This article first appeared as part of a supplement included with our blowout 30th anniversary issue of PC Gamer magazine, issue 390, in November 2023. Pick it up for even more great content, including a look back at the magazine's own storied history over the last three decades.
If you haven't heard, PC Gamer turns 30 this month. But it wouldn't be right to celebrate our own anniversary without celebrating 30 years of PC gaming itself too. There's too much history to truly cover it all, so we've decided to focus in on some of the most pivotal moments—the games and software that defined each era, the hardware that let us run it, and the events and moments that made us look at them in new ways. Let's kick it off with the first decade, 1993-2003, and the game that started it all for so many of us...
