It's not just the quality of the graphics.

Look at the ways you can look around.

Side to side.

Side to side and up and down.

The advent of 3D games that utilize all the dimensions didn't just require better graphics

cards.

It required a way to control movement and

vision quickly and easily.

When you look at the manual for Quake, one

of the first games to really utilize what's called “freelook,” you see that the developers

didn't really know how to do it either.

Some people still used the keyboard to look

up and down. And to move forward and backward? Arrow keys.

But on computers today, a game as popular as Fortnite— a game so mainstream that journalists

trying to seem hip add Fortnite to their videos—

even Fortnite defaults movement controls to

the same four keys. Not the arrow keys, but

WASD.

Why? The answer involves gaming's first superstar

- and it shows how a legend can actually

change the mechanics of play.

On Monday August 26th, 1996, the Wall Street

Journal featured an article about a presidential campaign and the first professional gamer,

Dennis “Thresh” Fong. “They ended up doing that little stencil

drawing of me.

I think it was me and I think it was Bill Clinton.

What got me into gaming initially were called MUDS — Multi-user dungeons —

think of it like World of Warcraft, but text-based World of Warcraft.

So like, if you wanted to walk in this game you would have to literally

write like "Walk north. Walk south.”

But Thresh didn't build his reputation on

text-based games.

It was playing the 3D game Quake -- released in 1996.

He never lost a tournament. But the game did present some new control challenges for all

players.

“When most people started playing games

back in those days, you just used a keyboard. And then over time, people realized the keyboard

had a fixed rate of turn.

So if you wanted to turn left, it would kinda go like that

- so you wouldn't be able to flick. I eventually switched to a mouse.”

A keyboard and mouse combo were necessary by the late 90s, so it was crucial to find

a way to use the mouse to look and the keyboard to move the player.

But the programmers didn't figure out the best way to do it. The players did.

“Some people used arrow keys, which were on the right hand side of the keyboard, and

the mouse, some people would only use a keyboard, some people would use a horizontal row, like

ASDF. There were literally probably hundreds of

different combinations that people used.

I found WASD on my left hand, and then using the

mouse on my right hand to be the most comfortable.

By default, the weapons, you have to hit the

numbers to switch weapons.”

The arrow keys were far from weapons switching

numbers and other important keys like control and shift.

To strafe- or step sideways - you often needed to hit a side directional key and shift at

the same time. That was easier with WASD than arrows.

But ESDF, or RDFG might have accomplished the same thing. It was Thresh's influence

that made WASD a standard. “People started copying and using WASD and

the mouse as their standard key configuration.

I think enough people started using it, it became

really popular, where the games just started making that the default key combination and configuration

for a lot of games like Quake.”

Programmer John Carmack built Thresh's

configuration into a special command in the sequel, Quake II.

Anybody could use the same controls as Thresh. That included sensitivity and speed, but also

W, A, S, and D. That layout spread from the leading game and

player in just a couple of years. It quickly showed up in the manuals as defaults

for an early multiplayer shooter, Starsiege Tribes, and the once-in-a-generation hit,

Half-Life,

which assumed players would use a keyboard, mouse, and WASD.

“I can't say that I, like, invented it — it was just what was comfortable for me,

and as the top player in my generation, people just wanted to use what I used. It's kinda

cool that it's the standard today.

If you wanna see more of Thresh, check out the eSports episode of Explained on Netflix.

There's a lot of League of Legends in the episode — if you play, you might recognize

the champion Thresh.

That champion was actually named for the Thresh that you just saw.