Misplaced Pages

#433566

157-484: MegaTexture is a clipmap implementation developed by id Software and introduced in their id Tech 4 engine. MegaTexture is a texture allocation technique that uses a single, extremely large texture rather than repeating multiple smaller textures. It is also featured in Splash Damage 's game Enemy Territory: Quake Wars , and was developed by id Software former technical director John Carmack . MegaTexture employs

314-458: A Return to Castle Wolfenstein movie is in development which re-teams the Silent Hill writer/producer team, Roger Avary as writer and director and Samuel Hadida as producer. A new Doom film, titled Doom: Annihilation , was released in 2019, although id itself stressed its lack of involvement. id Software was the target of controversy over two of their most popular games, Doom and

471-471: A first-person shooter (FPS) with smooth 3D graphics that were unprecedented in computer games, and with violent gameplay that many gamers found engaging. After essentially founding an entire genre with this game, id Software created Doom , Doom II: Hell on Earth , Quake , Quake II , Quake III Arena , Quake 4 , and Doom 3 . Each of these first-person shooters featured progressively higher levels of graphical technology. Wolfenstein 3D spawned

628-510: A virtual reality 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 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 version of the game had three releases: The First Encounter ,

785-467: 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 anthem of the Nazi Party , 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

942-496: A European ship date of September 15, 2011. During the keynote, id Software also demonstrated a Rage spin-off title running on the iPhone . This technology demo later became Rage HD . The game was ultimately released in October 2011. On May 14, 2018, Bethesda Softworks announced Rage 2 , a co-development between id Software and Avalanche Studios . During its early days, id Software produced much more varied games; these include

1099-541: 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,

1256-547: A Linux client available, the only current exceptions being Wolfenstein and Brink . Similarly, almost all of the games utilizing the Quake II engine have Linux ports, the only exceptions being those created by Ion Storm ( Daikatana later received a community port ). Despite fears by the Linux gaming community that id Tech 5 would not be ported to that platform, Timothee Besset in his blog stated "I'll be damned if we don't find

1413-409: 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 systems . 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

1570-405: A cultural phenomenon and its violent theme would eventually launch a new wave of criticism decrying the dangers of violence in video games. Doom was ported to numerous platforms, inspired many knock-offs, and was eventually followed by the technically similar Doom II: Hell on Earth . id Software made its mark in video game history with the shareware release of Doom , and eventually revisited

1727-414: A fast 3D game engine by restricting the gameplay and viewpoint to a single plane , producing Hovertank 3D and Catacomb 3-D as prototypes. After a design session prompted the company to shift from the family-friendly Keen to a more violent theme, programmer John Romero suggested remaking the 1981 stealth shooter Castle Wolfenstein as a fast-paced action game. He and designer Tom Hall designed

SECTION 10

#1732875800434

1884-415: A feature from Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss , a role-playing game in development by Blue Sky Productions . Ultima Underworld was planned to display texture-mapped 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

2041-493: A few modifications. Due to the limited features and relatively low sound quality, modern games no longer use IMF music. A large number of songs in id Software's early games (such as Commander Keen and Wolfenstein 3D ) were composed by Bobby Prince in IMF format. Other game developers like Apogee Software also used this format in their games (such as Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure , Duke Nukem II , and Monster Bash ). id Software

2198-883: A leading supporter of the Linux platform because we believe it is a technically sound OS and is the OS of choice for many server ops." However, on April 25, 2012, Carmack revealed that "there are no plans for a native Linux client" of id's most recent game, Rage . In February 2013, Carmack argued for improving emulation as the "proper technical direction for gaming on Linux", though this was also due to ZeniMax's refusal to support "unofficial binaries", given all prior ports (except for Quake III Arena , via Loki Software , and earlier versions of Quake Live ) having only ever been unofficial. Carmack didn't mention official games Quake: The Offering and Quake II: Colossus ported by id Software to Linux and published by Macmillan Computer Publishing USA. Despite no longer releasing native binaries, id

2355-466: A lowercase id , which is pronounced as in "did" or "kid", and, according to the book Masters of Doom , the group identified itself as "Ideas from the Deep" in the early days of Softdisk but that, in the end, the name 'id' came from the phrase "in demand". Disliking "in demand" as "lame", someone suggested a connection with Sigmund Freud 's psychological concept of id , which the others accepted. Evidence of

2512-433: 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 , then one of the biggest companies in the industry and employer of several of their idols, with

2669-419: 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! , the 1992 Most Innovative Game and Best Action Game awards from VideoGames & Computer Entertainment , the 1992 Reader's Choice — Action/Arcade Game award from Game Bytes ,

2826-659: A period of school shootings in the United States when it was found that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold , who committed the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, were avid players of the game. While planning for the massacre, Harris said that the killing would be "like playing Doom ", and "it'll be like the LA riots , the Oklahoma bombing , World War II , Vietnam , Duke Nukem and Doom all mixed together", and that his shotgun

2983-722: A plot to build a nuclear weapon or summon demons . In October–December 1990, a team of employees from programming studio Softdisk calling themselves Ideas from the Deep developed the three-part video game Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons , the first game in the Commander Keen series. The group, who worked at Softdisk in Shreveport, Louisiana , developing games for the Gamer's Edge video game subscription service and disk magazine ,

3140-426: A prequel and a sequel: the prequel called Spear of Destiny , and the second, Return to Castle Wolfenstein , using the id Tech 3 engine . A third Wolfenstein sequel, simply titled Wolfenstein , was released by Raven Software , using the id Tech 4 engine . Another sequel, named Wolfenstein: The New Order ; was developed by MachineGames using the id Tech 5 engine and released in 2014, with it getting

3297-578: A prequel by the name of Wolfenstein: The Old Blood a year later; followed by a direct sequel titled Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus in 2017. Eighteen months after their release of Wolfenstein 3D , on December 10, 1993, id Software released Doom which would again set new standards for graphic quality and graphic violence in computer gaming. Doom featured a sci-fi / horror setting with graphic quality that had never been seen on personal computers or even video game consoles . Doom became

SECTION 20

#1732875800434

3454-558: A rudimentary 3D game engine that used animated 2D sprites for enemies. Id Software then used the engine for the April 1991 Softdisk game Hovertank 3D , 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 , and he had largely finished the engine work for Commander Keen in Goodbye, Galaxy , Carmack decided to implement

3611-492: 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 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 Heineman as

3768-543: A side-scrolling game that incorporated the previous work they had done on the Super Mario Bros. 3 demonstration. The first Commander Keen game, Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons , was released through Apogee in December 1990, which became a very successful shareware game. After their first royalty check, Romero, Carmack, and Adrian Carmack (no relation) decided to start their own company. After hiring Hall,

3925-530: 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

4082-404: A single large texture space for static terrain. The texture is stored on removable media or a computer's hard drive and streamed as needed, allowing large amounts of detail and variation over a large area with comparatively little RAM usage. Depending on the pixel resolution per square meter, covering a large area could require several gigabytes of memory. However, RAM is also filled by the rest of

4239-512: A small group they called Ideas from the Deep (IFD), a name that Romero and Roathe had come up with. In September 1990, Carmack developed an efficient way to rapidly side-scroll graphics on the PC . Upon making this breakthrough, Carmack and Hall stayed up late into the night making a replica of the first level of the popular 1988 NES game Super Mario Bros. 3 , inserting stock graphics of Romero's Dangerous Dave character in lieu of Mario. When Romero saw

4396-420: A third Keen trilogy, recognized that Carmack's programming focus had shifted from the 2D side-scrolling platform game 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 . The team was interested in the idea, as Romero, Hall, and John Carmack all had fond memories of the original title and felt

4553-578: A weapons research facility of the scientist responsible for developing the weaponry. "Trail of the Madman" takes place in Castle Erlangen , 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 ,

4710-496: Is a first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Apogee Software and FormGen . Originally released on May 5, 1992, for DOS , it was inspired by the 1981 Muse Software video game Castle Wolfenstein , and is the third installment in the Wolfenstein series. In Wolfenstein 3D , the player assumes the role of Allied spy William "B.J." Blazkowicz during World War II as he escapes from

4867-507: Is an audio file format created by id Software for the AdLib sound card for use in their video games. The format is similar to MIDI , in that it defines musical notes, and does not support sampled digital audio for sound effects. IMF files store the actual bytes sent to the AdLib's OPL2 chip, which uses FM synthesis to produce audio output. The format is based on the AdLib command syntax, with

Clipmap - Misplaced Pages Continue

5024-637: Is designed for unique texture-mapping everywhere, their system is designed to use storage space sparingly while still offering good blend of texture variation and resolution. Id Software id Software LLC ( / ɪ d / ) 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 artist Adrian Carmack . id Software made important technological developments in video game technologies for

5181-444: 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 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

5338-499: Is themed after Nazi 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 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 . The player can find weapons and ammunition placed in

5495-595: The Atari Jaguar version was confiscated following a verdict by the Amtsgericht Berlin Tiergarten on December 7, 1994. The Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle lifted the outright ban in 2018 in favor of analysing depictions on a case-by-case basis, and the international version of the game was removed from the list of banned titles in 2019. Due to concerns from Nintendo of America, the Super NES version

5652-498: The Doom series Doom novels . After a brief hiatus from publishing, id resumed and re-launched the novel series in 2008 with Matthew J. Costello 's (a story consultant for Doom 3 and now Rage ) new Doom 3 novels: Worlds on Fire and Maelstrom . id Software became involved in film development when they oversaw the film adaption of their Doom franchise in 2005. In August 2007, Todd Hollenshead stated at QuakeCon 2007 that

5809-537: The Game Boy Advance (2002), Xbox Live Arcade , and PlayStation Network . 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 release for PC, macOS, and Linux includes all of the FormGen episodes. Bethesda Softworks , whose parent company bought id Software in 2009, celebrated

5966-581: The Keen engine, but also how it worked internally. id Software has developed their own game engine for each of their titles when moving to the next technological milestone, including Commander Keen , Wolfenstein 3D , ShadowCaster , Doom , Quake , Quake II , and Quake III , as well as the technology used in making Doom 3 . After being used first for id Software's in-house game, the engines are licensed out to other developers. According to Eurogamer.net , "id Software has been synonymous with PC game engines since

6123-592: The Nazi German prison Castle Wolfenstein and carries out a series of crucial missions against the Nazis. The player traverses each of the game's levels to find an elevator to the next level or kill a final boss , fighting Nazi soldiers, dogs, and other enemies with a knife and a variety of guns. Wolfenstein 3D was the second major independent release by id Software, after the Commander Keen series of episodes. In mid-1991, programmer John Carmack experimented with making

6280-412: The PC (running MS-DOS and Windows ), including work done for the Wolfenstein , Doom , and Quake franchises at the time. id's work was particularly important in 3D computer graphics technology and in game engines that are used throughout the video game industry . The company was involved in the creation of the first-person shooter (FPS) genre: Wolfenstein 3D is often considered to be

6437-572: The demo , entitled Dangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement , he realized that Carmack's breakthrough could have potential. The IFD team moonlighted over a week and over two weekends to create a larger demo of their PC version of Super Mario Bros. 3 . They sent their work to Nintendo . According to Romero, Nintendo had told them that the demo was impressive, but "they didn't want their intellectual property on anything but their own hardware, so they told us Good Job and You Can't Do This". While

Clipmap - Misplaced Pages Continue

6594-402: The id Tech 5 engine, uses a more advanced technique called virtual texturing. Textures can measure up to 128000×128000 pixels and are also used for in-game models and sprites, etc. and not just the terrain. Wolfenstein: The New Order and the 2016 version of Doom also use these. Carmageddon: Reincarnation also uses virtual texturing, though unlike id's virtual texturing system, which

6751-569: The swastika and the anthem of the Nazi Party , Horst-Wessel-Lied , as theme music, the PC version of the game was withdrawn from circulation in Germany in 1994, following a verdict by the Amtsgericht München on January 25, 1994. Despite the fact that Nazis are portrayed as the enemy in Wolfenstein , the use of those symbols is a federal offense in Germany unless certain circumstances apply. Similarly,

6908-558: The 1990s). They continued this policy with the Wii U but for Nintendo Switch , they collaborated with Panic Button starting with 2016's Doom and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus . Since id Software revealed their engine id Tech 5 , they call their engines " id Tech ", followed by a version number. Older engines have retroactively been renamed to fit this scheme, with the Doom engine as id Tech 1. IMF ("id music file" or "id's music format")

7065-547: The 1993 Best Action/Arcade Game, Best Entertainment Software, and People's Choice awards at the Shareware Industry Awards , the 1993 Best Action Game award from Computer Gaming World , and a Codie award from the Software Publishers Association 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

7222-399: The 20th anniversary of Wolfenstein 3D ' s release by producing a free-to-play browser-based version of the game in 2012, though the website was removed a few years later. 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

7379-403: The 3D technology that underlies modern shooter video games. The Quake series continued with Quake II in 1997. Activision purchased a 49% stake in id Software, making it a second party which took publishing duties until 2009. However, the game is not a storyline sequel, and instead focuses on an assault on an alien planet, Stroggos, in retaliation for Strogg attacks on Earth . Most of

7536-565: The Germany software ratings board, the Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle (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 confirmed there were no breaches of the law in the game's content. Following this,

7693-586: The Internet (especially through the add-on QuakeWorld ), seared the title into the minds of gamers as another smash hit. In 2008, id Software was honored at the 59th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for the pioneering work Quake represented in user modifiable games. id Software is the only game development company ever honored twice by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences , having been given an Emmy Award in 2007 for creation of

7850-478: 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

8007-520: The Nazi plan to create an army of undead mutants in Castle Hollehammer, while in "Die, Führer, Die!" he infiltrates a bunker under the Reichstag , culminating in a battle with Adolf Hitler in a robotic suit equipped with four chain guns . The Nocturnal Missions form a prequel storyline dealing with German plans for chemical warfare . "A Dark Secret" deals with the initial pursuit through

SECTION 50

#1732875800434

8164-666: The PSP, the Nintendo DS and more. Impressive core modifications include GZDoom , which adds to the Doom engine modern hardware accelerared renderers and a scripting system called ZScript, and was also utilized in the creation of ECWolf for Wolfenstein 3D and Raze for the Build engine . Meanwhile DarkPlaces adds stencil shadow volumes into the original Quake engine along with a more efficient network protocol. Other projects include Yamagi Quake II , ioquake3 , and dhewm3 , which maintain

8321-525: 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! 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

8478-589: 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 . 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

8635-545: The award. Wolfenstein 3D was noted as one of the top games of the year at the 1993 Game Developers Conference . Wolfenstein 3D was well received by reviewers upon its release. Chris Lombardi of Computer Gaming World praised the "sparse [but] gorgeous", "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,

8792-556: 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

8949-489: 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 , 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

9106-508: 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 chiefly in ANSI C , with its scaling and ray casting routines written in assembly . The graphics for

9263-565: 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 in 1994, and again in 1997 for Spear of Destiny . Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu reviewed

9420-436: The company out to Mesquite, Texas , 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 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

9577-704: The concept of a detached game engine was first popularized". During the mid to late 1990s, "the launch of each successive round of technology it's been expected to occupy a headlining position", with the Quake III engine being most widely adopted of their engines. However id Tech 4 had far fewer licensees than the Unreal Engine from Epic Games , due to the long development time that went into Doom 3 which id Software had to release before licensing out that engine to others. Despite his enthusiasm for open source code, Carmack revealed in 2011 that he had no interest in licensing

SECTION 60

#1732875800434

9734-402: 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 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

9891-467: 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 ,

10048-741: The decently popular Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion . In the Haunted Mansion was powered by the same engine as the earlier id Software game Shadow Knights , which was one of the several games written by id Software to fulfill their contractual obligation to produce games for Softdisk , where the id Software founders had been employed. id Software has also overseen several games using its technology that were not made in one of their IPs such as ShadowCaster , (early- id Tech 1 ), Heretic , Hexen: Beyond Heretic (id Tech 1), Hexen II ( Quake engine ), and Orcs and Elves ( Doom RPG engine). id Software has also published novels based on

10205-450: The earlier Wolfenstein 3D . More recently in 2022, id Software found themselves mired in a controversy concerning libel against Doom Eternal's composer. Doom was notorious for its high levels of gore and occultism along with satanic imagery, which generated controversy from a broad range of groups. Yahoo! Games listed it as one of the top ten most controversial games of all time. The game again sparked controversy throughout

10362-467: The early 3D first-person shooter experiments that led to Wolfenstein 3D and Doom – Hovertank 3D and Catacomb 3D . There was also the Rescue Rover series, which had two games – Rescue Rover and Rescue Rover 2 . Also there was John Romero 's Dangerous Dave series, which included such notables as the tech demo ( In Copyright Infringement ) which led to the Commander Keen engine, and

10519-469: The equivalent of the texel: the sparse voxel octree (SVO). It works by raycasting the geometry represented by voxels (instead of triangles) stored in an octree . The goal being to be able to stream parts of the octree into video memory, going further down along the tree for nearby objects to give them more details, and to use higher level, larger voxels for farther objects, which give an automatic level of detail (LOD) system for both geometry and textures at

10676-423: 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

10833-438: The first part of their trilogy as shareware, then sell the other two installments by mail order . Only later (about the time of the release of Doom II ) did id Software release their games via more traditional shrink-wrapped boxes in stores (through other game publishers ). After Wolfenstein 3D ' s great success, id began working on Doom . After Hall left the company, Sandy Petersen and Dave Taylor were hired before

10990-610: The first true FPS; Doom is a game that popularized the genre and PC gaming in general; and Quake was id's first true 3D FPS. On June 24, 2009, ZeniMax Media acquired the company. In 2015, they opened a second studio in Frankfurt , Germany. The founders of id Software – John Carmack , John Romero , and Tom Hall – met in the offices of Softdisk based in Shreveport, Louisiana , developing multiple games for Softdisk's monthly publishing, including Dangerous Dave . Along with another Softdisk employee, Lane Roathe, they had formed

11147-403: The game allows the player to save their progress at any point, though in many of its ports the player can only save between levels. 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

11304-497: The game and the underlying operating system, limiting the amount available for texturing. As the player moves around the game, different sections of the MegaTexture are loaded into memory. They are then scaled to the correct size and applied to the 3D models of the terrain. Id has presented a more advanced technique that builds upon the MegaTexture idea and virtualizes both the geometry and the textures to obtain unique geometry down to

11461-486: 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

11618-509: The game to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (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 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

11775-507: The game were planned to be in 16 color EGA , but were changed to 256 color VGA 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 's Deluxe Paint II . Initially

11932-586: 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 games Corridor 7 and Operation Body Count , as well as Super 3D Noah's Ark . Apogee intended to produce an expansion pack in 1993 titled Rise of

12089-445: 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 and sound effects and music by Bobby Prince . The game was released through Apogee in two sets of three episodes under the shareware model, in which the first episode is released for free to drive interest in paying for the rest. An additional episode, Spear of Destiny ,

12246-411: The game, but criticizing the faster movement of the player character as making it less fun to play. A GamePro 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

12403-420: The game, or what is more commonly known as the engine. Brainstormed by John Romero , id Software held a weekend session titled "The id Summer Seminar" in the summer of 1991 with prospective buyers including Scott Miller , George Broussard , Ken Rogoway, Jim Norwood and Todd Replogle . One of the nights, id Software put together an impromptu game known as "Wac-Man" to demonstrate not only the technical prowess of

12560-449: 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

12717-429: 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

12874-598: 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 , 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 , which until then

13031-517: The genre. More modern reviews include one for the Xbox 360 port in 2009 by Ryan McCaffrey of Official Xbox Magazine , who heavily criticized it for non-existent enemy AI and bad level design and found it notably inferior to Doom , and one that same year by Daemon Hatfield of IGN , who gave the PlayStation Network release of the game a warm reception, saying that while it was "dated and flawed", it

13188-457: The goal of cleaning up the source code, adding features and fixing bugs. Even earlier id Software code, namely for Hovertank 3D and Catacomb 3D , was released in June 2014 by Flat Rock Software . The GPL release of the Quake III engine's source code was moved from the end of 2004 to August 2005 as the engine was still being licensed to commercial customers who would otherwise be concerned over

13345-478: 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

13502-462: The group finished the Commander Keen series, then hired Jay Wilbur and Kevin Cloud and began working on Wolfenstein 3D . id Software was officially founded by Romero, John and Adrian Carmack and Hall on February 1, 1991. The name "id" came out of their previous IFD; Roathe had left the group, and they opted to drop the "F" to leave "id". They initially used "id" as an initialism for "In Demand", but by

13659-409: The guise of multiple fan letters that Romero came to realize all originated from the same address. When he confronted Miller, Miller explained that the deception was necessary since Softdisk screened letters it received. Although disappointed by not actually having received mail from multiple fans, Romero and other Softdisk developers began proposing ideas to Miller. One of these was Commander Keen ,

13816-586: 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 as an assistant artist, and moved

13973-475: The idea of doing a retail Wolfenstein project to FormGen , which had published id's December 1991 Commander Keen in Aliens Ate My Babysitter , 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. The project officially began on December 15, 1991. Romero and Hall designed

14130-420: 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

14287-509: 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 port programmed by John Carmack himself was released in 2009. An unofficial port for the Game Boy Color was made in 2016. An Android port titled Wolfenstein 3D Touch (later renamed ECWolf ) was released and published by Beloko Games. Other releases include

14444-416: The killers—like the vast majority of young teenage boys—did play video games, this study did not find a relationship between gameplay and school shootings. In fact, only one-eighth of the shooters showed any special interest in violent video games, far less than the number of shooters who seemed attracted to books and movies with violent content. As for Wolfenstein 3D , due to its use of Nazi symbols such as

14601-480: The lack of a team leader was the cause of it all. In fact, he volunteered to take lead as he had five years of experience as project manager in MicroProse but he was turned down by Carmack. On June 24, 2009, it was announced that id Software had been acquired by ZeniMax Media (owner of Bethesda Softworks ). The deal would eventually affect publishing deals id Software had before the acquisition, namely Rage , which

14758-430: The levels or can collect them from dead enemies; weapons include a knife, a pistol, a submachine gun, and a rapid-fire chain gun . The player can also find keys that allow them to pass through locked doors. 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

14915-436: 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

15072-405: The licensing to the market beginning with Unreal Engine 3. Even though the said company has gained more success with its game engine than id Software over the years, Carmack had no regrets by his decision and continued to focus on open source until his departure from the company in 2013. In conjunction with his self-professed affinity for sharing source code , John Carmack has open-sourced most of

15229-560: The major id Software engines under the GNU General Public License . Historically, the source code for each engine has been released once the code base is 5 years old. Consequently, many home grown projects have sprung up porting the code to different platforms, cleaning up the source code, or providing major modifications to the core engine. Wolfenstein 3D , Doom and Quake engine ports are ubiquitous to nearly all platforms capable of running games, such as hand-held PCs, iPods,

15386-635: 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 , Nitemare 3D , The Terminator: Rampage , Terminal Terror 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

15543-421: 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 to make

15700-513: 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

15857-400: 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

16014-524: The new engine called id Tech 5 . Later that year, at QuakeCon 2007, the title of the new game was revealed as Rage . On July 14, 2008, id Software announced at the 2008 E3 event that they would be publishing Rage through Electronic Arts , and not id's longtime publisher Activision . However, since then ZeniMax has also announced that they are publishing Rage through Bethesda Softworks . On August 12, 2010, during Quakecon 2010, id Software announced Rage US ship date of September 13, 2011, and

16171-458: The original Apogee release, both of which were cancelled. A pushable wall maze led to a sign reading "Call Apogee and say Aardwolf " ("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 programs for the game soon after release led id and Apogee to give up on

16328-447: The pair had not readily shared the demo though acknowledged its existence in the years since, a working copy of the demo was discovered in July 2021 and preserved at the Museum of Play . Around the same time in 1990, Scott Miller of Apogee Software learned of the group and their exceptional talent, having played one of Romero's Softdisk games, Dangerous Dave , and contacted Romero under

16485-556: The port by March 1993. This version was written in C and compiled in the 65816 assembly language, making use of binary space partitioning rather than raycasting in order to give it speed. Carmack had to resize existing images to fit the SNES resolution. Nintendo 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

16642-402: 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. The game itself, however, had to be slowed down to work properly on the console. Wolfenstein 3D has also been ported to numerous other platforms. In 1993, Alternate Worlds Technology licensed Wolfenstein 3D and converted it into

16799-420: 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 , 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

16956-400: The process of creating music for the soundtrack. Following this, public outcry against Gordon reached a level where he received explicit death threats and graphic messages of intent to harm him and his family. Gordon's message accounts, servers, and phones were allegedly inundated with abuse to extreme levels, seriously impacting his mental health. Wolfenstein 3D Wolfenstein 3D

17113-414: The reference can be found as early as Wolfenstein 3D with the statement "that's id, as in the id, ego, and superego in the psyche" appearing in the game's documentation. Prior to an update to the website, id's History page made a direct reference to Freud. Arranged in chronological order: Starting with their first shareware game series, Commander Keen , id Software has licensed the core source code for

17270-464: The release of Doom in December 1993. Quake was released on June 22, 1996 and was considered a difficult game to develop due to creative differences. Animosity grew within the company and it caused a conflict between Carmack and Romero, which led the latter to leave id after the game's release. Soon after, other staff left the company as well such as Michael Abrash , Shawn Green, Jay Wilbur, Petersen and Mike Wilson. Petersen claimed in July 2021 that

17427-524: 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 in 1998. There were two intended promotions associated with

17584-672: 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

17741-426: The same time. The geometric detail that can be obtained using this method is nearly infinite, which removes the need for faking 3-dimensional details with techniques such as normal mapping . Despite that most voxel rendering tests use very large amounts of memory (up to several GB), Jon Olick of id Software claimed the technology is able to compress such SVO to 1.15 bits per voxel of position data. Rage , powered by

17898-472: The sequel to the 2016 Doom , Doom Eternal was officially announced at E3 2018 with a teaser trailer, followed by a gameplay reveal at QuakeCon in August 2018. On June 22, 1996, the release of Quake marked the third milestone in id Software history. Quake combined a cutting edge fully 3D engine, the Quake engine , with a distinctive art style to create critically acclaimed graphics for its time. Audio

18055-513: 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 called

18212-399: The source code for free in 1995, and multiple other games in the Wolfenstein series have been developed by other companies since 2001. Wolfenstein 3D is a first-person shooter presented with rudimentary 3D graphics . The game is broken up into levels , 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

18369-546: The source code for some of their previous games, several games which were not ported (such as Catacomb 3D , Catacomb Abyss , Wolfenstein 3D , Spear of Destiny , Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold , Blake Stone: Planet Strike , Super 3D Noah's Ark , Rise of the Triad , Doom 64 , Strife , Heretic , Hexen , Hexen II , Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force Holomatch , Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast , Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy ) can run on Linux and other operating systems natively through

18526-403: 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

18683-409: 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

18840-678: The subsequent entries in the Quake franchise follow this storyline. Quake III Arena (1999), the next title in the series, has minimal plot, but centers around the "Arena Eternal", a gladiatorial setting created by an alien race known as the Vadrigar and populated by combatants plucked from various points in time and space. Among these combatants are some characters either drawn from or based on those in Doom (" Doomguy "), Quake (Ranger, Wrack), and Quake II (Bitterman, Tank Jr., Grunt, Stripe). Quake IV (2005) picks up where Quake II left off – finishing

18997-584: 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 3D 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,

19154-488: The sudden loss in value of their recent investment. On August 4, 2011, John Carmack revealed during his QuakeCon 2011 keynote that they will be releasing the source code of the Doom 3 engine ( id Tech 4 ) during the year. id Software publicly stated they would not support the Wii console (possibly due to technical limitations), although they have since indicated that they may release titles on that platform (although it would be limited to their games released during

19311-463: 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 , 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

19468-413: 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

19625-471: 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 . The single-episode game was a prequel to Wolfenstein 3D and used the same engine, but added new audio, graphics, and enemies. It was created in two months, and

19782-442: The technology to the mass market. Beginning with Wolfenstein 3D , he felt bothered when third-party companies started "pestering" him to license the id tech engine, adding that he wanted to focus on new technology instead of providing support to existing ones. He felt very strongly that this was not why he signed up to be a game programmer for; to be "holding the hands" of other game developers. Carmack commended Epic Games for pursuing

19939-406: The theme of this game in 2004 with their release of Doom 3 . John Carmack said in an interview at QuakeCon 2007 that there would be a Doom 4 . It began development on May 7, 2008. Doom 2016 , the fourth installation of the Doom series, was released on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on May 13, 2016, and was later released on Nintendo Switch on November 10, 2017. In June 2018,

20096-507: The time of the fourth Commander Keen game, they opted to let "id" stand out "as a cool word", according to Romero. In September 1991, they relocated to Madison, Wisconsin . Later on April 1, 1992, they relocated to an office in Mesquite, Texas . The shareware distribution method was initially employed by id Software through Apogee Software to sell their products, such as the Commander Keen , Wolfenstein and Doom games. They would release

20253-443: The time to get Linux builds done". Besset explained that id Software's primary justification for releasing Linux builds was better code quality, along with a technical interest in the platform. However, on January 26, 2012, Besset announced that he had left id. John Carmack has expressed his stance with regard to Linux builds in the past. In December 2000 Todd Hollenshead expressed support for Linux: "All said, we will continue to be

20410-497: The two are not closely related. Harvard Medical School researchers Cheryl Olson and Lawrence Kutner found that violent video games did not correlate to school shootings. The United States Secret Service and United States Department of Education analyzed 37 incidents of school violence and sought to develop a profile of school shooters; they discovered that the most common traits among shooters were that they were male and had histories of depression and attempted suicide. While many of

20567-456: The use of source ports . Quake Live also launched with Linux support, although this, alongside OS X support, was later removed when changed to a standalone title. The tradition of porting to Linux was first started by Dave D. Taylor , with Zoid Kirsch doing some later porting. Since Quake III Arena , Linux porting had been handled by Timothee Besset . The majority of all id Tech 4 games, including those made by other developers, have

20724-465: The war between the humans and Strogg. The spin-off Enemy Territory: Quake Wars acts as a prequel to Quake II , when the Strogg first invade Earth. Quake IV and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars were made by outside developers and not id. There have also been other spin-offs such as Quake Mobile in 2005 and Quake Live , an internet browser based modification of Quake III . A game called Quake Arena DS

20881-562: Was "required playing for any first-person shooter fan". 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. It has also been called "the Citizen Kane of shooters". Although some prior computer shooting-based games existed, they were generally scrolling shooters , while Wolfenstein 3D helped move

21038-560: Was "straight out of the game". A rumor spread afterwards that Harris had designed a Doom level that looked like the high school, populated with representations of Harris's classmates and teachers, and that Harris practiced for his role in the shootings by playing the level over and over. Although Harris did design Doom levels , none of them were based on Columbine High School . While Doom and other violent video games have been blamed for nationally covered school shootings, 2008 research featured by Greater Good Science Center shows that

21195-460: 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 in 1993; Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser termed it "definitely one of

21352-478: Was an early adopter of Stadia , a cloud gaming service powered by Debian Linux servers, and the cross-platform Vulkan API . A Linux version of Doom from 2016 was tested internally, while it and its sequel Doom Eternal can be run using Wine and Proton . Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons , a platform game in the style of those for the Nintendo Entertainment System ,

21509-649: Was an early pioneer in the Linux gaming market, and id Software's Linux games have been some of the most popular of the platform. Many id Software games won the Readers' and Editors' Choice awards of Linux Journal . Some id Software titles ported to Linux are Doom (the first id Software game to be ported), Quake , Quake II , Quake III Arena , Return to Castle Wolfenstein , Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory , Doom 3 , Quake 4 , and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars . Since id Software and some of its licensees released

21666-495: Was announced id Software co-founder and Technical Director John Carmack had fully resigned from the company to work full-time at Oculus VR which he joined as CTO in August 2013. He was the last of the original founders to leave the company. Tim Willits left the company in 2019. ZeniMax Media was acquired by Microsoft for US$ 7.5 billion in March 2021 and became part of Xbox Game Studios . The company writes its name with

21823-447: Was being published through Electronic Arts. ZeniMax received in July a $ 105 million investment from StrongMail Systems for the id acquisition, it's unknown if that was the exact price of the deal. id Software moved from the "cube-shaped" Mesquite office to a location in Richardson, Texas during the spring of 2011. On June 26, 2013, id Software president Todd Hollenshead quit after 17 years of service. On November 22, 2013, it

21980-412: Was composed of programmers John Romero and John Carmack , designer Tom Hall , artist Adrian Carmack , and manager Jay Wilbur. After the release of the game in December through shareware publisher Apogee Software , 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

22137-547: Was doing, Carmack enhanced the engine over six weeks from Hovertank 3D for another Softdisk game, the November 1991 Catacomb 3-D . Upon seeing it, Scott Miller of Apogee began to push the team to make a 3D shareware action game. 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

22294-482: Was largely the purview of flight simulation games such as Wing Commander (1990) or wireframe 3D in games on mainframe computers . Carmack found that this was largely due to the limitations of personal computers of the time, which had difficulty displaying a fast action game 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

22451-489: 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 , fast scaling, "rousing" music, and high quality sound effects, but criticized

22608-543: Was modified to not include any swastikas or Nazi references; furthermore, blood was replaced with sweat to make the game seem less violent, and the attack dogs in the game were replaced by giant mutant rats. Employees of id Software are quoted in The Official DOOM Player Guide about the reaction to Wolfenstein , claiming it to be ironic that it was morally acceptable to shoot people and rats, but not dogs. Two new weapons were added as well. The Super NES version

22765-610: Was not as successful as the PC version. In May 2020, after the Doom Eternal Original Soundtrack was released, there was a serious backlash to the Doom Eternal OST and accusations of low quality work that did not match composer Mick Gordon's usual standards. On April 19, Gordon confirmed on Twitter that it was not his work, and Marty Stratton subsequently posted on May 20 a 2,500-word open letter on Reddit blaming Gordon for everything that went wrong with

22922-469: 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

23079-511: Was not neglected either, having recruited Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor to facilitate unique sound effects and ambient music for the game. (A small homage was paid to Nine Inch Nails in the form of the band's logo appearing on the ammunition boxes for the nailgun weapon.) It also included the work of Michael Abrash . Furthermore, Quake' s main innovation, the capability to play a deathmatch (competitive gameplay between living opponents instead of against computer-controlled characters) over

23236-413: Was one of the first MS-DOS games with smooth horizontal-scrolling. Published by Apogee Software, the title and follow-ups brought id Software success as a shareware developer. It is the series of id Software that designer Tom Hall is most affiliated with. The first Commander Keen trilogy was released on December 14, 1990. The company's breakout product was released on May 5, 1992: Wolfenstein 3D ,

23393-523: Was planned and canceled for the Nintendo DS . John Carmack stated, at QuakeCon 2007, that the id Tech 5 engine would be used for a new Quake game. Todd Hollenshead announced in May 2007 that id Software had begun working on an all new series that would be using a new engine. Hollenshead also mentioned that the title would be completely developed in-house, marking the first game since 2004's Doom 3 to be done so. At 2007's WWDC , John Carmack showed

23550-521: 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 felt it was similar to the Indiana Jones films. Instead of working on the game, John Carmack experimented with a new graphics engine that was licensed for ShadowCaster and became the basis of the engine for id's next game, Doom (1993). The first episode

23707-478: Was released as a retail game by FormGen . It follows Blazkowicz on a different prequel mission, trying to recapture the Spear of Destiny from the Nazis after it was stolen from Versailles . 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

23864-408: 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 . 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

24021-441: 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

24178-517: 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 . Atari Corporation approved the conversion for publication and Carmack spent three weeks, assisted by Dave Taylor , improving

24335-589: Was selling at a rate of 4,000 copies a month by mail order. PC Zone 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 Software had sold another 150,000 retail copies of Spear of Destiny ;

24492-561: Was so aged compared to recent releases like Hexen: Beyond Heretic and the PlayStation version of Doom 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 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

24649-499: 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 had shut down in 1986, with all rights to Wolfenstein sold. The rights last belonged to someone in Michigan , and

#433566