First-person shooter engine

This page give a overview of FPS grapics engines and the games that used them. Engines that included games that have first person view and a third person view are included. Games that only have a first person view are inlcuded, but games that only have a third person view are not considered.

Early FPS graphics engines

File:Doom-imp.jpg

An Imp from DOOM - a pixelated sprite

1992-1996 Planar worlds (rectangular grid in Wolfenstein 3D, sector-based plane levels in Doom) with sprite objects. Hardware requirements: software (CPU) rendering.

• Wolfenstein 3D (1992)
• DOOM (1993) (DOOM engine), DOOM II (1994)
• Duke Nukem 3D (1996) (Build engine)

The rise of 3D

File:Quake2-gunner.jpg

Gunner from Quake II - a texture skewed over a 3D model

1996-1999. For the first time, game engines recreated true 3D worlds with arbitrary level geometry. Instead of sprites the engines used simply textured (single-pass texturing, no lighting details) polygon objects. Hardware requirements: first 3D-accelerators (Voodoo, Voodoo 2).

• Quake (1996)
• Quake II (1997)
• Unreal (1998) (Unreal engine)
• Half-Life (1998) (modified Quake engine)
• Quake 3: Arena (1999)

New capabilites, increasing detail

File:Unreal2-monster.jpg

A Skaarj warrior from Unreal 2 - texture filtered and textured mapped polygons in plain light

2000-2003. New graphics hardware provided new capabilites, allowing new engines to add various new effects, such as particle effects, fog, coloured lightning, as well as increase texture and polygon detail. Many games featured large outdoor environments, vehicles, rag-doll physics. Hardware requirements: GeForce 2-4 (or similar).

• Return to Castle Wolfenstein (2001), Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (2004)
• No One Lives Forever (2000) No One Live Forever 2(Lithtech engine)
• Grand Theft Auto 3(2001)
• Max Payne (2001), Max Payne 2 (2003)
• Battlefield 1942 (2002) (Refractor 2 engine)
• Unreal 2 (2002), Unreal Tournament 2004 (2004)
• Mafia (2003)

The approach to photorealism

File:Doom3-Hell-Knight.jpg

A Hell Knight from DOOM 3 - self-shadowing and bump mapping

2004-2006 (est.). Developers of this era of 3D engines often tout their increasingly photorealistic quality. The maps usually feature seemlessly integrated indoor-outdoor environments. Pixel shader-based textures, bumpmapping, vertex shaders used for animations, lighting and shadowing. Hardware requirements: GeForce FX (or other cards with shader support).

• Far Cry (2004) (CryENGINE)
• Battlefield Vietnam (2004)
• Painkiller(2004)
• DOOM 3 (2004)
• Half-Life 2 (2004) (Source engine)
• Halo 2 (2004)
• Battlefield 2 (Q1 2005*)
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl (Q1 2005*) (X-Ray engine)
• F.E.A.R. (2005*)
• Opertaion Flashpoint 2(2006*)

Titles marked with * are not released yet. Release dates are estimates.

The future

File:Unreal3engine-berserker.jpg

Berserker from Unreal 3 technology demo - a detailed model, bump-mapping, and real-time soft self-shadowing

2007+ (est.). According to Epic Games, games based on Unreal 3 engine can be expected around 2006. These games are likely to include some of the technology showcased in existing technology demos (including those from graphics card manufacturers), including realistic shader-based materials with predefined physics, environments with procedural and vertex shader-based objects (vegetation, debris, human made objects such as books or tools) universally destructible and interactive levels, procedural animation, cinematographic effects (depth of field, motion blur, etc.), realistic lighting and shadowing.

John Carmack, the lead programmer for id Software, has repeatedly stated his opinion that it will likely be possible by 2010 to do a real-time video-realistic rendering of a static real-world-like environment. According to development plans announced by id Software, their second next 3D engine may attain such capabilities.