Modern shooters are action-packed, often leave little time to breathe, and are among the most popular gaming genres of our time. But that wasn’t always the case – it wasn’t until the release of Wolfenstein 3D in 1992 that shooters really took off. MeinMMO uses 5 examples to show how Wolfenstein 3D still influences the genre today.

The genre of first-person shooters was founded by Wolfenstein 3D. Back then, everything was still new, there was no template, innovation had to be sought at every corner – and Wolfenstein demonstrated so many things that can still be found in shooters today.

MeinMMO takes you back to 1992 for a little time travel to the early days of first-person shooters and shows you why Wolfenstein 3D was groundbreaking back then with 5 examples.

Heroes and weapons were defined

Wolfenstein didn’t redefine graphics back then – its spiritual predecessor “Catacomb 3D”, which was also created by the studio id Software, already managed to do that. Here you could let loose fireballs from the first-person perspective, for example, which came quite close to the first-person shooter feeling.

However, Wolfenstein 3D defined game characters and tools in a way that we still use today. It introduced specific “archetypes.” Archetypes that shooters today are still based on.

For example, the idea of an overpowered lone warrior was entirely new to the genre. A character who has the abilities to overthrow entire regimes, change the world, defeat evil. Even today, numerous shooters appear that are based on this type of narrative.

It was similar with weapons. Wolfenstein introduced certain types here as well, which are hardly missing from any shooter arsenal today. Among other things:

• The small pistol as a starter weapon
• A machine pistol with a higher rate of fire
• A rocket launcher with a lot of boom
• Slow firing single shot rifles

Incidentally, a year after Wolfenstein 3D, the first Doom came out and completed the weapon mechanics with important points: The shotgun got its debut and different ammo types for the weapons were introduced.

The developer studio of Doom: Also id Software with its iconic developers John Carmack and John Romero, who also already created the foundation for Wolfenstein 3D. Later they added Quake, also a legendary shooter:

How a programming error led to brilliant mechanics in one of the greatest games of all time

Level design still defining today

Wolfenstein 3D directly managed to define the 3D environment for shooters.

The mix of certain enemy types, which together with the level design provide varying difficulty in almost every room, is still standard in single-player campaigns in first-person shooters today.

In addition, there are hidden areas that remain hidden from the player if you just run through the levels in a straight line. Ammo, lives, armor, secret levels – if you don’t look around, you’ll miss a lot.

While you couldn’t look up and down in Wolfenstein 3D yet, the level designs of the time were still groundbreaking. What is almost considered “logical” and “self-evident” today was a huge leap in 3D level design for shooters back then.

World war shooter were born

Wolfenstein started the boom around World War II shooters that has greatly shaped the genre. True, it wasn’t the first game set in World War II. But a real story with themes around National Socialism in Germany was rare until the Wolfenstein release. At most, it was based on licensed games whose template dealt with such topics.

In the multiplayer sector, Call of Duty and Battlefield are the most prominent examples of modern shooters based on a World War II scenario.

Wolfenstein 3D never took itself very seriously. It wanted to be a little crazy and contributed to that as well with its cartoony graphics. Along the way, it created the basis for countless games that focus on the Second World War – such as the current Call of Duty: Vanguard.

However, this also led to the title getting into trouble with the authorities in Germany. For a long time, the game was banned in this country, albeit initially due to the scenes glorifying violence.

Again and again, however, the symbolism was also criticized and partly given as a reason for the ban. It came to the so-called “Wolfenstein ruling” in 1998, which ensured for many years that unconstitutional symbols in video games were banned in Germany (via grimme-game.de).

Only since 2019, the original Wolfenstein 3D is no longer banned in Germany.

Wolfenstein sets a fast pace

The 3D shooters before Wolfenstein 3D tended to follow a slow gameplay style, which gamers were also used to from RPGs at the time. Similar to the aforementioned spiritual predecessor “Catacomb 3D”.

So these were more gun-grabbing RPGs that retained much of the pace of their RPG predecessors.

Wolfenstein 3D turned the pace up. The developers pushed the gameplay more towards “real” firefighting. Hectic, lack of overview, chaos and panic can quickly break out – Wolfenstein became the first, real shooter, because it was no longer an RPG.

Not Dungeons and Dragons was the model, but rather the reality of a firefight.

This new frenzy in video games then also led to a whole new level of immersion. To this day, shooters rely on the feeling of merging with one’s character and forgetting everything else around it.

There are certainly other concepts to create high immersion. But Wolfenstein 3D took the concept to a new level at the time and showed shooters, as well as many other genres, how to captivate their players with constant action.

Mod support was suddenly a thing

Officially, only the spiritual successor Doom was modder-friendly. But even with Wolfenstein 3D, players at the time found it possible to add their own content to the engine, completely transforming the game.

Wolfenstein 3D was one of the pioneers of the modding trend and studio id Software knew exactly how to deal with this player passion – encourage it, not suppress it.

When it comes to modding specifically, you can’t say that major shooters are directly influenced by it even today.

This is also due to the popular but closed console systems of PlayStation or Xbox, on which modding for “normal” players is limited or not possible at all. The later focus on multiplayer of many big shooters also stood in the way of modding.

Indirectly, however, the influence is enormous.

Hobby developers began their careers with modding, professionalized and provided their own influence on the development of many games.

Even the big scene of indie games would certainly be somewhere else today if id Software had decided to protect its blockbuster games from modding back then instead of opening them up.

Although it wasn’t intentional, Wolfenstein 3D again created a legacy for itself that will have an impact on the gaming market for a long time to come.

Wolfenstein 3D introduced some mechanics that feel natural to us today. But someone had to come up with it first.

It shows the incredible creativity of the developers, who even back then understood exactly what makes a good shooter. Such surprising but weighty innovations are rarely found today and often rather in indie games.

What game defined your relationship with shooters or gaming in general? Was there a game in your gaming career that really showed you what games could do for you? Drop us a comment below.

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