a visual history of fps games how they started and evolved along the way
and no matter how much some people would like to believe
wolfenstein 3D didnt just pop out fully formed in 1992

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/02/headshot-a-visual-history-of-first-person-shooters/

sadly as the graphics gotten better
the gameplay has atrophied the last decade or so to run in a corridoor from scripted event to cut scene to scripted event

if you need me i wil be playing quake 2

That is a smashing article.

Very good article. I should add Ars Technica to my list.

Nice, there is one or two I didn't know about!

for those interested bungie has released the marathon trilogy as freeware
you can find them here http://trilogyrelease.bungie.org/

these are mac os classics files
you need forge and anvil and aleph one http://trilogyrelease.bungie.org/faq.html

http://www.pcworld.com/article/239361/how_to_play_the_marathon_series_on_your_windows_7_pc.html

and https://alephone.lhowon.org/

I don't play shooters all that much, so I don't speak from broad experience here, but...

Wolfenstein the New Order is not like you describe. It has stealth elements, multipath levels, and the cut scenes are more between episodes. So you play a level and then get a scene, and then another level and then another scene. Doesn't bother me. it's not scripted moments interupting my gameplay.

And Dishonored didn't seem like you describe either. Or does that count as a shooter?

Or does your criticism only apply to Call of Duty franchise games?

mostly to shooters in general

the two you describe are the exception to the rule

and i dont really consider dishonored an fps just because it has a first person view and shooty weapons
by that reckoning mirrors edge is an fps too

Gamespot also did a video on history of fps games

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVlkg1xg6_s

Shadow of Mordor was a decent game. I'd dare say it was good, if a little grindy at times.

I read this article earlier and I really enjoyed it. I only wish there was more to read; I'd love to see this extended into a full book much like the video game history books I've enjoyed from StoryBundle. Yeah, and it's also great to see Pathways into Darkness and Marathon get their due, especially since they pioneered so many of the modern FPS tropes we take for granted today. I remember a lot of people on the Halo forums -- who'd never even heard of Marathon or Myth: TFL -- early on talking about how Bungie was, "Yeah, those guys who made that game before, Myst." Geez.

Interesting article. What makes me wonder is that they didn`t mention Dungeon Master. Sure, it was no shooter, but it was a milestone in the first person genre.

well maybe it would have just been too long
its a pretty long article as it is ( though not as long as their os X reviews )

Thks for sharing the link, it was a pretty interesting article to read up abt the history of how the FPS genre came abt & evolved to it's present day look. We hv indeed come a long way since the days of the 1st Wolfenstein & Doom games. While the graphics certainly hv improved by leaps & bounds, i think some past games were still better gameplay wise. I hope we'll be able see even more diverse types of FPS in the future, here's to the FPS genre! :)

We kind of already do - we're bombarded with FPS games from big titles trough [url=http://www.battlefield.com/]large-scale, combined arms MP FPS all the way to small, team-based shooters. We get FPS rogue-lites, old-school, action-packed shooters, and games which positively move the genre forward. We get military simulators and roller coaster-ish "modern military shooters". I don't think the selection has ever been as insane as it is right now. We just don't get any maze-like FPS games like Doom or Duke Nukem 3D, but there's still plenty of those to play which came out years before.