enemies in large open arenas, in an attempt to hearken back to the genre's roots.

"Doom 3", released in 2004, placed a greater emphasis on horror and frightening the player than previous games in the series and was a critically acclaimed best seller, though some commentators felt it lacked gameplay substance and innovation, putting too much emphasis on impressive graphics. In 2005, a film based on "Doom" featured a sequence that emulated the viewpoint and action of the first-person shooter, but was critically derided as deliberately unintelligent and gratuitously violent. In 2005, "F.E.A.R." was acclaimed for successfully combining first-person shooter gameplay with a Japanese horror atmosphere. Later in 2007, Irrational Games' "BioShock" would be acclaimed by some commentators as the best game of that year for its innovation in artistry, narrative and design, with some calling it the "spiritual successor" to Irrational's earlier "System Shock 2".

Finally, the Crytek games "Far Cry" (2004) and "Crysis" (2007) as well as Ubisoft's "Far Cry 2" (2008) would break new ground in terms of graphics and large, open-ended level design, whereas "" (2007), "" (2006) and its sequel "Resistance 2" (2008) presented increasingly refined linear levels and narratives, with the fast pace and linearity of the "Call of Duty" games bearing a resemblance to rail shooters. In 2006, GamaSutra reported the first-person shooter as one of the biggest and fastest growing video game genres in terms of revenue for publishers.

In 2010, researchers at Leiden University showed that playing first-person shooter video games is associated with superior mental flexibility. Compared to non-players, players of such games were found to require a significantly shorter reaction time while switching between complex tasks, possibly because they are required to develop a more responsive mindset to rapidly react to fast-moving visual and auditory stimuli, and to shift back and forth between different sub-duties. The use of motion-detecting game controllers – particularly the Wii's – "promised to make FPS controls more approachable and precise with an interface as simple as literally pointing to aim" and thus "dramatically reshape the first-person shooter." However, technical difficulties pertinent to functions other than aiming – such as maneuvering or reloading – prevented their widespread use among first-person shooters.
The Pointman user interface combines a motion-sensitive gamepad, head tracker and sliding foot pedals to increase the precision and level of control over one's avatar in military first-person shooter games.

First-person shooter

First-person shooter (FPS) is a video game genre centered around gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective; that is, the player experiences the action through the eyes of the protagonist. The genre shares common traits with other shooter games, which in turn makes it fall under the heading action game. Since the genre's inception, advanced 3D and pseudo-3D graphics have challenged hardware development, and multiplayer gaming has been integral.

The first-person shooter genre has been traced as far back as "Maze War", development of which began in 1973, and 1974's "Spasim". Later, and after more playful titles like "MIDI Maze" in 1987, the genre coalesced into a more violent form with 1992's "Wolfenstein 3D", which has been credited with creating the genre's basic archetype upon which subsequent titles were based. One such title, and the progenitor of the genre's wider mainstream acceptance and popularity was "Doom," one of the most influential games in this genre; for some years, the term Doom clone was used to designate this genre due to "Doom"s influence. Corridor shooter was another common name for the genre in its early years, since processing limitations of the era's hardware meant that most of the action in the games had to take place in enclosed areas.

1998's "Half-Life"—along with its 2004 sequel "Half-Life 2"—enhanced the narrative and puzzle elements. In 1999, the "Half-Life" mod "Counter-Strike" was released and, together with "Doom", is perhaps one of the most influential first-person shooters. "GoldenEye 007", released in 1997, was a landmark first-person shooter for home consoles, while the "Halo" series heightened the console's commercial and critical appeal as a platform for first-person shooter titles. In the 21st century, the first-person shooter is the most commercially viable video game genre, and in 2016, shooters accounted for over 27% of all video game sales. Several first-person shooters have been popular games for eSports and competitive gaming competitions as well.

First-person shooters are a type of three-dimensional shooter game, featuring a first-person point of view with which the player sees the action through the eyes of the player character. They are unlike third-person shooters, in which the player can see (usually from behind) the character they are controlling. The primary design element is combat, mainly involving firearms.

First person-shooter games are also often categorized as being distinct from light gun shooters, a similar genre with a first-person perspective which use light gun peripherals, in contrast to first-person shooters which use conventional input devices for movement. Another difference is that first-person light-gun shooters like "Virtua Cop" often feature "on-rails" (scripted) movement, whereas first-person shooters like "Doom" give the player more freedom to roam.

First-person shooters often focus on action gameplay, with fast-paced and bloody firefights, though some place a greater emphasis on narrative, problem-solving and logic puzzles. In addition to shooting, melee combat may also be used extensively. In some games, melee weapons are especially powerful, a reward for the risk the player must take in maneuvering his character into close proximity to the enemy. In other situations, a melee weapon may be less effective, but necessary as a last resort. "Tactical shooters" are more realistic, and require teamwork and strategy to succeed; the player often commands a squad of characters, which may be controlled by the game or by human teammates.

First-person shooters may feature a multiplayer mode, taking place on specialized levels. Some games are designed specifically for multiplayer gaming, and have very limited single player modes in which the player competes against game-controlled characters termed "bots". Massively multiplayer online first-person shooters allow thousands of players to compete at once in a persistent world. Large scale multiplayer games allow multiple squads, with leaders issuing commands and a commander controlling the team's overall strategy. Multiplayer games have a variety of different styles of match.

There are many free-to-play first-person shooters on the market now, including "Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory", "Team Fortress", and "Planetside 2." Some games are released as free-to-play as their intended business model and can be highly profitable ("League of Legends" earned $2 billion in 2017), but others such as "Eternal Crusade" begin their life as paid games and become free-to-play later to reach a wider audience after an initially disappointing reception. Some player communities complain about freemium first-person-shooters, fearing that they create unbalanced games, but many game designers have tweaked prices in response to criticism, and players can usually get the same benefits by playing longer rather than paying.

"Spasim" led to more detailed combat flight simulators and eventually to a tank simulator, developed for the U.S. Army, in the later 1970s. These games were not available to consumers, however, and it was not until 1980 that a tank video game, "Battlezone", was released in arcades. A version of the game was released in 1983 for home computers and became the first successful mass-market game featuring a first-person viewpoint and wireframe 3D graphics, presented using a vector graphics display.

"MIDI Maze", an early first-person shooter released in 1987 for the Atari ST, featured maze-based gameplay and character designs similar to "Pac-Man", but displayed in a first-person perspective. Later ported to various systems—including the Game Boy and Super NES—under the title Faceball 2000, it featured the first network multiplayer deathmatches, using a MIDI interface. It was a relatively minor game, but despite the inconvenience of connecting numerous machines together, its multiplayer mode gained a cult following: 1UP.com called it the "first multi-player 3D shooter on a mainstream system" and the first "major LAN action game".

"Doom", released as shareware in 1993, refined "Wolfenstein 3D's" template by adding improved textures, variations in height (e.g., stairs the player's character could climb) and effects such as flickering lights and patches of total darkness, creating a more believable 3D environment than "Wolfenstein 3D's" more monotonous and simplistic levels. "Doom" allowed competitive matches between multiple players, termed "deathmatches," and the game was responsible for the word's subsequent entry into the video gaming lexicon. According to creator John Romero, the game's deathmatch concept was inspired by the competitive multiplayer of fighting games. "Doom" became so popular that its multiplayer features began to cause problems for companies whose networks were used to play the game.

"" was released in 1995 after LucasArts decided "Star Wars" would make appropriate material for a game in the style of "Doom". However, "Star Wars: Dark Forces" added several technical features that "Doom" lacked, such as the ability to crouch, jump, or look up and down. "Dark Forces" also was one of the first games to incorporate 3D-designed objected rendered into the game's 2D engine. Apogee's "Duke Nukem 3D," released in 1996, was "the last of the great, sprite-based shooters" winning acclaim for its humor based around stylised machismo as well as its gameplay. However, some found the game's (and later the whole series') treatment of women to be derogatory and tasteless.

In 1994, Exact released Geograph Seal for the Japanese Sharp X68000 home computer. An obscure import title as far as the Western market was concerned, it was nonetheless "a fully 3D polygonal first-person shooter" with innovative platform game mechanics and "free-roaming" outdoor environments. The following year, Exact released its successor for the PlayStation console, "Jumping Flash!", which placed more emphasis on its platform elements. "Descent" (released by Parallax Software in 1995), a game in which the player pilots a spacecraft around caves and factory ducts, was a truly three-dimensional first-person shooter. It abandoned sprites and ray casting in favour of polygons and six degrees of freedom.

Based on the James Bond film, Rare's "GoldenEye 007" was released in 1997, and as of 2004 it was the best-selling Nintendo 64 game in the United States. It was the first landmark console first-person shooter and was highly acclaimed for its atmospheric single-player levels and well designed multiplayer maps. It featured a sniper rifle, the ability to perform head-shots, and the incorporation of stealth elements; (and all these aspects were also used in the game's spiritual sequel "Perfect Dark") as well as "Virtua Cop"-inspired features such as reloading, position-dependent hit reaction animations, penalties for killing innocents, and an aiming system allowing players to aim at a precise spot on the screen.

Though not the first of its kind, "Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six" started a popular trend of tactical first-person shooters in 1998. It featured a team-based, realistic design and themes based around counter-terrorism, requiring missions to be planned before execution and in it, a single hit was sometimes enough to kill a character. "Medal of Honor", released in 1999, started a long running proliferation of first-person shooters set during World War II.

"," also released in 1998, was a multiplayer online shooter allowing more than 32 players in a single match. It featured team-based gameplay with a variety of specialized roles, and an unusual jet pack feature. The game was highly popular and later imitated by games such as the "Battlefield" series. Id's "Quake III Arena" and Epic's "Unreal Tournament," both released in 1999, were popular for their frenetic and accessible online multiplayer modes; both featured very limited single player gameplay. "Counter-Strike" was also released in 1999, a "Half-Life" modification with a counter-terrorism theme. The game and later version "" (2004) went on to become by far the most popular multiplayer first-person shooter and computer game modification ever, with over 90,000 players competing online at any one time during its peak.

"World War II Online", released in 2001, featured a persistent and "massively multiplayer environment", although IGN said that "the full realization of that environment is probably still a few years away." "Battlefield 1942", another World War II shooter released in 2002, featured large scale battles incorporating aircraft, naval vessels, land vehicles and infantry combat. In 2003, "PlanetSide" allowed hundreds of players at once to compete in a persistent world, and was also promoted as the "world's first massively multiplayer online first person shooter." The "Serious Sam" series, first released in 2001, and "Painkiller", released in 2004, both emphasized fighting waves of enemies in large open arenas, in an attempt to hearken back to the genre's roots.

Finally, the Crytek games "Far Cry" (2004) and "Crysis" (2007) as well as Ubisoft's "Far Cry 2" (2008) would break new ground in terms of graphics and large, open-ended level design, whereas "" (2007), "" (2006) and its sequel "Resistance 2" (2008) presented increasingly refined linear levels and narratives, with the fast pace and linearity of the "Call of Duty" games bearing a resemblance to rail shooters. In 2006, GamaSutra reported the first-person shooter as one of the biggest and fastest growing video game genres in terms of revenue for publishers.

First-person shooter

First-person shooter (FPS) is a video game genre centered around gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective; that is, the player experiences the action through the eyes of the protagonist. The genre shares common traits with other shooter games, which in turn makes it fall under the heading action game. Since the genre's inception, advanced 3D and pseudo-3D graphics have challenged hardware development, and multiplayer gaming has been integral.

The first-person shooter genre has been traced as far back as "Maze War", development of which began in 1973, and 1974's "Spasim". Later, and after more playful titles like "MIDI Maze" in 1987, the genre coalesced into a more violent form with 1992's "Wolfenstein 3D", which has been credited with creating the genre's basic archetype upon which subsequent titles were based. One such title, and the progenitor of the genre's wider mainstream acceptance and popularity was "Doom," one of the most influential games in this genre; for some years, the term Doom clone was used to designate this genre due to "Doom"s influence. Corridor shooter was another common name for the genre in its early years, since processing limitations of the era's hardware meant that most of the action in the games had to take place in enclosed areas.

1998's "Half-Life"—along with its 2004 sequel "Half-Life 2"—enhanced the narrative and puzzle elements. In 1999, the "Half-Life" mod "Counter-Strike" was released and, together with "Doom", is perhaps one of the most influential first-person shooters. "GoldenEye 007", released in 1997, was a landmark first-person shooter for home consoles, while the "Halo" series heightened the console's commercial and critical appeal as a platform for first-person shooter titles. In the 21st century, the first-person shooter is the most commercially viable video game genre, and in 2016, shooters accounted for over 27% of all video game sales. Several first-person shooters have been popular games for eSports and competitive gaming competitions as well.

First-person shooters are a type of three-dimensional shooter game, featuring a first-person point of view with which the player sees the action through the eyes of the player character. They are unlike third-person shooters, in which the player can see (usually from behind) the character they are controlling. The primary design element is combat, mainly involving firearms.

First person-shooter games are also often categorized as being distinct from light gun shooters, a similar genre with a first-person perspective which use light gun peripherals, in contrast to first-person shooters which use conventional input devices for movement. Another difference is that first-person light-gun shooters like "Virtua Cop" often feature "on-rails" (scripted) movement, whereas first-person shooters like "Doom" give the player more freedom to roam.

First-person shooters often focus on action gameplay, with fast-paced and bloody firefights, though some place a greater emphasis on narrative, problem-solving and logic puzzles. In addition to shooting, melee combat may also be used extensively. In some games, melee weapons are especially powerful, a reward for the risk the player must take in maneuvering his character into close proximity to the enemy. In other situations, a melee weapon may be less effective, but necessary as a last resort. "Tactical shooters" are more realistic, and require teamwork and strategy to succeed; the player often commands a squad of characters, which may be controlled by the game or by human teammates.

First-person shooters may feature a multiplayer mode, taking place on specialized levels. Some games are designed specifically for multiplayer gaming, and have very limited single player modes in which the player competes against game-controlled characters termed "bots". Massively multiplayer online first-person shooters allow thousands of players to compete at once in a persistent world. Large scale multiplayer games allow multiple squads, with leaders issuing commands and a commander controlling the team's overall strategy. Multiplayer games have a variety of different styles of match.

There are many free-to-play first-person shooters on the market now, including "Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory", "Team Fortress", and "Planetside 2." Some games are released as free-to-play as their intended business model and can be highly profitable ("League of Legends" earned $2 billion in 2017), but others such as "Eternal Crusade" begin their life as paid games and become free-to-play later to reach a wider audience after an initially disappointing reception. Some player communities complain about freemium first-person-shooters, fearing that they create unbalanced games, but many game designers have tweaked prices in response to criticism, and players can usually get the same benefits by playing longer rather than paying.

"Spasim" led to more detailed combat flight simulators and eventually to a tank simulator, developed for the U.S. Army, in the later 1970s. These games were not available to consumers, however, and it was not until 1980 that a tank video game, "Battlezone", was released in arcades. A version of the game was released in 1983 for home computers and became the first successful mass-market game featuring a first-person viewpoint and wireframe 3D graphics, presented using a vector graphics display.

"MIDI Maze", an early first-person shooter released in 1987 for the Atari ST, featured maze-based gameplay and character designs similar to "Pac-Man", but displayed in a first-person perspective. Later ported to various systems—including the Game Boy and Super NES—under the title Faceball 2000, it featured the first network multiplayer deathmatches, using a MIDI interface. It was a relatively minor game, but despite the inconvenience of connecting numerous machines together, its multiplayer mode gained a cult following: 1UP.com called it the "first multi-player 3D shooter on a mainstream system" and the first "major LAN action game".

"Doom", released as shareware in 1993, refined "Wolfenstein 3D's" template by adding improved textures, variations in height (e.g., stairs the player's character could climb) and effects such as flickering lights and patches of total darkness, creating a more believable 3D environment than "Wolfenstein 3D's" more monotonous and simplistic levels. "Doom" allowed competitive matches between multiple players, termed "deathmatches," and the game was responsible for the word's subsequent entry into the video gaming lexicon. According to creator John Romero, the game's deathmatch concept was inspired by the competitive multiplayer of fighting games. "Doom" became so popular that its multiplayer features began to cause problems for companies whose networks were used to play the game.

"" was released in 1995 after LucasArts decided "Star Wars" would make appropriate material for a game in the style of "Doom". However, "Star Wars: Dark Forces" added several technical features that "Doom" lacked, such as the ability to crouch, jump, or look up and down. "Dark Forces" also was one of the first games to incorporate 3D-designed objected rendered into the game's 2D engine. Apogee's "Duke Nukem 3D," released in 1996, was "the last of the great, sprite-based shooters" winning acclaim for its humor based around stylised machismo as well as its gameplay. However, some found the game's (and later the whole series') treatment of women to be derogatory and tasteless.

In 1994, Exact released Geograph Seal for the Japanese Sharp X68000 home computer. An obscure import title as far as the Western market was concerned, it was nonetheless "a fully 3D polygonal first-person shooter" with innovative platform game mechanics and "free-roaming" outdoor environments. The following year, Exact released its successor for the PlayStation console, "Jumping Flash!", which placed more emphasis on its platform elements. "Descent" (released by Parallax Software in 1995), a game in which the player pilots a spacecraft around caves and factory ducts, was a truly three-dimensional first-person shooter. It abandoned sprites and ray casting in favour of polygons and six degrees of freedom.

Based on the James Bond film, Rare's "GoldenEye 007" was released in 1997, and as of 2004 it was the best-selling Nintendo 64 game in the United States. It was the first landmark console first-person shooter and was highly acclaimed for its atmospheric single-player levels and well designed multiplayer maps. It featured a sniper rifle, the ability to perform head-shots, and the incorporation of stealth elements; (and all these aspects were also used in the game's spiritual sequel "Perfect Dark") as well as "Virtua Cop"-inspired features such as reloading, position-dependent hit reaction animations, penalties for killing innocents, and an aiming system allowing players to aim at a precise spot on the screen.

Though not the first of its kind, "Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six" started a popular trend of tactical first-person shooters in 1998. It featured a team-based, realistic design and themes based around counter-terrorism, requiring missions to be planned before execution and in it, a single hit was sometimes enough to kill a character. "Medal of Honor", released in 1999, started a long running proliferation of first-person shooters set during World War II.

"," also released in 1998, was a multiplayer online shooter allowing more than 32 players in a single match. It featured team-based gameplay with a variety of specialized roles, and an unusual jet pack feature. The game was highly popular and later imitated by games such as the "Battlefield" series. Id's "Quake III Arena" and Epic's "Unreal Tournament," both released in 1999, were popular for their frenetic and accessible online multiplayer modes; both featured very limited single player gameplay. "Counter-Strike" was also released in 1999, a "Half-Life" modification with a counter-terrorism theme. The game and later version "" (2004) went on to become by far the most popular multiplayer first-person shooter and computer game modification ever, with over 90,000 players competing online at any one time during its peak.

"World War II Online", released in 2001, featured a persistent and "massively multiplayer environment", although IGN said that "the full realization of that environment is probably still a few years away." "Battlefield 1942", another World War II shooter released in 2002, featured large scale battles incorporating aircraft, naval vessels, land vehicles and infantry combat. In 2003, "PlanetSide" allowed hundreds of players at once to compete in a persistent world, and was also promoted as the "world's first massively multiplayer online first person shooter." The "Serious Sam" series, first released in 2001, and "Painkiller", released in 2004, both emphasized fighting waves of enemies in large open arenas, in an attempt to hearken back to the genre's roots.

Finally, the Crytek games "Far Cry" (2004) and "Crysis" (2007) as well as Ubisoft's "Far Cry 2" (2008) would break new ground in terms of graphics and large, open-ended level design, whereas "" (2007), "" (2006) and its sequel "Resistance 2" (2008) presented increasingly refined linear levels and narratives, with the fast pace and linearity of the "Call of Duty" games bearing a resemblance to rail shooters. In 2006, GamaSutra reported the first-person shooter as one of the biggest and fastest growing video game genres in terms of revenue for publishers.

In 1992 "Wolfenstein 3d" is released, creating interest in what fps games could become. "Doom" (1993) bursts onto the world scene and instantly popularizes the FPS genre, and even how games are played, as Doom is among the first games to feature multiplayer capabilities. It was "Goldeneye 007" (1997), that introduced an engine that made development of first-person shooters for home consoles a practical idea. It is not until "Quake" (1996), however, that game developers begin to take multiplayer features into serious consideration when making games. "Quake II" (1997), "Unreal" (1998) and "Half-Life" (1998) feature the next evolutionary step in the genre with continual progression of the game (no levels in the traditional sense) and an entirely in-person view, and become one of the most popular video games in history.

1990s in video gaming

The 1990s were a decade of marked innovation in video gaming. It was a decade of transition from sprite-based graphics to full-fledged 3D graphics and it gave rise to several genres of video games including, but not limited to, the first person shooter, real-time strategy, survival horror, and MMO. Handheld gaming began to become more popular throughout the decade, thanks in part to the release of the Game Boy. Arcade games, although still relatively popular in the early 1990s, begin a decline as home consoles become more common.

Starting in 1990 and ending in 1993, the fourth generation of video game consoles consisted primarily of games and systems programmed for the 16-bit era. During this generation, 2D graphics had improved over the previous generation and experimentation began to occur with 3D graphics, although 3D games were more prevalent on the PC at the time. The fourth generation also was the first time Compact Discs were considered a viable port for video game retail sales with the CD-i. Some of the most notable systems released during this generation were the Mega Drive/Genesis (1988), the Super NES (1990) and the Neo Geo (1990). Nintendo's Game Boy was also released during the fourth generation, which would later become the most popular series of handheld gaming systems during the 1990s. A rivalry between Sega and Nintendo occurred during this generation, starting the 2nd major console war, The 1st being between Atari 2600 & Intellivision.

Starting in 1993 and ending in 1999, the fifth generation of video games are most widely known to be the 32/64 bit era and for being the transition period for video games to evolve into the third dimension. The Nintendo 64 (1996), PlayStation (1994), and Sega Saturn (1994) are considered to be the big three gaming systems of this generation. With the introduction of the PlayStation and Saturn, compact discs (CDs) began to replace cartridges however the Nintendo 64 remained loyal to them due to the load times on CDs at the time and became one of the last cartridge based systems in mass production.

The sixth generation was initiated by the release of the Dreamcast in 1999. It introduced several innovations including Internet gaming as a standard feature through its built-in modem, and a web browser. It was also the first home console to always display full SD resolution. Despite its early success, the Dreamcast was discontinued prematurely as sales slowed following the release of the PlayStation 2 on March 4, 2000.

Said to be one of the most revolutionary video games, "Super Mario 64" (1996) was praised for how it took to 3D environments of wide open spaces and graphics at the time. Many games that moved onto 3D also tried to mimic Mario's success. Instead of pixels, polygons became a standard sight to be in video games from then on as they looked more lifelike when programmed into the right shapes.

Lara Croft of the "Tomb Raider" series became the first video game sex symbol, becoming a recognizable figure in the entertainment industry throughout the late 1990s.

Nearly every system released in the mid-late 1990s began to move to the new CD-ROM technology, with the Nintendo 64 being the last major home video game console to use ROM cartridges. Also appealing to publishers was the fact that CDs could be produced at significantly less expense and with more flexibility (it was easy to change production to meet demand), and they were able to pass the lower costs onto consumers. In particular, the fifth generation marked a turning point for optical-based storage media. As games grew more complex in content, sound, and graphics, the CD proved more than capable of providing enough space for the extra data. The cartridge format, however, was pushed beyond the limits of its storage capacity. Consequently, many game developers shifted their support away from the Nintendo 64 to the PlayStation.

Due to CD-ROMs lacking the built-in memory of ROM Cartridges, the Sony PlayStation introduced the use of memory cards to store saved game data. This became the standard for video game consoles until it was replaced by the use of hard drives and built-in flash memory during the seventh generation in the late first decade of the 21st century.

The Super NES controller introduced a more rounded dog-bone like design and added two more face buttons, "X" and "Y", arranging the four in a diamond formation. Another addition was the "L" and "R" shoulder buttons, which have been imitated by most controllers since.

The PlayStation controller was the first standard operating device for a home console to use two handle-bars at the bottom of the controller whereas previously this feature had been relegated to niche specialist controllers. This has been standard in most game controllers since, until the Wii appeared.

The Virtual Boy controller was a controller which utilized dual joypads similar to how analog sticks functioned in later "dual control" sixth-generation systems. The presence of two pads was an effort to control objects in a 3D environment (one pad controlling pitch and turning while the other controlling forward movement and strafing).

In 1996 Nintendo introduced the first analog thumbstick on the Nintendo 64 controller. It was subsequently followed in the industry during the fifth generation by the 3D Control Pad (packaged with "Nights into Dreams..."), the Sony Dual Analog gamepad which introduced the use of two analog sticks, and the Sony DualShock. Since then, all major video game console controllers have included two analog thumbsticks, except for the Wii's "Wii-mote".The optional Rumble Pak for the Nintendo 64 controller introduced the use of haptic force feedback technology in gaming. It was later followed by the DualShock controller for the PlayStation which had built-in haptic feedback. Since then, built-in force feedback has become standard for most game controllers.The use of pressure-sensitive buttons was introduced by the Dreamcast in 1999. It has trigger-like shoulder buttons, similar to the earlier Nintendo 64 controller, but the main difference being that DreamCast controller's shoulder buttons are pressure-sensitive. Since then, most game controllers have included pressure-sensitive buttons.

Online gaming, which in previous generations had been the exclusive domain of PC games, became prominent in video game consoles starting in the late 1990s. The Dreamcast initiated this change in 1999 with its built in modem, internet browsing software, and ability to play certain games online. Nearly all consoles since released then have had support for online gaming.

Many technically innovative and genre-defining games were developed during the 1990s, largely due to the impact of 3D graphics allowing three-dimensional environments as well as optical discs which allowed much greater storage capacity.

The release of "Street Fighter II" in 1991 is often considered a revolutionary moment in the fighting game genre. Yoshiki Okamoto's team developed the most accurate joystick and button scanning routine in the genre thus far. This allowed players to reliably execute multi-button special moves, which had previously required an element of luck. The game was also highly successful because its graphics took advantage of Capcom's CPS arcade chipset, with highly detailed characters and stages. Whereas previous games allowed players to combat a variety of computer-controlled fighters, "Street Fighter II" allowed players to play against each other. The popularity of "Street Fighter II" surprised the gaming industry, as arcade owners bought more machines to keep up with demand.

SNK released "" a few months later, adding a two-plane system where characters could step into the foreground or background. Meanwhile, Sega experimented with "Dark Edge", an early attempt at a 3D fighting game where characters could move in all directions. Sega however, never released the game outside Japan because it felt that unrestrained 3D fighting games were unenjoyable. Several fighting games achieved greater commercial success, including SNK's "Art of Fighting" and "Samurai Shodown" as well as Sega's "Eternal Champions". Nevertheless, "Street Fighter II" remained the most popular, spawning a special "Champion Edition" that improved game balance and allowed players to use additional characters. The popularity of "Street Fighter II" led it to be released for home game consoles and allowed it to define the template for fighting games.

Sega began to attract attention with the 1993 release of "Virtua Fighter" in arcades. It was the first fighting game with 3D polygon graphics and a viewpoint that zoomed and rotated with the action. Despite the graphics, players were confined to back and forth motion as seen in other fighting games. By the time the game was released for the Sega Saturn in Japan, the game and system were selling at almost a one-to-one ratio. In 1994, SNK released "The King of Fighters '94" in arcades, where players choose from teams of three characters to eliminate each other one by one. A follow-up to "Street Fighter II", "Street Fighter Alpha", was released in 1995 but was unable to match the popularity of its predecessor. Throughout this period, the fighting game was the dominant genre in competitive video gaming, with enthusiasts popularly attending arcades in order to find human opponents.

The fighting game genre continued to evolve as several strong 3D fighting games emerged in the late 1990s. Namco's "Tekken" (released in arcades in 1994 and on the PlayStation in 1995) proved critical to the PlayStation's early success, with its sequels also becoming some of the console's most important titles. In 1995, Mortal Kombat became a popular fighting game due it's sprites being real people digitalized into the game with graphic and controversial depictions of violence, most notably, the fatalities. The "Soul" series of weapon-based fighting games also achieved considerable critical success, beginning with 1997's "Soul Edge". Tecmo's "Dead or Alive" (released in 1996 in Japanese arcades and 1998 on the PlayStation) spawned a long-running franchise, known for its fast-paced control system and innovative counterattacks. The series again included titles important to the success of their respective consoles.

The first-person shooter (FPS) typically features the player as the protagonist. Most often the player does not see the face of who they are playing, but will always see the weapon of choice located in the players hand in the lower left or right hand corner. FPSs are usually violent and feature blood and gore, which has sparked controversy from parent groups.

With the introduction of the fifth generation of games, 3-D graphics become the standard by end of decade. Although FPSs had been some of the first games to become 3-D.

In 1992 "Wolfenstein 3d" is released, creating interest in what fps games could become. "Doom" (1993) bursts onto the world scene and instantly popularizes the FPS genre, and even how games are played, as Doom is among the first games to feature multiplayer capabilities. It was "Goldeneye 007" (1997), that introduced an engine that made development of first-person shooters for home consoles a practical idea. It is not until "Quake" (1996), however, that game developers begin to take multiplayer features into serious consideration when making games. "Quake II" (1997), "Unreal" (1998) and "Half-Life" (1998) feature the next evolutionary step in the genre with continual progression of the game (no levels in the traditional sense) and an entirely in-person view, and become one of the most popular video games in history.

In the early-to-mid-1990s, several video game developers experimented with plot twists and providing alternative storylines and endings into their games. They even went as far as to film live action scenes and scripted popular actors to play the parts. "Night Trap", released in 1992, was highly acclaimed for implementing live action scenes into video games and later the Wing Commander series dove into live action as well. "" was given an unheard of budget of US$12 million and starred Mark Hamill of "Star Wars" fame. The "Wing Commander" series was known for providing several alternate endings depending on how the player followed the story and interacted with the characters.

The platform game genre evolved through several distinct phases throughout the 1990s. The first was an evolutionary step during the fifth generation in the early 1990s, followed by a complete transformation of the genre during the sixth generation in the late 1990s.The advent of 16-bit home consoles in the early 1990s marked an evolutionary step for the genre. By the time the Mega Drive and Super Nintendo Entertainment System launched, platform games were the most popular genre in home console gaming and were seen as vital for winning the console war. There was a particular emphasis on having a flagship platform title exclusive to a format, featuring a "mascot" character. Sega's "Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle" (1989) was only modestly successful, and Sega realized would need a stronger mascot to move Genesis units. In 1990, Hudson Soft released "Bonk's Adventure" featuring a character that would be positioned as NEC's mascot.

1990 marked the release of the Super NES, along with the much awaited "Super Mario World". In order to fend off the new competition, Sega released "Sonic the Hedgehog". Whereas Nintendo's offering featured a conservative design, true to the "Mario" tradition, "Sonic" showcased a new style of design made possible by a new generation of hardware. "Sonic" featured large fields that scrolled effortlessly in all directions, as well as all manner of uneven terrain, curved hills, and a complex physics system that allowed players to rush through its levels with well-placed jumps and rolls. It proved to be a massive hit, was a successful pack-in with new systems, and cemented the view that platform games would make or break a console.

The Sonic character was also seen as a new model for mascots in the early 1990s, particularly for his perceived "attitude," which characterized him as a rebel from the status quo. This "attitude" would soon become the status quo, as companies attempted to duplicate Sonic's success with their own brightly colored anthropomorphisms. Very frequently these were characterized by impatience, sarcasm, and frequent quipping to give them personality. These mascots, which included the likes of Gex, Bug!, and Bubsy, have mostly faded from relevance.In 1996, Nintendo released "Super Mario 64". Until this time there had been no established archetype for bringing platform games into 3D. "Mario 64" set a new standard and would be imitated by many 3D platformers to follow. Its gameplay allowed players to explore open 3D environments with greater freedom than any previous attempt at a 3D platform game. To aid this, Nintendo incorporated an analog control stick to their standard Nintendo 64 controller, something which had not been included in a standard console controller since the Vectrex (and since incorporated into the DualShock among other controllers). This allowed for the finer precision needed for a free perspective. Players no longer followed a linear path to the ends of levels, either, with most levels providing objective-based goals. There were, however, a handful of "boss" levels that offered more traditional platforming, and showed what a more direct conversion to 3D might have been like.

Some argue that many modern 3D platformers, especially those influenced heavily by "Super Mario 64", are not platformers at all, or at least are not really an extension of 2D platformers. "Super Mario 64" brought a change in the goals of some platformers. In most 2D platformers, the player only had to reach a single goal to complete a level, but in many 3D platformers, each level had to be combed for collectible items such as puzzle pieces ("Banjo-Kazooie") or stars ("Super Mario 64"). This allowed for more efficient use of large 3D areas and rewarded the player for thorough exploration, but they also often involved more elements of action-adventure games, and less jumping on platforms.

In 1992, Sega produced "Virtua Racing", one of the first games with full 3D graphics. It was able to combine the best features of games at the time, along with multiplayer machine linking and clean 3D graphics to produce a game that was above and beyond the arcade market standard of its time. Also, Nintendo broke new ground by introducing the Mario Kart series on the SNES with Super Mario Kart. Using the familiar characters from the Mario franchise, the game not only departed from the realism paradigm by using small karts for the players to drive, but also featured bright, colourful environments and allowed the players to pick up power-ups to improve performance or hamper other racers. This franchise also spawned multiple sequels such as Mario Kart 64 which would release on the
N64 making the first Mario Kart game to feature  3D computer graphics while still using pre-rendered sprites for the characters and items.

In 1993, Namco struck back with "Ridge Racer", and thus began the polygonal war of driving games. Sega struck back in 1994 with Daytona USA, while Midway introduced Cruis'n USA. Atari didn't join the 3D craze until 1997, when it introduced. In 1996, Konami introduced GTI Club which allowed free roaming of the environment - something of a revolution that had only been done in 3D before in Hard Drivin'.

In 1997, "Gran Turismo" was released for the PlayStation. It was considered the most realistic racing simulation game in its time, combined with playability, enabling players of all skill levels to play. The "Gran Turismo" series has since become one of the most popular racing franchises ever, with the series selling more than 50 million copies worldwide. Colin McRae Rally was introduced in 1998 to the PC world, and was a successful semi-simulation of the world of rally driving (previously only available in Sega's less serious Sega Rally Championship). Motorhead, a PC game, was later adapted back to arcade.

1999 marked a change of games into more "free form" worlds. "Midtown Madness" allows the player to explore a simplified version of the city of Chicago using a variety of vehicles and any path that they desire. In the arcade world, Sega introduced "Crazy Taxi", where you are a taxi driver that needed to get the client to the destination in the shortest amount of time. A similar game also from Sega is "Emergency Call Ambulance", with almost the same gameplay (pick up patient, drop off at hospital, as fast as possible).

The 1990s saw the emergence of several distinct subgenres of the role-playing video game genre.

1990 would see the release of "Crystalis" for the Nintendo Entertainment System and also "Golden Axe Warrior" for the Master System. Both games featured "Zelda"-like gameplay blended with genuine RPG elements, such as experience points, statistics-based equipment, and a magic-casting system. In 1991, Square released "Seiken Densetsu" for the Game Boy, also known as "Final Fantasy Adventure" in the West. Like "Crystalis", the action in "Seiken Densetsu" bore a strong resemblance to that of "Zelda", but added more RPG elements. "Seiken Densetsu 2", also known as "Secret of Mana", implemented an innovative multiplayer function, and further developed its combat with more diverse weaponry and spell-casting.

Unique among video games are Capcom's "" (1993) and "" (1996). These games were released for the arcades, and featured a blending of beat 'em up and RPG characteristics. The games were later released for the Sega Saturn together as the "Dungeons & Dragons Collection" (1999). Several later beat 'em ups followed this same formula, including Guardian Heroes, Castle Crashers and Dungeon & Fighter.

In Japan on Super Famicom, "Tales of Phantasia" was released in Japan in 1995, featuring real-time side-scrolling combat mode and an exploration mode similar to classic console RPGs. In 1996, Star Ocean was released that also has real-time combat and classic exploration but features bird's eye view. Namco and Enix did not publish these two revolutionary titles in America, even though sequels in the two series would become wildly popular on future generations of consoles in the US. Fifth generation era saw several popular action RPGs, such as "Tales of Eternia", "Brave Fencer Musashi" and "Legend of Oasis". In 1996 Nintendo released Super Mario RPG, for the SNES. Super Mario RPG was the first role playing game in the series and it launched to critical acclaim.
It spawned two spiritual successors, Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi

It was in the early 1990s that the console role-playing video game genre distinguished itself greatly from computer RPGs, with the "Final Fantasy" series playing an instrumental role. "Final Fantasy III" introduced the "job system", a character progression engine allowing the player to change a character's class, as well as acquire new and advanced classes. "Final Fantasy IV" (1991) was one of the first role-playing games to feature a complex, involving plot, placing a much greater emphasis on character development and pioneering "the whole concept of dramatic storytelling in an RPG." It also introduced a new battle system: the "Active Time Battle" system, developed by Hiroyuki Ito, where the time-keeping system does not stop. Square Co., Ltd. filed a United States patent application for the ATB system on March 16, 1992, under the title "Video game apparatus, method and device for controlling same" and was awarded the patent on February 21, 1995. On the battle screen, each character has an ATB meter that gradually fills, and the player is allowed to issue a command to that character once the meter is full. The fact that enemies can attack or be attacked at any time is credited with injecting urgency and excitement into the combat system. Both the "job system" and the ATB system were fully developed in "Final Fantasy V" (1992) and continued to be used in later "Final Fantasy" games as well as other Square games such as "Chrono Trigger" (1995). "Final Fantasy VI" (1994) and the "Megami Tensei" series were some of the first RPGs to move away from the typical medieval setting, with "Final Fantasy VI" instead being set in a steampunk environment and the "Megami Tensei" games set in modern-day Japan.

The next major revolution came in the late 1990s, which saw the rise of optical disks in fifth generation consoles. The implications for RPGs were enormous—longer, more involved quests, better audio, and full-motion video. This was first clearly demonstrated by "Final Fantasy VII" (1997). The explosion of "Final Fantasy VII"'s sales and the ascendance of the PlayStation were proof of this and represented the dawning of a new era of RPGs. Backed by a clever marketing campaign, "Final Fantasy VII" brought the first taste of CRPGs to many of the new gamers brought in by the PlayStation gaming console. Subsequently, CRPGs, previously a niche genre, skyrocketed in popularity.

In 1997, a new Internet fad began, influenced by the popularization of console RPGs. A large group of young programmers and aficionados began creating and sharing independent CRPG games, emulating the gameplay and style of the older Super NES and Genesis games. The majority of such games owe their achievement to simplistic software development kits such as the Japanese "RPG Maker" series.

1989 and the early 1990s saw the release and spread of the MUD codebases DikuMUD and LPMud, leading to a tremendous increase in the proliferation and popularity of MUDs. Before the end of the decade, the evolution of the genre continued through "graphical MUDs" into the first massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), a term coined by Richard Garriott in 1997. That genre, as currently defined, began with "Meridian 59" in 1995, but first truly came into its own with "Ultima Online" in 1997, a game that provided a core idea of what later MMORPGs would become, featuring a massive continent on which players could interact with others from around the world, fight mythical creatures, and cast spells. After earlier games broke ground, widespread popularity for MMORPGs arrived with the debut of "EverQuest" and "Asheron's Call" in 1999. MMORPGs would become a common form of social interaction in the 2000s.

In 1990, Nintendo released and published the first tactical RPG, "" for the Family Computer (or Famicom) in Japan, co-developed with Intelligent Systems. Released in Japan in 1990, "Fire Emblem" was an archetype for the whole genre, establishing gameplay elements that are still used in tactical CRPGs today (although some of these elements were influenced by "Ultima III"). Combining the basic console RPG concepts from games like "Dragon Quest" and simple turn-based strategy elements, Nintendo created a hit, which spawned many sequels and imitators.

Among the first imitators was "Langrisser" by NCS/Masaya, first released for the Mega Drive in 1991. It was localized for North American release under the title "Warsong", with a few graphical alterations. The "Langrisser" series differed from "Fire Emblem" in that it used a general-soldier structure instead of controlling main characters. "Master of Monsters" was a unique title by SystemSoft. Where "Langrisser" and "Fire Emblem" used a square-based grid, "Master of Monsters" used a hexagonal grid. Players could choose one of four different Lords to defend their Towers and areas on the grid by building an army of creatures to destroy the opposing armies.

The first game in the long-running "Super Robot Wars" series is another early example of the genre, released for the Game Boy in 1991. Another influential early tactical RPG was Sega's "Shining Force" for the Genesis, which was released in 1992. "Shining Force" used even more console RPG elements than earlier games, allowing the player to walk around towns and talk to people and buy weapons. One game released solely in Japan for the Super Famicom (SFC), "Bahamut Lagoon", began Square's (now Square Enix) famous line of tactical RPGs.

"" was released for the Super NES and is more of a real-time strategy game in which the player forms role-playing video game-like character parties that are moved around a map in real-time. When two parties meet, the combat plays out with minimal user interaction. A later release, "", was originally a SNES game that was later ported to the PlayStation. "Tactics Ogre" is a much more direct influence on the sort of tactical RPGs that gamers recognize today such as "Final Fantasy Tactics" and "". It was also the first to bear the name "Tactics" in the title, a term gamers would come to associate with the genre. Not only are characters moved individually on a grid, but the view is isometric, and the order of combat is calculated for each character individually. The game defined the genre in many ways.

While stealth elements have been present in video games as far back as "005", a 1981 video game by Sega, it was in the 1990s that the stealth game genre was established. Hideo Kojima's "" was released in 1990 for the MSX2 and was a major improvement over its predecessor, "Metal Gear" (1987). "Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake" improved on the first game in many ways, including improved graphics, more player abilities (such as crouching, crawling into hiding spots, disguising in enemy uniforms and cardboard boxes, and distracting guards by knocking on surfaces), improved enemy AI (such as a greater field of vision, the ability to detect various noises, and a three-level security alert), and additions such as a radar, as well as a complex storyline. The game was only released for the MSX2 in Japan, however, which limited its accessibility to consumers in the US. An alternative "Metal Gear" sequel named "Snake's Revenge" was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America and Europe instead, also in 1990. Kojima was not involved in the game's development, which was instead conducted by another Konami team.

1998 is seen as a turning point in gaming history because of the release of "Metal Gear Solid", as well as "" and "". The ninja-themed game "Tenchu: Stealth Assassins" was released several months before "Metal Gear Solid", making it the first 3D stealth based-game. The highly anticipated "Metal Gear Solid" transformed its modestly successful franchise into a large mainstream success. The increased power of the PlayStation console over previous platforms allowed for greater immersion in terms of both story and game environment. "Metal Gear Solid" has been credited with popularizing the stealth genre. The core elements of these games, such as avoiding confrontation, minimizing noise, and attacking antagonists from "the shadows", influenced many future stealth game series.

While elements of the survival horror genre can be traced back to the 1989 Capcom game "Sweet Home", which served as a major influence on the genre, it was in the 1990s that survival horror was established as a genre. Another precursor appeared in 1992 when Infogrames released "Alone in the Dark", which is also considered a forefather of the genre. The game featured a lone protagonist against hordes of monsters, and made use of traditional adventure game challenges such as puzzle-solving and finding hidden keys to new areas. Graphically, "Alone in the Dark" utilized static prerendered camera views that were cinematic in nature. Although players had the ability to fight monsters as in action games, players also had the option to evade or block them.

The term "survival horror" was first used by Capcom to market their 1996 release, "Resident Evil", thus establishing it as a genre. The game was influenced by Capcom's "Sweet Home", released seven years earlier. "Resident Evil" also adopted several features seen in "Alone in the Dark", including puzzle-solving challenges and fixed cinematic camera angles. The control scheme in "Resident Evil" also became a staple of the genre, and future titles would imitate its challenge of rationing highly limited resources and items. The game's commercial success is credited with helping the PlayStation become the dominant game console, and also led to a series of "Resident Evil" films. Many games have tried to replicate the successful formula seen in "Resident Evil", and every subsequent survival horror game has arguably taken a stance in relation to it.

"Silent Hill" (1999) drew heavily from "Resident Evil" while using realtime 3D environments in contrast to "Resident Evil"'s pre-rendered graphics. The game was praised for moving away from B movie horror elements to the psychological style seen in art house or Japanese horror films, due to the game's emphasis on a disturbing atmosphere rather than visceral horror. The original "Silent Hill" is considered one of the scariest games of all time.

Notes:

While light gun shooters often have a first-person perspective, they are distinct from first-person shooters, which use conventional input devices for movement. It is not clear exactly when the earliest such first-person shooter video game was created. There are two claimants, "Spasim" and "Maze War". The uncertainty about which was first stems from the lack of any accurate dates for the development of "Maze War"—even its developer cannot remember exactly. In contrast, the development of "Spasim" is much better documented and the dates more certain. The initial development of "Maze War" probably occurred in the summer of 1973. A single player made their way through a simple maze of corridors rendered using fixed perspective. Multiplayer capabilities, with players attempting to shoot each other, were probably added later in 1973 (two machines linked via a serial connection) and in the summer of 1974 (fully networked).

First-person (gaming)

In video games, the first person refers to a graphical perspective rendered from the viewpoint of the player's character. In many cases, this may be the viewpoint from the cockpit of a vehicle. Many different genres have made use of first-person perspectives, ranging from adventure games to driving, sailing, and flight simulators. The most notable genre to make use of this device is the first-person shooter, where the graphical perspective has a heavy impact on gameplay.

Games with a first-person perspective are usually avatar-based, wherein the game displays what the player's avatar would see with the avatar's own eyes. Thus, players typically cannot see the avatar's body, though they may be able to see the avatar's weapons or hands. This viewpoint is also frequently used to represent the perspective of a driver within a vehicle, as in flight and racing simulators; and it is common to make use of positional audio, where the volume of ambient sounds varies depending on their position with respect to the player's avatar.

Games with a first-person perspective do not require sophisticated animations for the player's avatar, nor do they need to implement a manual or automated camera-control scheme as in third-person perspective. A first-person perspective allows for easier aiming, since there is no representation of the avatar to block the player's view. However, the absence of an avatar can make it difficult to master the timing and distances required to jump between platforms, and may cause motion sickness in some players.

Players have come to expect first-person games to accurately scale objects to appropriate sizes. However, key objects such as dropped items or levers may be exaggerated in order to improve their visibility.

While many games featured a side-scrolling or top-down perspective during the 1970s and 80's, several early games attempted to render the game world from the perspective of the player.

"Spasim" was originally developed in the spring of 1974. Players moved through a wire-frame 3D universe, with gameplay resembling the 2D game "Empire ire". Graphically, "Spasim" lacked even hidden line removal, but did feature online multiplayer over the worldwide university-based PLATO network. "Spasim" had a documented debut at the University of Illinois in 1974. The game was a rudimentary space flight simulator, which featured a first-person perspective. "Futurewar" (1978) by high-school student Erik K. Witz and Nick Boland, also based on PLATO, is sometimes claimed to be the first true FPS. The game included a vector image of a gun and other armaments that pointed at the monsters. Set in A.D. 2020, "Futurewar" anticipated "Doom", although as to "Castle Wolfenstein"'s transition to a futuristic theme, the common PLATO genesis is coincidental. A further notable PLATO FPS was the tank game "Panther", introduced in 1975, generally acknowledged as a precursor to "Battlezone".

1979 saw the release of two first-person space combat games: the Exidy arcade game "Star Fire" and Doug Neubauer's seminal "Star Raiders" for the Atari 8-bit family. "Star Raiders" was followed by a series of similar games, including "Starmaster" for the Atari 2600, "Space Spartans" for Intellivision, and "Shadow Hawk One" for the Apple II, and went on to influence major first person games of the 1990s such as "Wing Commander" and "". Atari, Inc.'s 1983 "Star Wars" arcade game leaned entirely on action rather than tactics, but offered 3D color vector renderings of TIE Fighters and the surface of the Death Star.

Other shooters with a first person view from the early 1980s include Taito's "Space Seeker" in 1981, "Horizon V" for the Apple II the same year, Imagic's "Star Voyager" for the Atari 2600 in 1982, Sega's stereoscopic arcade game "SubRoc-3D" in 1982, Novagen's "Encounter" in 1983, and EA's "Skyfox" for the Apple II in 1984.

Flight simulators were a first person staple in the 1980s, including the series from subLOGIC, which later became "Microsoft Flight Simulator". MicroProse found a niche with first person aerial combat games: "Hellcat Ace" (1982), "Spitfire Ace" (1982), and "F-15 Strike Eagle" (1985).

Amidst a flurry of faux-3D first person maze games where the player was locked into one of four orientations, like "Spectre", "3D Monster Maze", "Phantom Slayer", and "Dungeons of Daggorath", came the 1982 release of Paul Edelstein's "Wayout" from Sirius Software. Not a shooter, it has smooth, arbitrary movement that came from what was later labeled a raycasting engine, giving it a visual fluidity seen in future games "MIDI Maze" and "Wolfenstein 3D". It was followed in 1983 by the split-screen "Capture the Flag", allowing two players at once, and foreshadowing a common gameplay mode for 3D games of the 1990s.

The arrival of the Atari ST and Amiga in 1985, and the Apple IIGS a year later, increased the computing power and graphical capabilities available in consumer-level machines, leading to a new wave of innovation. 1987 saw the release of "MIDI Maze", an important transitional game for the genre. Unlike its contemporaries, "MIDI Maze" used raycasting to speedily draw square corridors. It also offered a networked multiplayer deathmatch (communicating via the computer's MIDI ports). Sub-Logic's "Jet" was a major release for the new platforms, as were "Starglider" and the tank simulator "Arcticfox".

In 1988, "" featured first-person shooter levels and included a sniper rifle for assassinating an enemy agent at long range using an unsteady sniper scope. The same year saw the release of Arsys Software's "Star Cruiser".

In the late 1980s, interest in 3D first-person driving simulations resulted in games like "Test Drive" (1987) and "Vette!" (1989). 1989's "Hard Drivin'" arcade game from Atari Games was particularly influential, with fast polygon graphics, a mathematical model of how the vehicle parts work together, force feedback, and instant replay after crashes. In the following years, two "Hard Drivin"'-esque MS-DOS games appeared, each including a track editor: "Stunt Driver" from Spectrum Holobyte (1990) and "Stunts" from Broderbund (1991).

In 1990, SNK released beat 'em ups with a first-person perspective: the hack & slash game "Crossed Swords", and the fighting & shooting game "Super Spy". In late 1991, the fledgling id Software released "Catacomb 3D", which introduced the concept of showing the player's hand on-screen, strengthening the illusion that the player is viewing the world through the character's eyes.

Taito's "Gun Buster" was released in arcades in 1992. It features on-foot gameplay and a control scheme where the player moves using an eight-direction joystick and aims using a mounted positional light gun. It allows two-player cooperative gameplay for the mission mode and features a deathmatch mode where two players compete against each other or up to four players compete in two teams.

In 1992, "" was among the first to feature texture mapped environments, polygonal objects, and basic lighting. The engine was later enhanced for usage in the games "" and "System Shock". Later in 1992, id improved the technology used in "Catacomb 3D" by adding support for VGA graphics in "Wolfenstein 3D". It would be widely imitated in the years to follow, and marked the beginning of many conventions in the genre, including collecting different weapons that can be switched between using the keyboard's number keys, and ammo conservation. 1996 saw the release of "" for MS-DOS by Bethesda Softworks, featuring similar graphics and polygonal structures to other games at the time and furthering the first-person element included in 1994's "", to which it was a sequel.

The 1995 game "Descent" used a fully 3D polygonal graphics engine to render opponents, departing from the sprites used by most previous games in the FPS genre. It also escaped the "pure vertical walls" graphical restrictions of earlier games in the genre, and allowed the player six degrees of freedom of movement (up/down, left/right, forward/backward, pitch, roll, and yaw).