It’s difficult to find appropriate enough words to describe the kind of impact Doom had when it dropped on the gaming world as shareware in 1993, both in a larger sense, but also at an individual level.
Its impact was like that of an atomic bomb being detonated. It sent shock waves through the industry.
Most of us hadn’t seen anything like this before.
Sure, there had been first-person efforts in the past, but most of those games suffered from significant frame rate issues that made proper interaction with the environment borderline impossible. Even a game like Wolfenstein-3D, the direct predecessor to Doom, struggled to get traction with a wider audience, probably at least in part due to its technical limitations.
Doom provided a first-person experience wherein the player felt as though they were truly inserted into a real-time environment, and more pressingly for the gamer, an environment filled with demons bent on killing you.
This had simply not been done.
It’s no wonder why this game was a smash hit and inspired an entire genre of video gaming and direct clones that kept the spirit of the vision alive and truly well … all the way into the present and no doubt the future as well.
First-person shooters are here to stay. And if you want to know why, look no further than Doom.
Doom
Genre: First-person shooter
Released: 1993
Platform: PC
PC Gamer’s Most Influential Game of All Time