Id Software releases Wolfenstein 3-D, and it launches a huge computer-game category.
Wolfenstein 3-D may not have been the very first first-person shooter, as the genre came to be known, but it was by far the most successful. Technically, the genre goes back to the ’70s, but no one really paid any attention to it. Even Id had released an earlier FPS, called Catacombs 3D, but again, it wasn’t nearly as good as Wolfenstein.
Through massive online dissemination of the game’s shareware version, Wolfenstein 3D (the hyphen was later dropped from the name) introduced millions to an immersive world in which the action seemed to be happening from the player’s perspective. “It was an incredible sensation, really unlike anything gamers had seen before,” said Jamie Madigan, who helps operate the GameSpy Network’s 3D Action website. “You could move smoothly in 360 degrees. You felt like you were there.” A player in the game assumed the role of an American commando battling Nazis and their supernatural servants. It was banned in Germany because of its use of Nazi symbols, like the swastika, and music, like the “Horst-Wessel-Lied.”
Developer Id Software leveraged Wolfenstein 3D’s success into a franchise of wildly successful first-person shooters, including the seminal Doom and Quake series. These, in turn, begat a slew of sequels, imitators, and adaptations, from Halo to Call of Duty.
Wired.com Game|Life blogger Earnest Cavalli summed it up: “The key to the whole Wolfenstein thing is that its success—which was massive—paved the way for… thousands of games that mimicked them…. Plus, who doesn’t like killing Nazis?”—NS