[crtasm]

But not in first person, you-are-present-in-a-3D-world games? At least I'm not remembering any that felt like Half Life 1 did.

The difference between a cut scene and embodying a character while things happen around you isn't a minor thing for many of us.

[watwut]

The castle of wolfestein or doom are both significantly older and allow more freedom. System shock was a year later and allowed actual tactical choices and somewhat strategical o es.

Half life was part of pattern of moving towards extremely linear. It had better graphics than normal at the time. It had attempt at actual story. It was not move toward more agency to the player nor toward subtlety.

It had less choices than normal at the time, not even in terms of whether to hide on left or right, less options for tactical decisions, less of anything like that.

[crtasm]

You've jumped from talking about storytelling to player freedom, I'm certain I way had more agency in HL1 than Doom.