First person 3D viewpoint games sorted by release date

The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall is an old school first-person 3D RPG developed by Bethesda Softworks and released in 1996 for DOS. Daggerfall is the second chapter in popular The E...

Despite the baffling title (Book I – Chapter 2, yes, really), this is a charmingly earnest old-school RPG. Think “Ultima clone with extra oatmeal” and you're clos...

Imagine Doom got abducted by aliens, experimented on, and sent back to Earth with a case of amnesia. That’s Alien Cabal (1997). It’s a weird mix of FPS action and X-Fil...

Imagine Doom and Ultima Underworld had a low-budget child who was homeschooled in a basement filled with Mountain Dew cans. That’s Amulets & Armor. A mix of first-person ...

Battlespire is the weird, dark cousin of the Elder Scrolls family - the one who shows up late to the reunion with a sword and no pants. This first-person RPG strips out all the com...

Ah, the late '90s: when cars exploded for no reason and acronyms made everything cooler. Axelerator: Have a N.I.C.E. day! is a 1997 Windows racer that asks, “What if racing w...

Ah yes, Blood (1997)—the cheerful little game where you rise from the grave, wield a pitchfork, and quote evil-sounding movie lines while setting cultists on fire. It’s...

In Carmageddon, winning a race is just one of three options—the other two involve mowing down pedestrians or wrecking your opponents. It’s the game your parents definit...

Before Half-Life, there was Chasm: The Rift, a game where time-traveling mutants explode into limbs and every room looks like it was decorated by a doom-metal band. A first-person ...

In Colosso Revenge (1997, DOS), a giant angry head (presumably Colosso) is back, and it’s not in a forgiving mood. Expect side-scrolling mayhem with explosions, mutant monstr...

Colosso Secret (1997, DOS) is the moody prequel/sequel/parallel universe to Colosso Revenge, where secrets abound and subtlety is tossed out the window. Imagine Indiana Jones in a ...

In Escape from Dr. Colosso, you find yourself trapped in the lair of a mad scientist whose idea of interior design seems to be “danger first, safety never.” It’s ...

Released in 1997, Extreme Assault is a bold and ambitious hybrid that blends flight simulation with ground combat in a futuristic setting. You pilot advanced military hardware acro...

Independence War takes space combat seriously, almost stubbornly so. Instead of arcade-style dogfights, it presents a Newtonian flight model where momentum, inertia, and positionin...

Interstate '76 is a vehicular combat video game developed and published by Activision. It was released in 1997 for Microsoft Windows. The game is set in an alternate history 1976, ...

By 1997, Lands of Lore 2: Guardians of Destiny was already pushing the limits of DOS RPGs. It abandons the grid-based movement of its predecessor in favor of full 3D exploration, w...

Quake II is a first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and released in 1997. It is the sequel to the original Quake and was a significant milestone in the evolution...

Virtua Cop is a light-gun arcade game released by Sega in 1994, developed by the Sega AM2 division (also known for games like Virtua Fighter). It was a pioneering title in the genr...

Virtua Cop 2 is an abandoned light gun first-person rail shooter game designed by Yu Suzuki, developed and released by Sega in 1997 for Windows, and also published for Saturn, Drea...

In The Tyrants of Thaine, the graphics get a modest upgrade, but the soul remains pure: this is RPG comfort food. You’re once again cast as the world's most overworked advent...

In 1998, Descent: FreeSpace – The Great War decided the world needed fewer corridors and more cosmic dogfights. Instead of bumping into walls like a drunken astronaut, you&rs...

House of the Dead is an old horror-themed rail shooter game, developed and released by Sega in 1998. The whole gameplay can be summarized in a single sentence "a first-person ...