The best first person 3D games

Released in 1996 for DOS, this beast is not a new game so much as an ultra-hard remix of Doom II, crafted by level designers who apparently thought “too much ammo” was ...

If Doom was the apocalypse, Doom II: Hell on Earth was the encore nobody asked for but everyone wanted. Released in 1994, it doubled down on everything: bigger maps, nastier monste...

Race Drivin' is a 1990 arcade racing game developed and published by Atari Games.  It's the sequel to Hard Drivin' (1989) and retains the same stunt-based driving mechanics wh...

Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon, also released in 1991, takes everything that worked in the original and expands it thoughtfully. The dungeon design is more varied, ...

Chuck Yeager's Air Combat is a combat flight simulation video game released in 1991 by Electronic Arts. The game is named after and endorsed by the real-life aviation legend, Chuck...

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...

By the time Lords of Midnight: The Citadel arrived in 1995, it carried the weight of a classic on its shoulders. Rather than reinventing the original, it refines and reinterprets i...

Welcome to the skies of World War II, where dogfights are fast, fuel is low, and you probably forgot to raise your landing gear. Battlehawks 1942 (1988) is a flight sim with just e...

Quake is a first-person shooter (FPS) video game developed by id Software and released in 1996. It is the successor to id Software's immensely popular "Doom" series and is known fo...

Doom was released by id Software in 1993. It is widely regarded as one of the most influential and groundbreaking video games of all time, particularly within the first-person shoo...

In 1987, Driller arrived as a revolutionary 3D game that looked light-years ahead of its time. Using the Freescape engine, it let players explore a fully 3D world—on a DOS ma...

Space Hulk is an abandoned real-time tactical strategy game set in the Warhammer  40000 universe, developed and released by Electronic Arts in 1993 for DOS and Amiga systems. ...

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...

Heretic is what happens when someone looks at fantasy and thinks it needs more fireballs and a lot more attitude. Built on familiar shooter foundations, it swaps sci-fi corridors f...

Dungeon Hack is a dungeon-crawling role-playing game (RPG) developed by DreamForge Intertainment and published by Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI). It was released in 1993 for MS-...

B-17 Flying Fortress (1992) is the kind of game where you don't just fly the plane—you are the plane. One moment you're the pilot, the next you're the nose gunner swatting Lu...

The Need for Speed is a first-person perspective racing game developed and published by Electronic Arts in 1995 for DOS. The game immerses players in high-speed races with the prim...

Pools of Darkness is a computer role-playing game (CRPG) developed and published by Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI). It is the fourth entry in the "Gold Box" series of Dungeons &...

F-15 Strike Eagle III is a combat flight simulation video game released in 1992. It was developed by MicroProse and is the third installment in the F-15 Strike Eagle series. T...

F-22 Lightning II brings the flight sim genre into the late ’90s with faster action, flashier visuals, and a jet that feels like it came straight out of a sci-fi movie. The F...

For flight simulation enthusiasts, EF 2000 was nothing short of a revelation. It offers a deep, realistic portrayal of modern air combat, complete with complex avionics and demandi...

Heroes of the 357th puts you in the cockpit with a seriousness that borders on intimidating, but in a good way. It leans heavily into simulation, asking you to think like a pilot r...

Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe is a combat flight simulation game developed and published by Lucasfilm Games (later known as LucasArts) in 1991. It was designed for MS-DOS systems...

Released in 1991, Eye of the Beholder brought classic dungeon crawling into the digital age with style and confidence. Set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe, it delivers grid-...

If you ever wanted to fly a helicopter that looks like it belongs in a Michael Bay fever dream, Comanche: Maximum Overkill (1992, DOS) is for you. This voxel-powered beast puts you...

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to sit in a metal tube underwater while depth charges rain from above, Das Boot: German U-Boat Simulation has you covered. Releas...