Deathmatch, or DM, is a type of gameplay mode found in first-person-shooter games. The objective of a deathmatch is to frag as many players in the game as possible while keeping yourself from being fragged. When the game ends either by gamers reaching the end of the level or a preset time or frag count limit, the gamerwho accumulated the most frags in the DM game is the winner of the deathmatch.
Multiplayer games may also contain a single player game of deathmatch where the gamer plays against intelligent bots in the game locally, rather than against other gamers over the Internet. DM can also be set to a “teamplay deathmatch” mode where teams (called clans) work together to obtain a higher combined frag count than the opposing teams in the game.
The term deathmatch was coined by legendary game programmer John Romero while developing the popular FPSgame DOOM.
Also see All About Multiplayer PC Gaming in Webopedia’s “Did You Know…?” section.
