 "First Person Shooter" was the second "X-Files" episode written by the two, after the season five's "Kill Switch"; the episode had first aired on February 15, 1998 and was rerun often, which encouraged Gibson to continue working in television.According to executive producer Frank Spotnitz, the writing process for "First Person Shooter" was slow.Initially, Gibson and Maddox presented the first two acts of their idea, which were tweaked by series creator Chris Carter and Spotnitz in order to make the story feel more like an X-File.