If not for id Software’s Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, computer RPGs might have ruled the first-person genre unopposed.

Most interactions played out through your character’s eyes, from exploring shadowy labyrinths to fighting goblins.

Underworld famously replaced the previous tile-based environments of games like Wizardry with a true 3D world to explore. This 1992 dungeon crawler is one of the most important 3D first-person games, inspiring foundational works like The Elder Scrolls and Deus Ex. Thanks to some key titles in the past 25 years, modern games like Dying Light and Fallout 4 have embraced the notion that using a machete or sledgehammer in first-person can be just as much (if not more) fun than shooting a gun.Īlmost 20 years after Maze War and Spasim pioneered first-person gaming, Blue Sky Productions (later known as Looking Glass Studios) released Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss. Compared to their louder, flashier cousins, melee weapons were often a neglected portion of the first-person video game armory. Unleashing the BFG on a group of Hell Knights never gets old, and sniping a headshot from across the map is always satisfying. It’s easy to see why guns get all the glory in video games.

Parkour game with knife