Quake, DOOM, Or Wolfenstein: Which Was The FIRST Shooter?
From Fallout to Bioshock and RPG to action game, the first-person shooter genre has defined a wide array of video games. ID Software, the developer behind like DOOM, Quake, and Wolfenstein, is regularly credited with creating the FPS, with those games seen as the granddaddies of the genre. But which one came first? And are these even the first first-person shooters?
DOOM is often considered to be father of the FPS. After all, throughout the 1990s, first-person shooters were known as "DOOM Clones," rather than entries within a larger genre. However, while DOOM may have popularized the genre, it was not the original first-person shooter.
DOOM released in 1993, one year after the seminal Wolfenstein 3D. Quake followed both those titles in 1996 and innovated on the FPS genre, shifting shooters away from sprite-based graphics and introducing fully rendered 3D worlds and fast-paced gunplay. So, in regards to ID's three major franchises Wolfenstein came first, then DOOM, and then Quake. But, while Wolfenstein set ID Software up for stardom, it wasn't even ID's first FPS.
Technically, the very first FPS was a student project called Maze War, created in the early 1970s. According to Polygon, Maze War was developed by high school students during a NASA work-study program and later expanded upon when they went to college, and it pioneered many of the features that have become synonymous with first-person shooters. In the game, players navigate a disembodied eye through a series of mazes as they fight off various enemies. However, despite its innovation, Maze War never made its way to consumers, so it was more a proof of concept than the realization of a product. As reported by PC Gamer, the first successfully marketed FPS was an arcade game called Battlezone, developed by Atari and released in 1980. Battlezone put players in a tank and tasked them with dodging missiles and destroying enemy tanks.
ID built off these technical innovations and released its first FPS in April 1991. Called Hovertank 3D, ID Software's original FPS emulated Battlezeone's player-controlled tank, but it differentiated itself by requiring players to not only fight enemies but to save civilians and navigate a maze. Later that year, ID released Catacombs 3D, which set the template for the company's future titles. Unlike Battlezone and Hovertank 3D, Catacombs 3D starred a human character with fully animated hands. It's is a dark-fantasy first-person shooter, in which players navigate dungeons, cast spells, and fight monsters.
Nearly 40 years since Maze War introduced the concept to the world, the FPS has conquered the gaming market. More than just a simple genre, the FPS gives players an intimate perspective and puts them into the actual shoes of their avatar; as a result, it has influenced just about every major type of video game. ID cemented the FPS with its excellent Wolfenstein, DOOM, and Quake franchises, but even they stood on the shoulders of other giants.