Nowadays, first-person shooters have been fine-tuned and optimized to near-perfection, and each year produces a couple of titles that can stand alongside the greats. However, the history of FPS games goes beyond graphical and mechanical upgrades, and the timeline is punctuated by seismic releases that reshape the industry's foundation. These games' impact sent ripples that can still be felt today and will likely continue to be felt for all time.

I'm not talking just about titles that were commercial juggernauts or critical darlings; no, these shooters caused paradigm shifts that created before-and-after moments in the FPS genre. They wrote the blueprint that would become universal plumbing for every FPS game, and we will likely never see a full-scale remodeling ever again.

Although not technically the original first-person shooter, Wolfenstein 3D propelled the concept into the cultural zeitgeist, setting the stage for DOOM to unleash an explosion that would redirect the gaming industry's future. To really understand its impact, you have to teleport yourself back to December 1993, when id Software released DOOM's first episode, "Knee-Deep in the Dead," as shareware, causing it to spread like wildfire across bulletin boards, office networks, and floppy disks.

By 1995, more office PCs had DOOM than Windows 95 , prompting Bill Gates to release an infamous promotional video to let everybody know that Microsoft's platform runs games, too. New IT policies were needed to prevent DOOM from running during the day, as people were running multiplayer sessions that clogged the LAN infrastructure.

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