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With the ongoing pandemic, many film, music and video game studios have had to postpone or cancel future projects, leading to less new entertainment. So each month, Viewfinder is asking a professor to go old school and share a throwback music album, film or game they think students should check out. This month, Professor of History Thomas Lecaque introduces us to Wolfenstein 3D.

Wolfenstein 3D is a video game released on May 5, 1992, and also widely known as the “Grandfather of first-person shooters.” It is the first single-player first-person shooter that was developed by id Software and published by Apogee Software and FormGen. This game can be played by anyone, anywhere, with a computer and a keyboard. It is rated M for mature, however.

This game was distributed as shareware, where the first episode (out of three) was available for free to drive interest in the game. Wolfenstein 3D averaged around $200,000 monthly for the first year and a half. This game can run on any computer and just requires a download. Streaming is available for Windows PC through Steam, through the PSN Store for PS3, or through the Microsoft Store for Xbox 360 and Xbox One.

The start of the game puts the player in the moment of escaping a Nazi prison called Castle Wolfenstein; fighting Nazi soldiers, dogs and other enemies with a knife or gun. The player progresses by going through doors, searching rooms and finding elevators. 

Lecaque said Wolfenstein 3D was the first video game he ever played at the age of 7, while bonding with his father. 

He said he remembers a clear moment of sitting in his basement and thinking, “I get to be the character and live out this fantasy world.”

Wolfenstein 3D was groundbreaking when it was first released in 1992, popularizing a whole new genre of video games, which is a staple of gaming today. Despite being rated M now, the game was released at a time where the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) wasn’t even created yet.

“You get to feel good about it; you kill the Nazi bad guys,” Lecaque said.

Wolfenstein 3D has a legacy of being the first FPS game. The developers, id Software, managed to outdo themselves with future releases, the most notable of which being Doom, which featured a larger weapon arsenal and a more diverse selection of enemies (which were demons and zombies instead of Nazis). Wolfenstein as a series still exists today. The latest game, Wolfenstein Youngblood, was released in 2019. But while severely dated by today’s standards, Wolfenstein 3D’s legacy is impossible to ignore. The game itself is simple and fairly easy to learn for anyone that wants a simpler game to play.