Blake Stone was the best FPS until Doom released a week later

Well, I never played Blake Stone, but Bungie’s Pathways Into Darkness was quite an improvement over Wolf3D as well and also released prior to Doom. However, Pathways was a Mac only title, thus limiting it’s audience.

Pathways was a FPS with RPG elements. You could improve your weapon skills for example and your health would improve over time as well.

The game allowed you to talk with dead humans using a crystal. You’d type simple questions and these soldiers might give an answer in return.

The game also had a level that was always random. There’s some interesting puzzles, one involving an airlocked room that one has to escape. There are invisible monsters, but some item can reveal these monsters. Some monsters can only be killed while frozen.

Like in Blake Stone the player is free to travel up and down the structure.

The player also has to complete the mission objective in a set amount of time, which means a player has to be careful on how time is used. The player can rest to heal, but resting takes time and monsters might find and attack you while resting.

Apparently these days it's possible to play Pathways on Mac, Windows and Linux computers in the Aleph One engine: https://simplici7y.com/items/aleph-one-pathways-into-darknes...

More info on Pathways can be read here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pathways_into_Darkness