In the same year, System Shock – the precursor to BioShock and its own gaggle of copycats – also dropped, and it too took considerable inspiration from Id’s seminal corridor shooter. It would take another five years for deathmatches to fund their feet online in 1999, but Doom’s influence was already spreading its roots. Marathon, for example – which arrived a good year later in 1994 – made a far smoother and more user–friendly take on networked multiplayer (a concept which Bungie would take countless steps further with Halo: Combat Evolved seven years later). However, among all those forgettable instalments you could finally see developers taking the principles Doom set in place and taking them one step further. Of course, when you’ve created your own gaming subculture and established a flashpoint in the development scene, you’re always going to get copycats.
