8 First-Person Video Games That Changed Gaming Forever

"The grandfather of 3D shooters" is an appropriate name for id Software's Wolfenstein 3D and there's no overstating the amount of influence this game had on its own narrative and the gaming industry.

Wolfenstein 3D took the Wolfenstein franchise in an entirely new direction by moving away from the stealth based top-down Castle Wolfenstein, and launching it into the action packed, fast paced, first person shooter that became the very best game about killing Nazis. As a result, the game became a critical and commercial success and completely standardized the technicality and quick motions that we can see in first person shooters today.

Until Wolfenstein 3D, the use of three dimensional graphics were mostly allocated for flight simulation games, so the idea of such a method being used in a game with a narrative, and mostly for the purposes of entertainment, was groundbreaking.

id Software didn't have to wait long to see the game become a success. Modestly hoping for $60,000 in the game's first release month in 1992, the team received $100,000 at the end of the month, further proving that Wolfenstein 3D was a game changer that would affect the first person genre forever more.