In a post on Twitter, famed developer John Romero, one of the co-founders of id Software, wished many happy returns to Wolfenstein 3D, which originally came out on May 5, 1992. Romero himself even said that, once the shareware version was uploaded, the FPS genre was practically born. Since then, the franchise has continued, and while it’s struggling to make a true comeback like Doom did, the early entry’s place in video game history is cemented.

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John Romero is something of a rockstar game developer. His distinctive long hair is one of the things that sets him apart from other notable names in the industry. On top of that, along with John Carmack and others, he is responsible for some of the most beloved first-person shooters in the early days of PC gaming. While he left the company after the release of Quake in the mid 1990s, his name is still synonymous with the genre, despite his later projects failing to hit the standards that were set more than three decades ago.

As for Wolfenstein itself, it’s one of the longest running video game franchises out there, with a total of 13 games under its belt. There have been a number of attempts to bring it back into favor with the gaming community. And while there have been some successes, the classic installment is the one that most gamers tend to think of. It pretty much set things into motion by showing what was possible in PC gaming at the time, which then led to the hit that was the Doom series a year later.

With id Software about to start on its unannounced next project, there’s no telling what the company will come up with next. It’s possible there may be another Doom entry on the way, or even Quake, or maybe something entirely different. Some may say that none of this would be possible were it not for a first-person game about shooting Nazis, even if it wasn’t the first game in the series.

Wolfenstein 3D was launched in 1992 for DOS, becoming available on multiple platforms over the years.

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