What are the “classic” single-player FPS games?

[Ack]

Counterstrike continues to be popular, but it did not popularize online play or create new modes like Capture the Flag, merely built on them. These were elements found in Quake mods such as the original Team Fortress, and while someone might try to call foul for pointing to a mod, it's best to understand that Counterstrike also was mod, and modding has been a major foundation of the FPS community since the days of Doom. But Unreal Tournament did prove mutiplayer FPS could be successful in the marketplace and not just as a mod.

Medal of Honor for PS1 would be something that I'd point to as another example of successful FPS design on a console, and the first did help kickstart the major wave of WWII FPS. It wasn't the first (hey, Wolfenstein 3D), but it was the opening of the floodgates for more MoH, CoD, Battlefield, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and numerous other lesser known titles.

I'm really waiting for Fast to get in here and tell all of you about how important Terminator is to FPS design.

[Jagosaurus]

Marathon does indeed deserve lots of praise. It did so much with so little so early on.

Agree. There's no Halo or ultimately Desity without Marathon.

Several Halo multiplayer maps were inspired by Marathon. Hang Em High (HCE) & Tombstone (H2) are a recreation of a Marathon level. A few others as well.

The Pillar of Autum has a Marathon logo on it! Pic proof

There's so many Marathon references throughout the Halo games, there's a wiki for it:
List of Marathon references in the Halo series

Edit/Add: Delta Force & DF2 weren't as big as CS, but coming out in 1998... it was the first military FPS I remember playing online, complete with clan tags, lobbies, and KB trash talk. Worth noting it dropped you into a HUGE arena style map from a parachute... 20 years before PUBG, Fortnite, etc. Maybe not the list, but noteworthy on several levels. Some of my friend's dads were even addicted with us.

[PretentiousHipster]

Any chance The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay could make it? In the middle of playing it now and even today it feels so modern.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Any chance The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay could make it? In the middle of playing it now and even today it feels so modern.

That is a stupendous game, but like Metroid Prime, Mirror’s Edge, Thief, etc., it’s probably more of a first-person adventure game than a FPS.

[Sload Soap]

What about Rainbow Six? I'm not too familiar with the series but it seemed to be the foremost of the tactical FPS sub-genre.

[Ziggy]

Medal of Honor for PS1 would be something that I'd point to as another example of successful FPS design on a console, and the first did help kickstart the major wave of WWII FPS. It wasn't the first (hey, Wolfenstein 3D), but it was the opening of the floodgates for more MoH, CoD, Battlefield, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and numerous other lesser known titles.

I wouldn't call Wolfenstein 3D a WWII game in the same vein as MoH, CoD, et cetera. Sure, it has Nazi soldiers which means it takes place during WWII, but MoH was the first FPS as far as I know to really be about the war itself (real locations and events).

[opa]

I've yet to play it but the Blake Stone series comes to mind.

[RCBH928]

Counterstrike continues to be popular, but it did not popularize online play or create new modes like Capture the Flag, merely built .

So you dont think CS defined anything? I am not arguing just genuinely wondering why its so popular. I think it might at least paved the way for COD because it used real weapons unlike laser guns and exploding bomb shots on something like UT. I guess the same could be said for 007 but that game was local MM and CS was online.

I didnt know WWII games were a genre in itself, that being said I played one pre-MW, it was amazingly well made the developers seemed enthusiastic about the topic. It even gave quotes from the war each time you die.

[RCBH928]

Marathon does indeed deserve lots of praise. It did so much with so little so early on.

Agree. There's no Halo or ultimately Desity without Marathon.

Several Halo multiplayer maps were inspired by Marathon. Hang Em High (HCE) & Tombstone (H2) are a recreation of a Marathon level. A few others as well.

The Pillar of Autum has a Marathon logo on it! Pic proof

There's so many Marathon references throughout the Halo games, there's a wiki for it:
List of Marathon references in the Halo series

Edit/Add: Delta Force & DF2 weren't as big as CS, but coming out in 1998... it was the first military FPS I remember playing online, complete with clan tags, lobbies, and KB trash talk. Worth noting it dropped you into a HUGE arena style map from a parachute... 20 years before PUBG, Fortnite, etc. Maybe not the list, but noteworthy on several levels. Some of my friend's dads were even addicted with us.

Well, this is not surprising since Halo was basically the sequel to Marathon. I believe it was at first meant for release on Mac. I didnt know Marathon was popular I believed it might be more on the obscure side.

[Ack]

Counterstrike continues to be popular, but it did not popularize online play or create new modes like Capture the Flag, merely built .

So you dont think CS defined anything? I am not arguing just genuinely wondering why its so popular. I think it might at least paved the way for COD because it used real weapons unlike laser guns and exploding bomb shots on something like UT. I guess the same could be said for 007 but that game was local MM and CS was online.

I didnt know WWII games were a genre in itself, that being said I played one pre-MW, it was amazingly well made the developers seemed enthusiastic about the topic. It even gave quotes from the war each time you die.

CS became popular because of 9/11, and it gave a lot of folks a way to vent and shoot terrorists...or, alternatively, shoot authority figures. It used "realistic" weapons, though that wasn't new to the genre; both Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six and Delta Force predate it, and even games like Half-Life feature a certain amount of weapons based loosely on real world weapon (the pistol is a Glock, the submachine gun an MP5, the shotgun a SPAS-12). Counterstrike even formally released in 2000, the same year as SWAT 3, but its biggest competitor at launch was actually another Half-Life mod: Team Fortress Classic.