Descent is a first-person shooter (FPS) game developed by Parallax Software and released by Interplay Productions in 1995 for MS-DOS, and later for Macintosh, PlayStation, and RISC OS.

The player is cast as a mercenary hired to eliminate the threat of a mysterious extraterrestrial computer virus infecting off-world mining robots.

Descent is a first-person shooter and shoot 'em up[3] game wherein the player pilots a spaceship through labyrinthine mines while fighting virus-infected robots, using the ship's armaments.

[5][6] As a secondary objective, the player can also choose to rescue PTMC (Post Terran Mining Corporation) workers who were taken hostage by the infected robots.

The game demands that players keep their sense of orientation in a fully 3D environment with a flight model featuring six degrees of freedom in zero-gravity.

[21] The PTMC developed numerous mines in the Solar System's planets and moons for a variety of uses, including resource extraction, science research, and military installations.

His employer also mentions that PTMC has lost contact with their deep-space installations outside the Solar System, setting the stage for the sequel.

[29] Deciding that their idea was too good for anyone else to develop it, Kulas and Toschlog left Looking Glass in June 1993 to form Parallax Software.

The project was originally titled Miner, but Parallax presented their prototype in written letters to 50 game companies as Inferno.

Parallax hired three more people to finish the project: level designers Mark Dinse and Jasen Whiteside and story writer and 3D modeler Josh White.

[a] To design the levels, Descent's graphics engine uses portal rendering, which uses collections of cubes to form rooms and tunnels.

Near their project's completion, Parallax faced yet another obstacle: they needed to make sure that their highly detailed and complex game could run smoothly on computers.

[37] A PlayStation port was released in Japan on January 26, 1996, in the United States on March 12, 1996, and in Europe that same month, with SoftBank being the Japanese version's developer.

[56] The port was delayed before it was eventually cancelled in 1998 in favor of Descent 3, with Parallax's Jim Boone explaining that it never reached the design phase in development.

[60] The deadline was missed, and the last time the developer publicly provided an update on its progress was in a response to a news inquiry in 2011, assuring that the project was still underway,[61] before it was ultimately quietly abandoned.

[69] Customer reception of the shareware version of Descent was very positive, with players praising the fully 3D environment and commentators noting perceived "loyalty and goodwill" that both Parallax and Interplay fostered.

[26] Mark Burgess of PC Zone called it one of the best shoot 'em up games and wrote that it justified shareware, giving it a perfect five floppy disks out of five.

[78] The computer versions of Descent received near-universal acclaim, with reviewers widely comparing it to Doom and noting its unique use of free motion, as well as a fully three-dimensional environment.

[d] Michael Ryan of PC Magazine enthusiastically attributed the attention the game received to its unique gameplay and found no similar alternatives.

[79] Charlie Brooker of PC Zone noted the game's intense environment and similarities to Doom and praised its multiplayer and ability to taunt opposing players, with only minor criticism directed toward its slight repetitiveness.

[16] Common complaints tended to focus on Descent's ability to disorient players, as well as potentially induce motion sickness.

[e] Next Generation particularly praised the graphics and animation, intelligent enemies, and wide array of power-ups, all of which it said would "keep most gamers glued to the screen for hours".

[2] Edge remarked the ability to record demos that capture the player's experiences, but also criticized the slightly repetitive gameplay and noted the robots' basic algorithm of being only a little more than "fire and evade", despite their intelligence.

Bob LeVitus of MacUser called it "one of the best Mac games ever released", attributing its popularity to its online multiplayer mode.

[20] Jeremy Parish of USgamer ran a retrospective feature on the game, saying Descent combined the genre of space flight simulator with a first-person shooter experience.

[64] Engadget's David Lumb retrospectively likened the game's graphical innovations to the computer-generated imagery used in the 1995 film Toy Story.

[6][93] The four reviewers of Electronic Gaming Monthly called it an outstanding conversion due to its extremely fast rendering speed and improved lighting effects.

[93] Major Mike of GamePro also judged it "an excellent conversion" due to its complex but generally easy to master controls, though he did complain of occasional severe slowdown.

"[95] K. Lee of GameFan praised the sound and music and noted the game's difficulty due to the ubiquitous doors on walls, ceilings, and floors.

On Kickstarter in March 2015, Descendent Studios announced a prequel to the original game, partnering with Interplay and using their intellectual property rights to develop it.