THE HISTORY OF DOOM – THE ORIGINAL FPS GAME

Let us take a look at how the first First Person Shooter (FPS) game, DOOM, made its mark on gaming history.

John Romero, a rather controversial character, to say the least, fell in love with the idea of making video games. What's more, violent video games around this time were seen as a crime against children's minds, the most violent game at the time being Mortal Combat which featured characters heads being ripped off, body impalement and other brutal scenes... but all you beautiful nerds out there will know this was only in 8-bit and blood spatter was just a couple of red squares on your screen.

Nevertheless, John Romero wanted to take things up a notch. His game developer friends and himself got to work on a concept that would change gameplay experience forever. So they got to work and created a press release explaining the overall concept of the game...however, there was no game at all just yet!

John Romero explained that his tiny team under the name ID Software got cracking with the new game, DOOM, which apparently was named by Tom Cruise. The ID team were not your usual bunch of creatives, they recall developing the new game whilst listing to heavy metal and working in a chaotic working environment.

What the team came up with was a 3D 16-bit game that had a first-person point of view, multiple weapons, enemies and challenges. Furthermore, DOOM was the first game to offer players to play against each other online, and John Romero coined the term "Deathmatch" where players could play against each other until one character is left standing.

John Romero released DOOM in three different versions, which proved to be the brands greatest success. The first version was completely free and was downloadable off an online server. The second was the same game but you had to pay for it and users had the ability to mod the game in any shape or form they saw fit. Lastly, the 3rd option was an expansion pack for DOOM that offered a variety of additional features.

Take a look at the video below by YouTube channel, MojoPlays, on the History of DOOM - The Franchise That Defined the First Person Shooter.