DOOM

DOOM is a first-person shooter developed and published by id Software, released for MS-DOS on December 10, 1993. Designed by John Romero and Sandy Petersen on an engine programmed by John Carmack, it cast the player as a lone marine fighting through a demon-invaded base on the moons of Mars, and it changed video games about as thoroughly as any single release ever has. Its shareware distribution model put the first episode on millions of hard drives for free, and the full game turned id Software into the most influential studio of the decade.

DOOM refined everything Wolfenstein 3D had sketched a year earlier. Its engine handled varied light levels, stairs and lifts, non-perpendicular walls, and outdoor areas, giving its levels a sense of place no shooter had managed before. Romero's level design leaned on speed, secrets, and traps, and the game's arsenal, from the shotgun to the BFG 9000, became a genre template. It effectively invented online deathmatch, a term Romero coined, and its open WAD file format created one of the first great modding communities, keeping the game in active development by its players for more than three decades.

The game was followed by DOOM II: Hell on Earth in 1994, and its engine powered a generation of licensed shooters. Ports have reached practically every platform ever sold, from the Super Nintendo and Sega 32X of its own era to modern consoles, and running DOOM on unlikely hardware remains a standing internet tradition. Frequently cited as one of the most important video games ever made, DOOM is the foundation of the first-person shooter and the cornerstone of id Software's legacy.