The heads-up display originated in military aviation in the 1950s, projecting flight data onto the windshield so pilots could read instruments without looking down. The concept migrated to video games in the 1990s, where health bars, ammo counters, and minimaps became standard interface elements overlaid on the game world.
Games like Halo, Metroid Prime, and Crysis made the HUD itself a design statement — Samus Aran's visor was as iconic as her armor. The aesthetic solidified as sci-fi films adopted similar interfaces: Iron Man's helmet display, Minority Report's gesture UI, and every spaceship cockpit in every space opera.
On the web, the Gaming HUD aesthetic emerged from fan sites, esports platforms, and streaming culture. It takes the visual language of in-game interfaces — the translucent panels, the green-on-dark readouts, the angular frames — and applies it to content that has nothing to do with combat. But that is the point. Everything feels more exciting when it looks like mission data.