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, ...

Part RTS, part simulation, Carrier Command was ahead of its time in the same way that an aircraft carrier is ahead of a canoe. You control a futuristic warship, launch aircraft and...

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...

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...

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...

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-...

Step into the cockpit of the Apache Longbow, a 1995 combat flight simulator where you’ll experience the thrilling sensation of trying to figure out keyboard controls before g...

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. ...

Screamer (1995) was the moment when PC gamers realized DOS could, in fact, go fast. A blistering arcade racer inspired by Daytona USA, it delivered glossy graphics, roaring engines...

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...

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...

Often overlooked, Falcon AT from 1988 is an interesting hybrid that tries to bridge hardcore simulation with a slightly more accessible presentation. While it still respects the se...

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...

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...

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...

Aces of the Pacific (1992, DOS) takes to the skies over WWII’s Pacific Theater, where you can dogfight in legendary aircraft and prove your piloting prowess — or spin i...

In 1983, Battlezone asked: what if vector graphics could give you war-induced vertigo? You’re in a tank, in a wireframe world, fighting other tanks. That’s it. But it&r...

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...