Wolfenstein 3D

Wolfenstein 3D is a first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and released in 1992, in which the player fights through a Nazi stronghold using a simulated first-person perspective built from a fast, simplified 3D rendering technique devised by programmer John Carmack. Distributed largely through the shareware model, in which the first portion of the game was given away freely to encourage players to purchase the remainder directly from id Software, the game reached a very large audience without conventional retail distribution. Wolfenstein 3D is widely credited with popularizing the first-person shooter genre and establishing the basic template, including the heads-up weapon and health display, that subsequent games in the genre continued to follow.