4

What was the first ever first person shooter to feature a secondary fire mode? I can think of a couple of 1997 examples (Outlaws, Blood) but I wouldn't be surprised if it had been done a year or two earlier. I think Duke Nukem 3D had a secondary fire for throwing additional pipe bombs, but I'm not sure that really qualifies.

Improve this question
4
  • I don't know if this falls under what you're asking, but Ultima Underworld (1992) had both melee and ranged weapons, some weapons allowed for different types of attacks depending on where the cursor was held.
    – pinckerman
    Sep 17, 2021 at 13:39
  • Thanks - that's an interesting bit of info to add, though I'm really thinking more about first person shooters as opposed to first person games in general.
    – Sam
    Sep 17, 2021 at 13:41
  • 2
    what do you define as secondary fire? a different button doing the secondary fire action? or a button to switch modes?
    – Rapitor
    Sep 17, 2021 at 13:51
  • I hadn't considered the latter actually. I'm thinking standard secondary / alternative fire e.g. Unreal Tournament, Half-Life etc. What did you have in mind though?
    – Sam
    Sep 17, 2021 at 13:55

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
4

My answer is Star Wars: Dark Forces in 1995.

The game is often referred as a Doom clone, but it also added gameplay features that were uncommon to the first-person shooter genre at the time of release.

This comes from its original manual:

enter image description here

For combat, the player may use fists, explosive land mines and thermal detonators, as well as blasters and other ranged weapons. All weapons, with the exception of the fist, have a secondary mode which makes it have a different effect than in primary mode.

Improve this answer
1
  • 1
    Thanks! I actually revisited this game just a couple of weeks back (but bounced off it pretty quick). Not sure if I remembered when I played it that there was a secondary fire.
    – Sam
    Sep 20, 2021 at 7:38

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .