Tropes Media Browse Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Tools
Cut List New Edits Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes Changelog
Tips
Creating New Redirects Cross Wicking Tips for Editing Text Formatting Rules Glossary Edit Reasons Handling Spoilers Word Cruft Administrivia FAQ
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us Advertise DMCA Notice Privacy Policy Report Bug
Go Ad-Free Changelog
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links
 

Follow TV Tropes

Following

First-Person Shooter
aka: FPS

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/First_Person_Shooter_5122.jpg
It's like you're right there, killin' Nat-zis.

"Far distant eyes look out through yours."
— Vortigaunt to Gordon Freeman, Half-Life 2

First-Person Shooter is a videogame subgenre of shooters and a really popular form of them. Its basic style of play is exactly what the name says: the players see things in first person, from the eyes of the character, and the action revolves around shooting within a three-dimensional environment. Its basic input commands control movement, aiming, shooting and environment/NPC interaction. Depending on the subgenre (see below), other controls may be required such as inventory display and item usage.

These games have origins in flight Simulation Games, dating as far back as Sega's Jet Rocket (1970), the Ur-Example of the genre, as well as Adventure Game and Role-Playing Game titles which were played in the first-person perspective, but weren't quite 3D because they were rendered in discrete steps, view of the surroundings, typically a dungeon, and which had sensible and consistent worlds, NPC interaction, relatively few artificial restrictions, plotlines, and puzzles. Several games of this type were full 3D with freedom of movement, notably Action RPG titles Star Cruiser (1988) and Ultima Underworld (1992).

As for the genre per se, it was first popularized by id Software, via the Trope Maker Wolfenstein 3-D (1992) and especially the Trope Codifier Doom (1993); indeed, before the genre's name finally crystallized, many following games were referred to as "Doom Clones"; these games boast full freedom of movement in pseudo-3D environments (unlike fellow first-person genres Light Gun Game and Rail Shooter), and Doom even had a hand in the introduction to game modding and multiplayer play to the then-nascent genre. Bungie would then release Marathon (1994) for Apple Macintosh adding the reload feature to the genre with a more dynamic world and a more intricate story that tried to avert both the Excuse Plot and A Space Marine Is You tropes.

At the beginning of 1996, 3D Realms's would then release Duke Nukem 3D, which was notable for its high level of interactivity and over-the-top Action Hero protagonist in a much more realistic world than seen in prior games. Players could interact with the world and engage in misc activities as the Duke, doing things such as playing pool, tipping strippers, or taking sips from water-fountains and even urinating in toilets to heal. Then that summer of the same year, the highly anticipated release of Id Software‘s next hit, Quake, would provide a major technical breakthrough in gaming. While a return to the more basic style of DOOM’s kill everything by that moves style of gameplay, Quake was the first FPS to introduce a fully immersive, much darker and grittier 3D world with polygonal models for characters and entities rather than the pseudo 3D environments seen in previous titles within the genre. Mouse look also became a standard control scheme with the release, which fully integrated mouse control for looking around and aiming, setting the standard for FPS controls in subsequent games. It also introduced real-time lighting and shadows, which enhanced the visual experience and contributed to a much more immersive environment then games prior.

Two years later, Epic Games's Unreal introduced the world to the now-ubiquitous Unreal Engine, with it’s enhanced capabilities pulling off the genre from its cramped corridors and tight spaces and into an open world. Unreal’s lush environments paving the way for more games to follow its footsteps. That same year, the ever growing library of shooters would be graced with Valve Software's Half-Life in the same year of 1998, further expanding the narrative possibilities well above and beyond what was thought possible of first person shooters, with Video Game Set Pieces replacing cutscenes, physics-based puzzles and friendly allied NPCs, and an intricate and complex story while also providing a more grounding feel in realism, it heavily influenced the way for other companies to follow suit within the genre.

Other games from the era such as SiN (1998) and Starsiege: Tribes, while not as groundbreaking as the previously mentioned games, also had contributions of their own such as vehicle driving sections, which eventually became commonplace. At the same time, while the genre was dominating the PC world, two games paved the way for the console market: Rare's GoldenEye (one of those games that defied The Problem with Licensed Games and showed how well an FPS could work on console) and especially Bungie's Halo: Combat Evolved, which finally found a way to make Competitive Multiplayer work in these machines and also left the door open for more excitement of the genre.

And all of this doesn't count the countless innovations on the multiplayer side. While Doom and Quake made significant contributions to it, it wasn't until the end of The '90s, with the release of three gamesnote , that the multiplayer FPS scene finally entered the nascent e-Sports scene: first, it was one of the fiercest videogame rivalries ever, with Epic Games's Unreal Tournament and Id Software's Quake III: Arena, both released in 1999 and with only two days of difference, two games that took their respective franchise's multiplayer side and distilled them to their most basic elements, giving birth to what was known as the "Arena Shooter" subgenre, as well as popularizing many tropes still present in today's multiplayer games. The third game, perhaps one of the most important of the period, is Counter-Strike, a Game Mod for Half-Life that puts two squads in realistic environments with diverse objectives in round-based matches. The mod featured localized damage; unprotected shots to the head usually put an end to any player's avatar and a buyout section where players could buy weapons, ammo and items. It paved the way for more realistic shooters, among them the critically acclaimed Call of Duty series.

Since then, companies have been trying to expand the genre to different degrees of success, even giving birth to subgenres as wildly different and mixing it with every other genre out there, but that maintains the genre's core elements; see the subgenres for more info on them.

Contrary to popular belief, it's not always about shooting the first person you see.

See also: Standard FPS Guns and Fackler Scale of FPS Realism. If a game never breaks from the first-person perspective of the player character, that's Unbroken First-Person Perspective. Some Third Person Shooters have similar gameplay.

Contrast Fixed Camera (in terms of perspective).

Subgenres spawned by the First-Person Shooter genre include

Examples of this genre:

 
Feedback

Video Example(s):

Close Range

Close Range is a universally beloved first person shooter where all you do is shoot people point-blank in the face.

Example of:
Fictional Video Game

''Hero's Duty''

Alternative Title(s): FPS, First Person Shooters

Previous

Index

Next

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Go Ad Free!
Crucial Browsing
Resources
Top

Close Range

Close Range is a universally beloved first person shooter where all you do is shoot people point-blank in the face.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (7 votes)

Example of:

Main / FictionalVideoGame

Media sources:

Report

Close Range

''Hero's Duty''