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First-Person Shooter
(aka: FPS)

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First-Person Shooter
It's like you're right there, killin' Nat-zis.

"Far distant eyes look out through yours."
Vortigaunt to Gordon Freeman, Half-Life 2

First-Person Shooter is a videogame subgenre of shooters and a really popular form of them. Its basic style of play is exactly what the name says: the players see things in first person, from the eyes of the character, and the action revolves around shooting within a three-dimensional environment. Its basic input commands control movement, aiming, shooting and environment/NPC interaction. Depending on the subgenre (see below), other controls may be required such as inventory display and item usage.

These games have origins in flight Simulation Games, dating as far back as Sega's Jet Rocket (1970), the Ur-Example of the genre, as well as Adventure Game and Role-Playing Game titles which were played in the first-person perspective, but weren't quite 3D because they were rendered in discrete steps, view of the surroundings, typically a dungeon, and which had sensible and consistent worlds, NPC interaction, relatively few artificial restrictions, plotlines, and puzzles. Several games of this type were full 3D with freedom of movement, notably Action RPG titles Star Cruiser (1988) and Ultima Underworld (1992).

As for the genre per se, it was first popularized by id Software, via the Trope Maker Wolfenstein 3-D (1992) and especially the Trope Codifier Doom (1993); indeed, before the genre's name finally crystallized, many following games were referred to as "Doom Clones"; these games boast full freedom of movement in pseudo-3D environments (unlike fellow first-person genres Light Gun Game and Rail Shooter), and Doom even had a hand in the introduction to game modding and multiplayer play to the then-nascent genre. Bungie would then release Marathon (1994) for Apple Macintosh adding the reload feature to the genre with a more dynamic world and a more intricate story that tried to avert both the Excuse Plot and A Space Marine Is You tropes.

At the beginning of 1996, 3D Realms's would then release Duke Nukem 3D, which was notable for its high level of interactivity and over-the-top Action Hero protagonist in a much more realistic world than seen in prior games. Players could interact with the world and engage in misc activities as the Duke, doing things such as playing pool, tipping strippers, or taking sips from water-fountains and even urinating in toilets to heal. Then that summer of the same year, the highly anticipated release of Id Software‘s next hit, Quake I, would provide a major technical breakthrough in gaming. While a return to the more basic style of Doom's kill everything by that moves type of gameplay, Quake was the first FPS to introduce a fully immersive, much darker and grittier truly 3D world with polygonal models for characters and entities rather than the pseudo 3D environments seen in previous titles within the genre. Mouse look also became a standard control scheme with the release, which fully integrated mouse control for looking around and aiming, setting the standard for FPS controls in subsequent games. It also introduced real-time lighting and shadows, which enhanced the visual experience and contributed to a much more captivating environment then games prior.

1998 was a key year for the genre: Epic Games's Unreal I introduced the world to the now-ubiquitous Unreal Engine, with it’s enhanced capabilities pulling off the genre from its cramped corridors and tight spaces and into an open world. Unreal's lush environments paved the way for more games to follow its footsteps. Other games from the era such as SiN and Starsiege: Tribes, while not as groundbreaking as the previously mentioned games, also had contributions of their own such as vehicle driving sections, which eventually became commonplace. Yet, 1998 would have been just another year, if not for the release of the biggest game of that year, and a regular contender for Best FPS/videogame of all time: Valve Software's Half-Life 1, which further expanded the narrative possibilities well above and beyond what was thought possible of first person shooters, with Video Game Set Pieces replacing cutscenes, physics-based puzzles and friendly allied NPCs, and an intricate and complex story while also providing a more grounding feel in realism. The success of the game heavily influenced the way for other companies to follow suit.

At the same time, while the genre was dominating the PC world, Rare was paving the way for shooters on the console market: with two titles for the Nintendo 64: Turok and GoldenEye (the latter being one of those games that defied The Problem with Licensed Games), both of which showed how well an FPS could work on console. Some members from Rare would then leave the company to form Free Radical Design and create the TimeSplitters trilogy of console shooters in the 2000s, where friends would gather around the TV and play with hundreds of colorful characters in unique cooperative, competitive and party game modes for hours together.

Yet the most impactful of all console shooters was most likely the Xbox exclusive title by Bungie called Halo: Combat Evolved. It was a game which finally found a way to make Competitive Multiplayer work in these platforms and leave the door open for even more online innovation within the genre, also gaining even more attention from the casual crowd who were not willing to dish out such money for a gaming computer. The sequel, Halo 2, released in 2004, finally launched these titles into the atmosphere of true online multiplayer gaming and perhaps truly popularized the desire to face other players across the internet from the comfort of one’s bed or sofa.

And all of this progress doesn't even count the countless innovations already made on the multiplayer side of PC gaming. “Doom” and “Quake” were extremely significant contributions to it, the former introducing the world to the term “Deathmatch”, with up to four players via LAN play, and the latter being one of the first games to fully embrace true online multiplayer gaming, supporting TCP/IP networking, which allowed players to connect and play over the internet. This was a significant increase compared to the 4-player limit in "Doom" and showcased the advancements in network technology and game design that id Software had implemented with "Quake."

However, it wasn't until the end of The '90s, with the release of three online centric gamesnote , that the multiplayer FPS scene finally entered the nascent e-Sports scene: first, it was one of the fiercest videogame rivalries ever, with Epic Games's Unreal Tournament and Id Software's Quake III Arena, both released in 1999 and with only two days of difference, two games that took their respective franchise's multiplayer side and distilled them to their most basic elements, giving birth to what was known as the "Arena Shooter" subgenre, as well as popularizing many tropes still present in today's multiplayer games.

The third multiplayer shooter is titled Counter-Strike, and it actually started out as just a mere Game Mod for Half-Life that put two opposing squads in realistic environments with diverse objectives in round-based matches. The mod featured localized damage; unprotected shots to the head usually put an end to any player's avatar. It also had a buyout section where players could buy weapons, ammo and items, completely ditching the old "weapons and items scattered across the arena" system. It was incredibly successful and paved the way for more realistic shooters, among them the critically acclaimed Call of Duty series. Starting as a WWII shooter on PC, it would later become one of the most known franchises in history, eventually entering the realm of console gaming as well. With the release of Infinity Ward’s 2007 critical hit Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, console gamers who previously never got the chance to experience the realism of Counter Strike could finally get a taste of war on their couch, and it’s release would also give birth to the popular Modern Warfare Trilogy. The following year, developer’s at Treyarch would return to series to it’s WWII roots, except now bleaker and more graphic then ever, with Call of Duty: World at War, which would begin its own infamous ‘Black Ops’ universe. The franchise remains another staple within the first-person shooter genre and the gaming industry in general.

Since then, companies have been trying to expand the genre to different degrees of success, even giving birth to subgenres as wildly different and mixing it with every other genre out there, but that maintains the genre's core elements; see the subgenres for more info on them.

Contrary to popular belief, it's not always about shooting the first person you see.

See also: Standard FPS Guns and Fackler Scale of FPS Realism. If a game never breaks from the first-person perspective of the player character, that's Unbroken First-Person Perspective. Some Third Person Shooters have similar gameplay.

Contrast Fixed Camera (in terms of perspective).


Subgenres spawned by the First-Person Shooter genre include


Examples of this genre:

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Alternative Title(s): FPS, First Person Shooters

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Doom (1993)

Doom is a 1993 game developed by id Software for PCs. Often regarded as the father of the first-person shooter genre, the game sees players take control of an unnamed space marine as he explores the surface of Mars and the depths of Hell while slaughtering any and all demons in his path. The game since been ported to practically every device known to man, from Game Boy Advances, to calculators, to even pregnancy tests. To this day, Doom is still considered one of the greatest first-person shooters of all time thanks to its intricate level design, fast-paced gameplay, killer soundtrack, and revolutionary graphics.

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