Perhaps the greatest strength of System Shock 2, is how it keeps doing just that. For all its merits, the sense of immediacy that came from playing an action-centric shooter just wasn’t there. So even though the original System Shock, which came out in 1994, was a sci-fi based role-playing game (RPG) played from a first-person perspective, it was as complex as Doom was simple. The sort of experience where serious study was a required entry point.
On the other hand a typical computer RPG in the ‘90s was seen as a game built on a diverse set of rules and systems. So to be able to do other things, like sneaking around in the shadows, or even just moving objects around, felt fresh. In the ‘90s, an FPS was seen primarily as an action game, one where the immediacy of the interaction heightened the immersion.
Avoiding conflict and confrontation, two key things antithetical to early shooters, would prove to be intoxicating to players everywhere. As graphics and game engines embraced fully-3D interactive environments, things like the stealth elements in Thief: The Dark Project (1998) felt truly ground-breaking.
By the late ‘90s elements from other genres would make their way into first-person shooters in a big way.
