''Wolfenstein 3D'' is a
first-person shooter
First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the pl ...
video game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
developed by
id Software
id Software LLC () is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and ar ...
and published by
Apogee Software
3D Realms Entertainment ApS is a video game publisher based in Aalborg, Denmark. Scott Miller founded the company in his parents' home in Garland, Texas, in 1987 as Apogee Software Productions to release his game '' Kingdom of Kroz''. In the ...
and
FormGen
FormGen Corporation was a developer of business software and publisher of video games based in Scottsdale, Arizona.
History
FormGen was founded in 1987 by friends Randy MacLean and Robert Van Rycke in Bolton, Ontario. It was a software producer an ...
. Originally released on May 5, 1992, for
DOS
DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems.
DOS may also refer to:
Computing
* Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel
* Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...
, it was inspired by the 1981
Muse Software
Micro Users Software Exchange, Inc., doing business as Muse Software, was an American video game developer based in Baltimore, Maryland, focusing on the development of games for the first generation of home computers. The company began with dev ...
video game ''
Castle Wolfenstein
''Castle Wolfenstein'' is a 1981 action-adventure game that was developed by Muse Software for the Apple II home computer. It is one of the earliest games to be based on Stealth game, stealth mechanics. An Atari 8-bit family port was released ...
'', and is the third installment in the ''
Wolfenstein
''Wolfenstein'' is a series of World War II video games originally developed by Muse Software. The majority of the games follow William "B.J." Blazkowicz, an American Army captain and his fight against the Axis powers. Earlier titles are center ...
'' series. In ''Wolfenstein 3D'', the player
assumes the role of
Allied
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
spy
William "B.J." Blazkowicz during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
as he escapes from the
Nazi German
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
prison Castle Wolfenstein and carries out a series of crucial missions against the Nazis. The player traverses each of the game's
levels
Level or levels may refer to:
Engineering
*Level (instrument), a device used to measure true horizontal or relative heights
*Spirit level, an instrument designed to indicate whether a surface is horizontal or vertical
*Canal pound or level
*Regr ...
to find an elevator to the next level or kill a
final boss, fighting Nazi soldiers, dogs, and other enemies with knives and a variety of guns.
''Wolfenstein 3D'' was the second major independent release by id Software, after the ''
Commander Keen
''Commander Keen'' is a series of side-scrolling platform video games developed primarily by id Software. The series consists of six main episodes, a "lost" episode, and a final game; all but the final game were originally released for MS-DOS in ...
'' series of episodes. In mid-1991, programmer
John Carmack
John D. Carmack II (born August 20, 1970) is an American computer programmer and video game developer. He co-founded the video game company id Software and was the lead programmer of its 1990s games ''Commander Keen'', ''Wolfenstein 3D'', ''Doo ...
experimented with making a fast 3D
game engine
A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games and generally includes relevant libraries and support programs. The "engine" terminology is similar to the term "software engine" used in the software i ...
by restricting the gameplay and viewpoint to a single
plane
Plane(s) most often refers to:
* Aero- or airplane, a powered, fixed-wing aircraft
* Plane (geometry), a flat, 2-dimensional surface
Plane or planes may also refer to:
Biology
* Plane (tree) or ''Platanus'', wetland native plant
* ''Planes' ...
, producing ''
Hovertank 3D
''Hovertank 3D'', also known under a variety of other names (''Hovertank'' or ''Hovertank One''), is a vehicular combat game developed by id Software and published by Softdisk in April 1991.
Plot
''Hovertank 3D'' is set during a nuclear war. In ...
'' and ''
Catacomb 3-D
''Catacomb 3-D'' (also known as ''Catacomb 3-D: A New Dimension'', ''Catacomb 3-D: The Descent'', and ''Catacombs 3'') is a first-person shooter video game, the third in the '' Catacomb'' series, the first of which to feature 3D computer graphics ...
'' as prototypes. After a design session prompted the company to shift from the family-friendly ''Keen'' to a more violent theme, programmer
John Romero
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John
* Second ...
suggested remaking the 1981 stealth shooter ''Castle Wolfenstein'' as a fast-paced action game. He and designer
Tom Hall
Tom Hall is an American game designer best known for his work with id Software on titles such as ''Doom'' and ''Commander Keen''.
Career
Hall attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he earned a B.S. in Computer Science. In 1987, ...
designed the game, built on Carmack's engine, to be fast and violent, unlike other computer games on the market at the time. ''Wolfenstein 3D'' features artwork by
Adrian Carmack
Adrian Carmack (born May 5, 1969) is an American video game artist and one of four co-founders of id Software, along with Tom Hall, John Romero, and John Carmack (no relation). The founders met while working at Softdisks ''Gamer's Edge'' division ...
and sound effects and music by
Bobby Prince
Robert Caskin Prince III, known professionally as Bobby Prince, is an American video game composer and sound designer. He has worked as an independent contractor for several gaming companies, most notably id Software and 3D Realms. Some of his m ...
. The game was released through Apogee in two sets of three episodes under the
shareware
Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer ...
model, in which the first episode is released for free to drive interest in paying for the rest. An additional episode, ''Spear of Destiny'', was released as a stand-alone retail title through FormGen.
''Wolfenstein 3D'' was a critical and commercial success and is considered one of the
greatest video games ever made
This is a list of video games that multiple reputable video game journalists or List of video game magazines, magazines have considered to be among the best of all time. The games listed here are included on at least six separate "best/greatest ...
. It garnered numerous awards and sold over 250,000 copies by the end of 1995. It has been termed the "grandfather of 3D shooters", and is widely regarded as having helped popularize the first-person shooter genre and establishing the standard of fast-paced action and technical prowess for many subsequent games in the genre, as well as showcasing the viability of the shareware publishing model at the time. FormGen developed an additional two episodes for the game, while Apogee released a pack of over 800 fan-created levels. Id Software never returned to the series, but did license the engine to numerous other titles before releasing the source code for free in 1995, and multiple other games in the
''Wolfenstein'' series have been developed by other companies since 2001.
Gameplay
''Wolfenstein 3D'' is a
first-person shooter
First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the pl ...
presented with rudimentary
3D graphics
3D computer graphics, or “3D graphics,” sometimes called CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) that is stored in the computer for the ...
.
The game is broken up into
levels
Level or levels may refer to:
Engineering
*Level (instrument), a device used to measure true horizontal or relative heights
*Spirit level, an instrument designed to indicate whether a surface is horizontal or vertical
*Canal pound or level
*Regr ...
, each of which is a flat plane divided into areas and rooms by a grid-based pattern of walls and doors, all of equal height.
Each level is themed after
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
bunkers and buildings. To finish a level, the player must traverse through the area to reach an elevator.
Levels—ten in the original episodes—are grouped together into named episodes, with the final level focusing on a
boss fight
In video games, a boss is a significant computer-controlled opponent. A fight with a boss character is commonly referred to as a boss battle or boss fight. Bosses are generally far stronger than other opponents the player has faced up to that ...
with a particularly difficult enemy.
While traversing the levels, the player must fight Nazi guards and soldiers, dogs, and other enemies while managing supplies of ammunition and
health
Health, according to the World Health Organization, is "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity".World Health Organization. (2006)''Constitution of the World Health Organiza ...
. The player can find weapons and ammunition placed in the levels or can collect them from dead enemies; weapons include a knife, a pistol, a submachine gun, and a rapid-fire
chain gun
A chain gun is a type of autocannon or machine gun that uses an external source of power to cycle the weapon's action, rather than diverting excess energy from the cartridges' propellant as in a typical automatic firearm, and does so via a conti ...
.
While the levels are presented in a 3D perspective, the enemies and objects are instead 2D
sprites presented from several set viewing angles, a technique sometimes referred to as
2.5D graphics.
The player's health is represented by a percentage starting at 100, which is diminished when they are shot or attacked by enemies.
If the player's health falls to zero, they lose one
life
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...
and start the level over with a knife, a pistol, and eight bullets.
The player begins each episode with four lives and can gain more by finding extra-life tokens or by earning enough points. Points are scored by killing enemies or collecting treasures scattered throughout the levels.
Points can also be scored by killing all enemies in a level, collecting all treasure, finding all secret areas, or completing a level under a par time; the player's completion ratio and speed is displayed when a level is completed. Secret areas containing treasure, health refills, or ammunition can be found in hidden rooms revealed by activating certain wall tiles that slide back when triggered.
The original version of the game allows the player to save their progress at any point, though in many of its
ports
A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ham ...
the player can only save between levels.
Plot
''Wolfenstein 3D'' is divided into two sets of three episodes: "Escape from Castle Wolfenstein", "Operation: Eisenfaust", and "Die, Führer, Die!" serve as the primary trilogy, with a second trilogy titled ''The Nocturnal Missions'' including "A Dark Secret", "Trail of the Madman", and "Confrontation". The protagonist is
William "B.J." Blazkowicz, an American spy of
Polish descent, and the game follows his efforts to destroy the Nazi regime. In "Escape", Blazkowicz has been captured while trying to find the plans for Operation Eisenfaust (Iron Fist) and imprisoned in Castle Wolfenstein, from which he must escape. "Operation: Eisenfaust" follows his discovery and thwarting of the Nazi plan to create an army of
undead
The undead are beings in mythology, legend, or fiction that are deceased but behave as if alive. Most commonly the term refers to corporeal forms of formerly-alive humans, such as mummies, vampires, and zombies, who have been reanimated by super ...
mutants in Castle Hollehammer, while in "Die, Führer, Die!" he infiltrates a
bunker
A bunker is a defensive military fortification designed to protect people and valued materials from falling bombs, artillery, or other attacks. Bunkers are almost always underground, in contrast to blockhouses which are mostly above ground. ...
under the
Reichstag, culminating in a battle with
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
in a
robotic suit equipped with four
chain gun
A chain gun is a type of autocannon or machine gun that uses an external source of power to cycle the weapon's action, rather than diverting excess energy from the cartridges' propellant as in a typical automatic firearm, and does so via a conti ...
s.
''The Nocturnal Missions'' form a
prequel
A prequel is a literary, dramatic or cinematic work whose story precedes that of a previous work, by focusing on events that occur before the original narrative. A prequel is a work that forms part of a backstory to the preceding work.
The term " ...
storyline dealing with German plans for
chemical warfare
Chemical warfare (CW) involves using the toxic properties of chemical substances as weapons. This type of warfare is distinct from nuclear warfare, biological warfare and radiological warfare, which together make up CBRN, the military acronym ...
. "A Dark Secret" deals with the initial pursuit through a weapons research facility of the scientist responsible for developing the weaponry. "Trail of the Madman" takes place in Castle
Erlangen
Erlangen (; East Franconian German, East Franconian: ''Erlang'', Bavarian language, Bavarian: ''Erlanga'') is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative d ...
, where Blazkowicz's goal is to find the maps and plans for the chemical war. The story ends in "Confrontation", which is set in Castle
Offenbach as he confronts the Nazi general behind the chemical warfare initiative.
An additional episode, titled ''Spear of Destiny'', was released as a retail game by
FormGen
FormGen Corporation was a developer of business software and publisher of video games based in Scottsdale, Arizona.
History
FormGen was founded in 1987 by friends Randy MacLean and Robert Van Rycke in Bolton, Ontario. It was a software producer an ...
. It follows Blazkowicz on a different prequel mission, trying to recapture the
Spear of Destiny
A spear is a pole weapon consisting of a shaft, usually of wood, with a pointed head. The head may be simply the sharpened end of the shaft itself, as is the case with fire hardened spears, or it may be made of a more durable material fastene ...
from the Nazis after it was stolen from
Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, u ...
. FormGen later developed two sequel episodes, "Return to Danger" and "Ultimate Challenge", each of which feature Blazkowicz as he fights through another Nazi base to recover the Spear of Destiny after it has been stolen again as part of a plot to
build a nuclear weapon or
summon demons.
Development
![Simple raycasting with fisheye correction](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Simple_raycasting_with_fisheye_correction.gif)
In October–December 1990, a team of employees from programming studio
Softdisk
Softdisk was a software and Internet company based in Shreveport, Louisiana. Founded in 1981, its original products were disk magazines (which they termed "magazettes", for "magazine on diskette"). It was affiliated and partly owned by paper mag ...
calling themselves Ideas from the Deep developed the three-part video game ''
Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons
''Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons'' is a three-part episodic side-scrolling platform video game developed by Ideas from the Deep (a precursor to id Software) and published by Apogee Software in 1990 for MS-DOS. It is the first set of ...
'', the first game in the ''
Commander Keen
''Commander Keen'' is a series of side-scrolling platform video games developed primarily by id Software. The series consists of six main episodes, a "lost" episode, and a final game; all but the final game were originally released for MS-DOS in ...
'' series. The group, who worked at Softdisk in
Shreveport, Louisiana
Shreveport ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is the third most populous city in Louisiana after New Orleans and Baton Rouge, respectively. The Shreveport–Bossier City metropolitan area, with a population of 393,406 in 2020, is t ...
, developing games for the ''Gamer's Edge'' video game subscription service and
disk magazine
A disk magazine, colloquially known as a diskmag or diskzine, is a magazine that is distributed in electronic form to be read using computers. These had some popularity in the 1980s and 1990s as periodicals distributed on floppy disk, hence the ...
, was composed of programmers
John Romero
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John
* Second ...
and
John Carmack
John D. Carmack II (born August 20, 1970) is an American computer programmer and video game developer. He co-founded the video game company id Software and was the lead programmer of its 1990s games ''Commander Keen'', ''Wolfenstein 3D'', ''Doo ...
, designer
Tom Hall
Tom Hall is an American game designer best known for his work with id Software on titles such as ''Doom'' and ''Commander Keen''.
Career
Hall attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he earned a B.S. in Computer Science. In 1987, ...
, artist
Adrian Carmack
Adrian Carmack (born May 5, 1969) is an American video game artist and one of four co-founders of id Software, along with Tom Hall, John Romero, and John Carmack (no relation). The founders met while working at Softdisks ''Gamer's Edge'' division ...
, and manager Jay Wilbur. After the release of the game in December through
shareware
Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer ...
publisher
Apogee Software
3D Realms Entertainment ApS is a video game publisher based in Aalborg, Denmark. Scott Miller founded the company in his parents' home in Garland, Texas, in 1987 as Apogee Software Productions to release his game '' Kingdom of Kroz''. In the ...
, the team planned to quit Softdisk and start their own company. When their boss, Softdisk owner Al Vekovius, confronted them on both their plans and their use of company resources to develop the game—the team had created it on their work computers, both in the office after hours and by taking the computers to John Carmack's house on the weekends—the team made no secret of their intentions. After a few weeks of negotiation, the team agreed to produce a series of games for ''Gamer's Edge'', one every two months.
Ideas from the Deep, now formally established as
id Software
id Software LLC () is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and ar ...
, used some of these to prototype ideas for their own games.
Adrian Carmack used them to push his preferred, dark art style, while John Carmack began to experiment with
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics, or “3D graphics,” sometimes called CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) that is stored in the computer for th ...
, which until then was largely the purview of
flight simulation games such as ''
Wing Commander
Wing commander (Wg Cdr in the RAF, the IAF, and the PAF, WGCDR in the RNZAF and RAAF, formerly sometimes W/C in all services) is a senior commissioned rank in the British Royal Air Force and air forces of many countries which have historical ...
'' (1990). Carmack found that this was largely due to the limitations of
personal computer
A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...
s of the time, which had difficulty displaying a fast
action game
An action game is a video game genre that emphasizes physical challenges, including hand–eye coordination and reaction-time. The genre includes a large variety of sub-genres, such as fighting games, beat 'em ups, shooter games, and platform gam ...
in 3D due to the
number of surfaces it needed to calculate, but felt that the increasing computational power of PCs meant that it may be possible.
During 1991, he experimented with limiting the possible surfaces the computer needed to display, creating game levels with walls designed only on a flat grid rather than with arbitrary shapes or angles. He also took the unusual approach of creating the displayed graphics through
ray casting
Ray casting is the methodological basis for 3D CAD/CAM solid modeling and image rendering. It is essentially the same as ray tracing for computer graphics where virtual light rays are "cast" or "traced" on their path from the focal point of a came ...
, in which only the surfaces visible to the player were calculated rather than the entire area surrounding the player. After six weeks of development, Carmack had created a rudimentary 3D
game engine
A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games and generally includes relevant libraries and support programs. The "engine" terminology is similar to the term "software engine" used in the software i ...
that used animated 2D
sprites for enemies. Id Software then used the engine for the April 1991 Softdisk game ''
Hovertank 3D
''Hovertank 3D'', also known under a variety of other names (''Hovertank'' or ''Hovertank One''), is a vehicular combat game developed by id Software and published by Softdisk in April 1991.
Plot
''Hovertank 3D'' is set during a nuclear war. In ...
'', in which the player drives a tank through a plane of colored walls and shoots nuclear monsters.
In the fall of 1991, after the team—sans Wilbur—had relocated to
Madison, Wisconsin
Madison is the county seat of Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin by population, after Milwaukee, and the 80th-lar ...
, and he had largely finished the engine work for ''
Commander Keen in Goodbye, Galaxy
''Commander Keen in Goodbye, Galaxy'' (stylized as ''Goodbye, Galaxy!'') is a two-part episodic side-scrolling platform video game developed by id Software and published by Apogee Software in 1991 for DOS. It consists of the fifth and sixth epis ...
'', Carmack decided to implement a feature from ''
Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss'', a
role-playing game
A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...
in development by
Blue Sky Productions
Looking Glass Studios, Inc. (formerly Blue Sky Productions and LookingGlass Technologies, Inc.) was an American video game developer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The company was founded by Paul Neurath with Ned Lerner as Blue Sky Producti ...
.
''Ultima Underworld'' was planned to display
texture-mapped
Texture mapping is a method for mapping a texture on a computer-generated graphic. Texture here can be high frequency detail, surface texture, or color.
History
The original technique was pioneered by Edwin Catmull in 1974.
Texture mappi ...
3D graphics without ''Hovertank''s restrictions of flat walls and simple lighting.
Deciding that he could add texture mapping without sacrificing the engine's speed or greatly increasing the system requirements as ''Underworld'' was doing, Carmack enhanced the engine over six weeks from ''Hovertank 3D'' for another Softdisk game, the November 1991 ''
Catacomb 3-D
''Catacomb 3-D'' (also known as ''Catacomb 3-D: A New Dimension'', ''Catacomb 3-D: The Descent'', and ''Catacombs 3'') is a first-person shooter video game, the third in the '' Catacomb'' series, the first of which to feature 3D computer graphics ...
''.
Upon seeing it,
Scott Miller of Apogee began to push the team to make a 3D shareware action game.
![John Romero - Jason Scott interview (6951215353) (cropped)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/John_Romero_-_Jason_Scott_interview_%286951215353%29_%28cropped%29.jpg)
In November 1991, with the second ''Commander Keen'' trilogy of episodes nearing completion and their contractual obligations to Softdisk almost finished, id Software sat down to plan out their next major game. Designer Tom Hall, who initially wanted to do a third ''Keen'' trilogy, recognized that Carmack's programming focus had shifted from the 2D
side-scrolling platform game
A platform game (often simplified as platformer and sometimes called a jump 'n' run game) is a sub-genre of action video games in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are charac ...
series to 3D action games. After an initial proposal by Hall of a sci-fi project, "It's Green and Pissed", Romero suggested a 3D remake of the 1981 ''
Castle Wolfenstein
''Castle Wolfenstein'' is a 1981 action-adventure game that was developed by Muse Software for the Apple II home computer. It is one of the earliest games to be based on Stealth game, stealth mechanics. An Atari 8-bit family port was released ...
''. The team was interested in the idea, as Romero, Hall, and John Carmack all had fond memories of the original title and felt the maze-like shooter gameplay fit well with Carmack's 3D game engine, while Adrian Carmack was interested in moving away from the child-friendly art style of ''Keen'' into something more violent. Encouraged by the reception to his idea, Romero expounded on it by proposing a "loud" and "cool" fast action game where the player could shoot soldiers before dragging and looting their bodies. The core of the gameplay would be fast and simple, for Romero believed that due to the novelty of a 3D game and control scheme, players would not be receptive to more complicated, slow gameplay.
He felt the game would occupy a unique place in the industry, which was then dominated by slower simulation and strategy games. Adrian and John Carmack were excited by the prospect, while Hall felt that it was enjoyable enough, and that since he was the company's designer that they could return to his ideas at a later date.
Initially the team believed that they would be unable to use the ''Wolfenstein'' name due to trademark issues, and came up with multiple possible titles.
They contacted ''Castle Wolfenstein'' developer
Silas Warner, but learned that
Muse Software
Micro Users Software Exchange, Inc., doing business as Muse Software, was an American video game developer based in Baltimore, Maryland, focusing on the development of games for the first generation of home computers. The company began with dev ...
had shut down in 1986, with all rights to ''Wolfenstein'' sold.
The rights last belonged to someone in
Michigan
Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...
,
and the team was able to purchase the trademark around mid-April 1992 for US$5,000.
Thus they were free to use the name ''Wolfenstein 3D''.
The game concept met with immediate approval from Scott Miller of Apogee, who considered id Software his star developer, and he guaranteed id a US$100,000 payment on the project.
Mark Rein, who had been brought on a few months prior as id's probationary president, also sold the idea of doing a retail ''Wolfenstein'' project to
FormGen
FormGen Corporation was a developer of business software and publisher of video games based in Scottsdale, Arizona.
History
FormGen was founded in 1987 by friends Randy MacLean and Robert Van Rycke in Bolton, Ontario. It was a software producer an ...
, which had published id's December 1991 ''
Commander Keen in Aliens Ate My Babysitter
''Commander Keen in Aliens Ate My Babysitter'' (stylized as ''Aliens Ate My Babysitter!'') is a side-scrolling video game, side-scrolling platform game, platform video game developed by id Software and published by FormGen in December 1991 for DOS ...
'', overcoming the publisher's concerns over ''Wolfenstein''s proposed content. This put id in the unique position of selling simultaneously to the shareware and retail markets.
![John Carmack E3 2006](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/John_Carmack_E3_2006.jpg)
The project officially began on December 15, 1991.
Romero and Hall designed the gameplay and aesthetics. Romero wanted the goal to be "to mow down Nazis", with the suspense of storming a Nazi bunker full of
SS soldiers and Hitler himself, as well as dogs, blood "like you never see in games", and straightforward, lethal weapons. He also composed the general storyline for the game.
Hall designed the levels while also adding collectible objects in the form of treasure and food for health items.
He also did sketches for the bosses and the title screen.
Carmack programmed "the core" of the game's engine in a month; he added a few features to the ''Wolfenstein 3D'' engine from ''Catacomb 3-D'', including support for doors and decorative non-wall objects, but primarily focused on making the game run smoother and faster with higher-resolution graphics.
The game was programmed in
ANSI C
ANSI C, ISO C, and Standard C are successive standards for the C programming language published by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/WG 14 of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the ...
and
assembly language
In computer programming, assembly language (or assembler language, or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as Assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence be ...
.
The graphics for the game were planned to be in 16 color
EGA, but were changed to 256 color
VGA
Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the PC industry within three years. The term can no ...
four months before release, which also enabled the game to have higher resolutions.
Romero in turn worked on building a game with the engine, removing elements of the initial design, like looting enemy bodies, that he felt interrupted the flow of fast gameplay.
The sprites for the enemies and objects were hand drawn at eight different angles by Adrian Carmack using
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the d ...
's ''
Deluxe Paint II''.
Initially the team had an external artist who assisted him and created animated wall textures, but the team felt that the quality was poor and did not use it in the game.
The level design, by Romero and Hall, due to the grid-based level design, took some inspiration from ''
Pac-Man
originally called ''Puck Man'' in Japan, is a 1980 maze action video game developed and released by Namco for arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. Th ...
'', and paid homage with a hidden ''Pac-Man'' level.
Romero later said in 2017 that making the levels was uninteresting compared to those from ''Commander Keen'' and had to prompt Hall to finish the maps with the promise of being able to buy himself a brand new car.
[ The team was going to include some anti-fascist references and Nazi atrocities, but left them out to avoid controversies.] They ensured that the presentation of the game created the atmosphere that they wanted, adding violent animations by Adrian Carmack for enemies being shot and music and sound effects by ''Keen'' composer Bobby Prince
Robert Caskin Prince III, known professionally as Bobby Prince, is an American video game composer and sound designer. He has worked as an independent contractor for several gaming companies, most notably id Software and 3D Realms. Some of his m ...
to make the guns sound exciting. Prince took some inspiration from his days as a platoon soldier in the US Army. With the aid of a 16-bit sampler keyboard and cassette recorder, he composed realistic sounds from a shooting range in addition to Foley sounds. The development team along with Scott Miller did the voicing for the enemies. Some of the enemy shouts were based on the original ''Castle Wolfenstein'' game.
As development continued, id Software hired their former Softdisk liaison Kevin Cloud
Kevin Cloud is an American video game artist. He graduated from LSU-Shreveport in 1987 with a degree in political science. Cloud acquired his first full-time job as a computer artist at Softdisk in 1985. He was hired by id Software on March 10, 1 ...
as an assistant artist, and moved the company out to Mesquite, Texas
Mesquite is a suburban city located east of the city of Dallas, Texas, in the United States. Most of the city is located in Dallas County, though a small portion extends into Kaufman County. As of 2019 census estimates, the population was 140 ...
, near where Apogee was located. Scott Miller of Apogee was pleased to have his star developers nearby, and agreed to not only increase their royalty
Royalty may refer to:
* Any individual monarch, such as a king, queen, emperor, empress, etc.
* Royal family, the immediate family of a king or queen regnant, and sometimes his or her extended family
* Royalty payment for use of such things as int ...
rate to 50 percent, but have Apogee create their next game for Softdisk, ''ScubaVenture'', so that id could focus on ''Wolfenstein''. The game was intended to be released using Apogee's shareware model of splitting it into three episodes and releasing the first for free, with ten levels per episode. The level maps were designed in 2D using a custom-made program called Tile Editor (TEd), which had been used for the entire ''Keen'' series as well as several other games. Upon finding out that the team was able to create a level in a single day using the program, Miller convinced them to instead develop six episodes, which could be sold in different-sized packs. Around the same time, the team changed members and structure: id fired probationary president Mark Rein and brought back Jay Wilbur, who had stayed in Shreveport, to be both their CEO and business team; Bobby Prince moved into the office temporarily to record sound effects, while Adrian Carmack moved out of the office to get away from the noise.
As the game neared completion, FormGen contacted id with concerns over its violence and shock content. In response, id increased these aspects; Adrian Carmack added skeletons, corpses, and bloody wall details, and Hall and Romero added screams and cries in German, along with a Death Cam that would show a replay of the death of the final boss of an episode. The team also added "Horst-Wessel-Lied
The "" ("Horst Wessel Song"; ), also known by its opening words "" ("Raise the Flag", ), was the anthem of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) from 1930 to 1945. From 1933 to 1945, the Nazis made it the co-national anthem of Germany, along with the first sta ...
", the anthem of the Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
, to the opening screen. John Carmack, meanwhile, added in walls that moved when triggered to hide secret areas, a feature that Hall had been pushing for months but which Carmack had objected to for technical reasons. Hall also added in cheat codes, and wrote a back story for the game. The team did a month of playtesting in the final stage of the game's development. In the early morning of May 5, 1992, the first episode of the shareware game was completed and uploaded by Apogee and id to bulletin board system
A bulletin board system (BBS), also called computer bulletin board service (CBBS), is a computer server running software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user can perform functions such as ...
s. The other episodes were completed a few weeks later. The total development time had been around half a year, with a cost of around US$25,000 to cover the team's rent and US$750 per month salaries, plus around US$6,500 for the computer John Carmack used to develop the engine and the US$5,000 to get the ''Wolfenstein'' trademark.
The following summer, most of the id Software team developed ''Spear of Destiny'', except John Carmack, who instead experimented with a new graphics engine that was licensed for ''Shadowcaster
''ShadowCaster'' is a first-person role-playing video game developed by Raven Software.
It was published in 1993 by Origin Systems after Electronic Arts acquired them. A CD-ROM version was released in 1994, featuring two additional levels with ...
'' and became the basis of the ''Doom'' engine. The one episode of ''Spear of Destiny'' was a prequel to ''Wolfenstein 3D'' and used the same engine, but added some new audio, graphics, and enemies. It took two months to create, and was published commercially by FormGen in September 1992. The publisher was concerned that the material would be controversial due to holy relics associated with World War II, but Romero didn't think it was that different from the Indiana Jones films.
Release
The first episode was released as shareware for free distribution by Apogee and the whole original trilogy of episodes made available for purchase on May 5 as ''Wolfenstein 3D'', though the purchased episodes were not actually shipped to customers until a few weeks later. The second trilogy that Miller had convinced id to create was released soon after as an add-on pack titled ''The Nocturnal Missions''. Players were able to buy each trilogy separately or as a single game. In 1993 Apogee also published the ''Wolfenstein 3D Super Upgrades'' pack, which included 815 fan-made levels called "WolfMaster", along with a map editor titled "MapEdit" and a random level generator named "Wolf Creator". A retail ''Wolfenstein'' episode double the length of the Apogee episodes, ''Spear of Destiny'', was released through FormGen on September 18, 1992. FormGen later published two mission packs titled "Return to Danger" and "Ultimate Challenge", each the same length as ''Spear of Destiny'', in May 1994, and later that year published ''Spear of Destiny'' and the two mission packs together as the ''Spear of Destiny Super CD Package''. Id released the original six Apogee episodes as a retail title through GT Software in 1993 and produced a collection of both the Apogee and FormGen episodes released through Activision
Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one o ...
in 1998.
There were two intended promotions associated with the original Apogee release, both of which were cancelled. A pushable wall maze led to a sign reading "Call Apogee and say Aardwolf
The aardwolf (''Proteles cristata'') is an insectivorous species of hyena, native to East and Southern Africa. Its name means "earth-wolf" in Afrikaans and Dutch. It is also called maanhaar-jackal (Afrikaans for " mane-jackal"), termite-eatin ...
" ("Snapity" in beta versions); it was intended that the first person to find the sign and carry out its instructions would win a prize (consisting of US$1,000 or a line of Apogee games for life), but the quick creation of level editors and cheat
Cheating generally describes various actions designed to subvert rules in order to obtain unfair advantages. This includes acts of bribery, cronyism and nepotism in any situation where individuals are given preference using inappropriate cr ...
programs for the game soon after release led id and Apogee to give up on the idea. Additionally, after completing an episode the player is given a three-letter code in addition to their total score and time. This code was intended to be a verification code as part of a high-score contest, but the sudden prevalence of editor programs resulted in the cancellation of the contest without ever being formally announced.
Imagineer bought the rights for the game, and commissioned id to port the game to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Eur ...
(SNES) for a US$100,000 advance. The team was busy with the development of ''Doom'', plus their work on ''Spear of Destiny'', and ignored the project for seven or eight months, finally hiring Rebecca Heineman
Rebecca Ann Heineman is an American video game designer and programmer. Heineman was a founding member of video game companies Interplay Productions, Logicware, Contraband Entertainment, and Olde Sküül. She has been chief executive officer ...
to do the work. She made no progress on the port, however, and the id team members instead spent three weeks frantically learning how to make SNES games and creating the port by March 1993. This version was written in C and compiled in the 65816 assembly language, making use of binary space partitioning
In computer science, binary space partitioning (BSP) is a method for space partitioning which recursively subdivides a Euclidean space into two convex sets by using hyperplanes as partitions. This process of subdividing gives rise to a represent ...
rather than raycasting in order to give it speed. Carmack had to resize existing images to fit the SNES resolution. Nintendo
is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles.
Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produce ...
insisted on censoring the game in accordance with their policies; this included first making all blood green and then finally removing it, removing Nazi imagery and German voice clips, and replacing enemy dogs with giant rats. The port was released in Japan on February 10, 1994, under the name ''Wolfenstein 3D: The Claw of Eisenfaust'' before being released in North America and Europe later that year. Using the source code of the SNES port, on a whim John Carmack later converted the game to run on the Atari Jaguar
The Atari Jaguar is a home video game console developed by Atari Corporation and released in North America in November 1993. Part of the fifth generation of video game consoles, it competed with the 16-bit Sega Genesis, the Super NES and the ...
. Atari Corporation
Atari Corporation was an American manufacturer of computers and video game consoles. It was founded by Jack Tramiel on May 17, 1984, as Tramel Technology, Ltd., but then took on the Atari name less than two months later when WarnerMedia, Warn ...
approved the conversion for publication and Carmack spent three weeks, assisted by Dave Taylor, improving the port's graphics and quality to what he later claimed was four times more detail than the DOS version. He also removed the changes that Nintendo had insisted on. However the game's code had to be slowed down to work properly on the console.
Since its initial release, ''Wolfenstein 3D'' has been ported to numerous other platforms as well. In 1993, Alternate Worlds Technology licensed ''Wolfenstein 3D'' and converted it into a virtual reality
Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), educ ...
arcade game. The 1994 Acorn Archimedes port was done in UK by programmer Eddie Edwards and published by Powerslave Software. By 1994, a port for the Sega Mega Drive
The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit Fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master Syst ...
was under development by Imagineer, who intended to release it by September, but it was cancelled due to technical problems. The 1994 Classic Mac OS
Mac OS (originally System Software; retronym: Classic Mac OS) is the series of operating systems developed for the Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and ending with Mac OS 9. The ...
version of the game had three releases: ''The First Encounter'', a shareware release; ''The Second Encounter'', with 30 exclusive levels; and ''The Third Encounter'', with all 60 levels from the DOS version. An Atari Lynx
The Atari Lynx is a hybrid 8/16-bit fourth generation handheld game console released by Atari Corporation in September 1989 in North America and 1990 in Europe and Japan. It was the first handheld game console with a color liquid-crystal disp ...
version of the game was offered earlier by Atari for id, but work on the port was never started, save for a few images. A 3DO version was released in October 1995. The Apple IIGS port was started in Fall 1994 by Vitesse with Rebecca Heineman as the initial developer, with later graphics assistance by Ninjaforce Entertainment, but due to licensing problems with id it was not released until February 1998. An open source iOS
iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
port programmed by Carmack himself was released in 2009. An unofficial port for the Game Boy Color
The (commonly abbreviated as GBC) is a handheld game console, manufactured by Nintendo, which was released in Japan on October 21, 1998 and to international markets that November. It is the successor to the Game Boy and is part of the Game ...
was made in 2016. An Android port titled ''Wolfenstein 3D Touch'' (later renamed ''ECWolf'') was released and published by Beloko Games. Other releases include the Game Boy Advance
The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo as the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, in North America on June 11, 2001, in the PAL region on June 22, 2 ...
(2002), Xbox Live Arcade
Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) is a digital video game download service available through the Xbox Games Store, Microsoft's digital distribution network for the Xbox 360. It focuses on smaller downloadable games from both major publishers and independent ...
, and PlayStation Network
PlayStation Network (PSN) is a digital media entertainment service provided by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Launched in November 2006, PSN was originally conceived for the PlayStation video game consoles, but soon extended to encompass smartp ...
. These ports' sound, graphics, and levels sometimes differ from the original. Many of the ports include only the Apogee episodes, but the iOS port includes ''Spear of Destiny'', and a 2007 Steam
Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization ...
release for PC, macOS, and Linux includes all of the FormGen episodes. Bethesda Softworks
Bethesda Softworks LLC is an American video game publisher based in Rockville, Maryland. The company was founded by Christopher Weaver in 1986 as a division of Media Technology Limited, and in 1999 became a subsidiary of ZeniMax Media. In its ...
, whose parent company bought id Software in 2009, celebrated the 20th anniversary of ''Wolfenstein 3D''s release by producing a free-to-play browser-based
A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection.
History
In earlier computing models like client-serve ...
version of the game in 2012, though the website was removed a few years later.
Reception
Id had no clear expectations for ''Wolfenstein''s commercial reception, but hoped that it would make around US$60,000 in its first month; the first royalty check from Apogee was instead for US$100,000. The game was selling at a rate of 4,000 copies a month by mail order. ''PC Zone
''PC Zone'', founded in 1993, was the first magazine dedicated to games for IBM-compatible personal computers to be published in the United Kingdom. Earlier PC magazines such as ''PC Leisure'', ''PC Format'' and ''PC Plus'' had covered games but ...
'' quoted a shareware distributor as saying ''Wolfenstein 3D'' was the top shareware seller of 1992. By the end of 1993, sales of the Apogee episodes of ''Wolfenstein 3D'' as well as ''Spear of Destiny'' had reached over 100,000 units each, with the Apogee game still selling strongly by the end of the year as its reach spread without newer retail titles to compete with it for shelf space. By mid-1994 150,000 shareware copies were registered and id had sold another 150,000 retail copies of ''Spear of Destiny''; the company estimated that one million shareware copies were distributed worldwide. Over 20 percent of its sales were from outside of the US, despite the lack of any marketing or non-English description and despite the game being banned from sale in Germany due to its inclusion of Nazi symbols by the Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons
The Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons (german: link=no, Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien or ''BPjM'') is an upper-level German federal censorship agency subordinate to the Federal Ministry of Family Affair ...
in 1994, and again in 1997 for ''Spear of Destiny''. Japanese gaming magazine ''Famitsu
formerly ''Famicom Tsūshin'', is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly formats as well as in the fo ...
'' reviewed the game five months after release, describing it as: "View from the character's point of view: It's a real shooter. The game is easy to play, and it runs well ... This is the only game of its type." The Apogee episodes' sales vastly exceeded the shareware game sales record set by the developer's earlier ''Commander Keen'' series and provided id with a much higher profit margin than the sales of its retail counterpart; where ''Commander Keen'' games were bringing Apogee around $10,000 a month, ''Wolfenstein 3D'' averaged $200,000 per month for the first year and a half. The game sold 250,000 copies by 1995 and grossed $2.5 million in revenue.
''Wolfenstein 3D'' won the 1992 Best Arcade game award from ''Compute!
''Compute!'' (), often stylized as ''COMPUTE!'', was an American home computer magazine that was published from 1979 to 1994. Its origins can be traced to 1978 in Len Lindsay's ''PET Gazette'', one of the first magazines for the Commodore PET c ...
'', the 1992 Most Innovative Game and Best Action Game awards from ''VideoGames & Computer Entertainment
''VideoGames & Computer Entertainment'' (abbreviated as ''VG&CE'') was an American magazine dedicated to covering video games on computers, home consoles and arcades. It was published by LFP, Inc. from the late 1980s until the mid-1990s. Offe ...
'', the 1992 Reader's Choice — Action/Arcade Game award from ''Game Bytes'', the 1993 Best Action/Arcade Game, Best Entertainment Software, and People's Choice awards at the Shareware Industry Awards The Shareware Industry Awards were a series of awards issued annually by the Shareware Industry Awards Foundation during the Software Industry Conference.
Origin of the Shareware Industry Award
The Software Industry Conference website notes: "The S ...
, the 1993 Best Action Game award from ''Computer Gaming World
''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through ...
'', and a Codie award
The Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) is a trade association dedicated to the entertainment, consumer and business software industries. Established in 1984 as the Software Publishers Association (SPA), the SIIA took its new na ...
from the Software Publishers Association
The Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) is a trade association dedicated to the entertainment, consumer and business software industries. Established in 1984 as the Software Publishers Association (SPA), the SIIA took its new na ...
for Best Action/Arcade Game. It was the first shareware title to win a Codie, and id (with six employees) became the smallest company to ever receive the award. ''Wolfenstein 3D'' was noted as one of the top games of the year at the 1993 Game Developers Conference
The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is an annual conference for video game developers. The event includes an expo, networking events, and awards shows like the Game Developers Choice Awards and Independent Games Festival, and a variety of tutori ...
.
''Wolfenstein 3D'' was well received by reviewers upon its release. Chris Lombardi of ''Computer Gaming World
''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through ...
'' praised the "sparse utgorgeous", "frighteningly realistic", and "extremely violent" graphics, as well as the immersive sound and music. Noting the violence, he warned "those sensitive to such things to stay home". Lombardi concluded that ''Wolfenstein 3D'', alongside ''Ultima Underworld'' released two months prior, was "the first game technologically capable of creating a sufficient element of disbelief–suspension to emotionally immerse the player in a threatening environment", stating that they knew of no other game that could "evoke such intense psychological responses from its players". ''Wolfenstein'' twice received 5 out of 5 stars in ''Dragon
A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...
'' in 1993; Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser termed it "definitely one of the best arcade games ever created for PC", highly praised the graphics and sound, and said that the "fast-paced action" could keep players enthralled for weeks if they were not concerned about the violence. Sandy Petersen
Carl Sanford Joslyn "Sandy" Petersen (born September 16, 1955) is an American game designer. He worked at Chaosium, contributing to the development of ''RuneQuest'' and later creating the acclaimed and influential horror role-playing game ''Call ...
, in the first "Eye of the Monitor" column, claimed that "there is nothing else quite like ''Wolfenstein''" and that it had "evolved almost beyond recognition" from the original 1981 game. He enthusiastically praised the speed and gameplay, calling it "a fun game with lots of action" and "a fun, fairly mindless romp", though he did note that at higher difficulty settings or later levels it became extremely hard. The ''Spear of Destiny'' retail episode was also rated highly by ''Computer Gaming World''s Bryan A. Walker, who praised the added enemy types, though he noted that it was essentially the same game as the shareware episodes. Formgen's ''Spear of Destiny'' mission packs "Return to Danger" and "Ultimate Challenge" were reviewed by Paul Hyman of ''Computer Gaming World'', who praised the updated graphical details and sound, as well as the smooth gameplay, but noted its overall dated graphics and lack of gameplay changes from the original game.
The early ports of the game also received high reviews, though their sales have been described as "dismal". The four reviewers of ''Electronic Gaming Monthly
''Electronic Gaming Monthly'' (often abbreviated to ''EGM'') is a monthly American video game magazine. It offers video game news, coverage of industry events, interviews with gaming figures, editorial content and product reviews.
History
The m ...
'' called the Super NES version a good conversion that retained the good music, huge levels, and overall fun of the original game and dismissed the censoring in the version as inconsequential. In 1995, ''Total!
''Total!'' was a video game magazine published in the United Kingdom by Future plc. It was published monthly for 58 issues, beginning in December 1991 (cover-dated January 1992), with the last issue bearing the cover-date October 1996. A "1993 A ...
'' ranked the game 84th on their "Top 100 SNES Games" list. ''Electronic Gaming Monthly'' rated the Jaguar version similarly to the Super NES version, commenting that the graphics and audio were superior to other versions of the game, but criticizing the faster movement of the player character as making it less fun to play. A ''GamePro
Gamepro.com is an international multiplatform video game magazine media company that covers the video game industry, video game hardware and video game software in countries such as Germany and France. The publication, GamePro, was originally la ...
'' review of the Jaguar port was highly complimentary, saying ''Wolfenstein 3D'' "set a new standard for PC gaming" and that the Jaguar version was the best to date, and better than the original due to its increased graphics and sound capabilities. A '' Next Generation'' review of the Jaguar version was less enthusiastic, terming it good but not up to the standards of newer games. Its review of the Macintosh version of the game was also mild, stating that "there isn't a staggering amount of freshness here, but the action is fast, deadly, and (surprise) addictive". Major Mike of ''GamePro'' commended the 3DO version's complete absence of pixelation
In computer graphics, pixelation (or pixellation in British English) is caused by displaying a bitmap or a section of a bitmap at such a large size that individual pixels, small single-colored square display elements that comprise the bitmap, a ...
, fast scaling, "rousing" music, and high quality sound effects, but criticized the controls as overly sensitive. He concluded that the game, then over three years old, "still packs a punch as a first-person shooter". ''Wolfenstein 3D'' won ''GamePro''s Best 3DO Game of 1995 award, beating the acclaimed ''The Need for Speed
''Road & Track Presents: The Need for Speed'' is a racing video game developed by EA Canada, originally known as Pioneer Productions, and published by Electronic Arts, released for the 3DO in 1994, and ported to MS-DOS in 1995. Another versio ...
'' and '' D''. ''Maximum'', on the other hand, while stating that the 3DO port was better than the original and as good as the Jaguar version, felt that it was so aged compared to recent releases like '' Hexen: Beyond Heretic'' and the PlayStation version of ''Doom
Doom is another name for damnation.
Doom may also refer to:
People
* Doom (professional wrestling), the tag team of Ron Simmons and Butch Reed
* Daniel Doom (born 1934), Belgian cyclist
* Debbie Doom (born 1963), American softball pitcher
* L ...
'' that a new port was pointless, with the game now "somewhat tiresome and very, very repetitive". A reviewer for '' Next Generation'' asserted that ''Wolfenstein 3D'' was "still as addictive
Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to engage in certain behaviors, one of which is the usage of a drug, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences. Repetitive drug use oft ...
as it ever was" but essentially agreed with ''Maximum'', contending that anyone interested in first-person shooters would have either already played it on another platform or "moved on" to more advanced games in the genre. More modern reviews include one for the Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation ...
port in 2009 by Ryan McCaffrey of ''Official Xbox Magazine
''Official Xbox Magazine'' (or OXM for short) was a British monthly video game magazine which started in November 2001 around the launch of the original Xbox. A preview issue was released at E3 2001, with another preview issue in November 2001. Th ...
'', who heavily criticized it for non-existent enemy AI and bad level design and found it notably inferior to ''Doom
Doom is another name for damnation.
Doom may also refer to:
People
* Doom (professional wrestling), the tag team of Ron Simmons and Butch Reed
* Daniel Doom (born 1934), Belgian cyclist
* Debbie Doom (born 1963), American softball pitcher
* L ...
'', and one that same year by Daemon Hatfield of IGN
''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...
, who gave the PlayStation Network release of the game a warm reception, saying that while it was "dated and flawed", it was "required playing for any first-person shooter fan".
Legacy
''Wolfenstein 3D'' has been called the "grandfather of 3D shooters", specifically first-person shooters, because it established the fast-paced action and technical prowess commonly expected in the genre and greatly increased the genre's popularity. Although some prior computer shooting-based games existed, they were generally scrolling shooters
Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs
) are a sub-genre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of chara ...
, while ''Wolfenstein 3D'' helped move the market towards first-person shooters. It has also been credited with confirming shareware distribution as a serious and profitable business strategy at the time; ''VideoGames & Computer Entertainment'' claimed in September 1992 that the game "justified the existence of shareware", and in July 1993 ''Computer Gaming World'' claimed that it "almost single-handedly" demonstrated the viability of shareware as a method of publishing, leading to a wave of other shareware first-person shooters. The game's high revenue compared to prior, smaller 2D titles led Apogee as well as others in the shareware games industry to move towards larger, 3D titles built by larger development teams.
During development, id approached Sierra Entertainment
Sierra Entertainment, Inc. (formerly On-Line Systems and Sierra On-Line, Inc.) was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1979 by Ken and Roberta Williams. The company is known for pioneering the graphic adventure game genre, ...
, then one of the biggest companies in the industry and employer of several of their idols, with the goal of seeing if they could make a deal with the company. After viewing ''Commander Keen'' and an early version of ''Wolfenstein 3D'', CEO Ken Williams offered to buy id Software for US$2.5 million and turn it into an in-house development studio. The team was excited by the deal, but had felt there was a large culture clash between the two companies during their visit to Sierra and were hesitant to accept; Romero proposed asking for US$100,000 in cash up front as part of the deal rather than solely accepting payment in Sierra stock as a measure of Williams's seriousness. Williams refused, which id interpreted to mean that Williams did not truly recognize the potential of ''Wolfenstein 3D'' and the company, and the deal fell through, causing id to decide to remain an independent company for the foreseeable future. By the end of 1993 just before the release of their next game, ''Doom'', the success of ''Wolfenstein 3D'' led id to receive multiple calls every month from investment companies looking to make id a publicly-traded company, which were all turned down. In 1996, ''Computer Gaming World'' declared ''Wolfenstein 3-D'' the 97th-best computer game ever released.
The game is also recognized as the principal cause for Germany banning video games that contain certain types of symbols and imagery from extremist groups like Nazis under its ''Strafgesetzbuch'' section 86a up through 2018. Section 86a had "social adequacy" allowances for works of art, but in 1998, a High District Frankfurt Court case evaluating the Nazi imagery within ''Wolfenstein 3D'' determined that video games did not fall under this allowance. The court ruled that because video games drew younger audiences, "this could lead to them growing up with these symbols and insignias and thereby becoming used to them, which again could make them more vulnerable for ideological manipulation by national socialist ideas". Up through 2018, the Germany software ratings board, the Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle
Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle (''Entertainment Software Self-Regulation'', abbreviated USK) is the organisation responsible for video game ratings in Germany. In Austria, it is mandatory in the state of Salzburg, while PEGI is mandator ...
(USK) refused to rate any game that included inappropriate symbols and imagery, effectively banning the game for sale within the country. By May 2018, a new court ruling was made in response to a parody web browser game, in which the Public Prosecutor's Office
Public prosecutor's offices are criminal justice bodies attached to the judiciary.
They are separate from the courts in Germany, Austria and the German-speaking parts of Switzerland, and are called the Staatsanwaltschaft.
This kind of office als ...
confirmed there were no breaches of the law in the game's content. Following this, the ban was reversed by the German government in August, having determined that the ''Wolfenstein 3D'' decision was outdated since the USK now included age ratings alongside other content warnings, and that video games should be considered as art under the social adequacy allowance. In November 2019, ''Wolfenstein 3D'' was formally struck from the "Index", the list of games banned from sale in Germany.
After the game's release, id Software licensed the engine to other developers, like the ''Commander Keen'' engine before it, as part of a series of engine licensing deals that id has made throughout its history; games using the ''Wolfenstein 3D'' engine or derivatives of it include '' Blake Stone'', the Capstone Software
Capstone Software was a subsidiary of IntraCorp, a Miami-based computer and video game company. Founded in 1984, Capstone created first-person games such as ''Corridor 7: Alien Invasion'', ''William Shatner's TekWar'' and ''Witchaven'', and is als ...
games '' Corridor 7'' and ''Operation Body Count
''Operation Body Count'' is a 1994 first-person shooter that uses the ''Wolfenstein 3D'' engine. It was developed and published by Capstone Software.
Plot
Terrorists have taken over the headquarters of the United Nations and have seized the gover ...
'', as well as ''Super 3D Noah's Ark
''Super 3D Noah's Ark'' is a Christian video game developed by Wisdom Tree for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and was ported a year later to MS-DOS, and re-released in 2015 on Steam for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. The ga ...
''. Apogee intended to produce an expansion pack in 1993 titled ''Rise of the Triad: Wolfenstein 3D Part II'', designed by Tom Hall using the ''Wolfenstein 3D'' engine, but during development the game was changed into a stand-alone title with an enhanced engine, ''Rise of the Triad
''Rise of the Triad: Dark War'' is a first-person shooter video game, developed and published by Apogee Software (now 3D Realms) in 1995. The player can choose one of five different characters to play as, each bearing unique attributes such as ...
''. Additionally, Softdisk produced ''Catacomb Abyss'' using the prototype ''Wolfenstein 3D'' engine from ''Catacomb 3-D'' as part of the '' Catacomb Adventure Series'' trilogy of sequels. Although ''Wolfenstein 3D'' was not designed to be editable or modified, players developed character and level editors to create original alterations to the game's content. John Carmack and Romero, who had played numerous mods of other games, were delighted, and overrode any concerns about copyright issues by the others. The modding efforts of ''Wolfenstein'' players led id Software to explicitly design later titles like ''Doom'' and '' Quake'' to be easily modifiable by players, even including the map editing tools id Software used with the games. The source code for the original ''Wolfenstein 3D'' engine was released by id in 1995; when making the 2009 iOS port, Carmack used some of the enhancements to the engine made by fans after its release. The game's technical achievements also led to numerous imitators such as ''Ken's Labyrinth
''Ken's Labyrinth'' is a first-person shooter for MS-DOS published in 1993 by Epic MegaGames. It was programmed by Ken Silverman, who later designed the Build engine used for rendering in 3D Realms's ''Duke Nukem 3D'' (1996). Ken's Labyrinth con ...
'', '' Nitemare 3D'', '' The Terminator: Rampage'', ''Terminal Terror
''Terminal Terror'' is the fifth full-length album release by the German thrash metal band Holy Moses
Holy Moses is a German thrash metal band active from 1980 to 1994 and again since 2000. They are well noted for being fronted by Sabina Cl ...
'' and '' The Fortress of Dr. Radiaki'', among others.
Although id Software did not develop another ''Wolfenstein'' game, as their development focus shifted to ''Doom'' shortly after release, and has never returned to the series, multiple ''Wolfenstein'' titles have been produced by other companies, sometimes using game engines developed by id. The first of these newer ''Wolfenstein'' games was ''Return to Castle Wolfenstein
''Return to Castle Wolfenstein'' is a first-person shooter video game published by Activision, released on November 19, 2001, for Microsoft Windows and subsequently for PlayStation 2, Xbox, Linux and Macintosh. The game serves as a reboot of the ...
'' in 2001, a reboot
In computing, rebooting is the process by which a running computer system is restarted, either intentionally or unintentionally. Reboots can be either a cold reboot (alternatively known as a hard reboot) in which the power to the system is physi ...
of the series, and the most recent titles are the 2019 games '' Wolfenstein: Youngblood'' and '' Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot''.
Notes
References
Sources
*
*
*
*
*
External links
*
''Wolfenstein 3D'' engine source code
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wolfenstein 3d
1992 video games
3D Realms games
3DO Interactive Multiplayer games
Acorn Archimedes games
Activision games
Alternate history video games
Amiga 1200 games
Amiga games
AmigaOS 4 games
Apogee games
Apple IIGS games
Atari games
Atari Jaguar games
Browser games
Cancelled Atari Lynx games
Cancelled Sega Genesis games
Commercial video games with freely available source code
Cultural depictions of Adolf Hitler
DOS games
First-person shooters
Game Boy Advance games
Games commercially released with DOSBox
Experimental medical treatments in fiction
Id Software games
Imagineer games
Interplay Entertainment games
IOS games
Classic Mac OS games
NEC PC-9801 games
Obscenity controversies in video games
PlayStation 3 games
PlayStation Network games
Shareware
Single-player video games
Sprite-based first-person shooters
Super Nintendo Entertainment System games
Censored video games
Video games about Nazi Germany
Video games scored by Bobby Prince
Video games with 2.5D graphics
Windows Mobile Professional games
Windows Mobile Standard games
Wolfenstein
Wolfenstein 3D engine games
World War II first-person shooters
Xbox 360 Live Arcade games
Video games about zombies
Video games developed in the United States
FormGen games