Quake

Quake is a 1996 first-person shooter that helped redefine what players expected from PC action games. Its dark, industrial environments, grotesque enemies, powerful weapons, and fully three-dimensional world created an atmosphere that felt considerably more threatening than the brightly colored shooters that had come before it. Players move through sinister levels, collect increasingly destructive weapons, and fight creatures that clearly have no interest in discussing their differences peacefully. The game is fast, brutal, and wonderfully direct, with exploration and combat working together to create a constant sense of danger. Quake also became hugely important for multiplayer gaming, where friends could discover that their friendship had a surprisingly low tolerance for rocket launchers. It remains a landmark of the genre: dark, aggressive, technically impressive, and still very good at making corridors feel unsafe.