First-Person Shooters 1970's-1990's

I've noticed in the comments of my previous blog post that some of you wanted me to write about the history of some first-person shooters. I knew I was going to have to write about it at some point, but I just didn't want it to be my first post. The reason why is because, I wanted to give out the information about first-person games first, then worry about history at a different time. Now is that time. Today I will be going over the history of first-person games. Where the concept came from and how it developed over the years.

The earliest examples of first-person games go back to around the 1970's, when Steve Colley and Jim Bowery created two separate video game titles. Those two games were Steve Colley's "Maze War" and Jim Bowery's "Spasim". Comparing to modern games they were very simple concepts. In "Maze War" you were walking through a maze in a first-person perspective view and looking for giant eyeball monsters to shoot. The game "Spasim" was just a first-person flight simulator in space. Neither of these games were fully developed and sold. They were just simple projects to test in order to figure out what they could develop. 

Maze War                                     Spasim

Over the years many first-person games came out and were heavily popular in arcades. Light gun shooters being a good example, but they lacked any sort of interactivity that video games need. You were pretty much only on a set rail telling you where to go and then you could shoot any enemies on the screen. It wasn't until 1990's when first-person games got kicked into high gear. Texas developer Id Software created one of the first revolutionary first-person shooters that helped get the ball rolling. I'm talking about "Wolfenstein 3D" of course. For its time, the environments and character models were impressive, and it all ran smoother than any 3D shooter that had come before it. With the success of the game, it effectively popularized the run-and-gun style of shooting, making it easy for everybody to pick up and start playing from the get go. One year later "Doom" came into play, and it instantly became another cult classic. With it being better than "Wolfenstein 3D" by improving on every aspect that was previously made, and even adding things like fleshed out level design, a variety of weapons, and even multiplayer, "Doom" established the genre of first-person shooters for entire generations to come.

"Wolfenstein 3D"

"Doom"

Now I know I'm talking a lot about shooters right now, but they were the starting points of first-person perspective games. Later, the concept of first-person was used for other genres as well. With fantasy and adventure games like the elder scroll series, racing games like Forza, and in today's world indie development studios make a plentiful amount of games that tells a rich narrative story that are told in first-person. For now, I think this is a good stopping point. This blog post was mainly about shooters, later I would like to expand on this and show how first-person games can be something else besides shooters. This isn't to say I don't like shooters, but rather I think first-person games should be known for more than that. Until next time.