The rise and fall of the 3D Platformer

The platformer genre has been a staple of gaming since the eighties, with famous titles such as Super Mario Bros. becoming big enough to enter into mainstream pop culture, but it wasn’t until the mid-nineties, with the release of the 64-bit generation of consoles (PS One and Nintendo 64), that platfomers finally saw themselves transformed into the third dimension.

The 3D platformer was born, and it rose to prominence alongside titles such as Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot and Banjo Kazooie. The Golden Age of the 3D platformer was at hand, and it didn’t end for many years. It’s possible that the rise of these console-centric games led to the eventual decline of PC gaming, which was also experiencing its hay day back in the nineties, but that’s a different topic altogether.

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