It was new technology, 3D was a fairly new concept in gaming in the mid 90s. But it took so long to get properly implemented. You have super mario 64, gex enter the gecko, lemmings 3D. I am wondering if it was a business decision and not the devs who pushed for a free roaming camera, since it was clearly not a satisfactory result gameplay wise. Because at the same era, you have games with fixed camera angles that are much better experiences overall.
Was mouselook an option in version 1.0?
I believe they had a weird hybrid with mouse looking around and also moving forward and back.
It was definitely a time where they were figuring out how to make control schemes work, how to use two-button mice, etc. I remember playing Unreal (not Tournament!) with the numpad and thinking it was great.
wasd-standardization is one of the best breakthroughs in computer gaming in the last 25 or so years.