How Doom Built the Shooter Genre

First person shooters conquered gaming in five explosive years. Wolfenstein 3D proved the formula in 1992, then Doom arrived in 1993 and turned shooters into a cultural force, with shareware disks spreading through offices and dorm rooms.

Doom gave players deathmatch multiplayer and mod friendly files that trained a generation of designers. Quake pushed true 3D worlds and online play in 1996, and Half-Life married shooters with cinematic storytelling in 1998.

Counter-Strike began as a Half-Life mod, proving the Doom legacy of player creativity..