The Order: 1886: Sony's Soulless Answer to Gears of War - IB Times

[Kratos]

The Fury said:

Kratos said:

I don't think Gears of War was even the first cover based 3rd person shooter. But it definitely made the mechanic popular though.

According to general timelines and what I remember, Getaway had a cover based mechanic in 2002, I guess, Metal Gear Solid 2 did as well. This aid while you are right, Gears had a help in it's popularity, a lot of games were in development when Gears came out, Uncharted, Mass Effect, so it wasn't like it wouldn't have happened without Gears.

EDIT: qucik check of the wiki pages lists a game called Winback as the first TPS one but Kill.Switch (2003/4) was the closest to modern TPS Cover based shooting system.

Yup, you are right. Checked it myself as well just now.