Wolfenstein
Silas Warner, an American programmer and an employee of software company Muse Software, was a pioneer of early video game development, especially the stealth genre. He had access to computers in college, and when he worked for the IBM Mainframe architectures before joining Muse Software. The computer he used for game-development, P.L.A.T.O., was one of the firsts with multiple functioning terminals and an example of early computer networks. Warner developed, with P.L.A.T.O., a series of classic video games like his flight simulator and arcade shooter. Inspired by the arcade shooter video game "Berzerk" and the 1961 war film "Guns of Navarone", he developed "Castle Wolfenstein", a stealth-adventure video game in which the player controls an unnamed American prisoner of war as he steals German files containing secret war plans, while avoiding, disarming or at times killing hostile guards and trying to escape the fortified Nazi stronghold 'Castle Wolfenstein', set in World War II. The game was published in 1981 by Warner's company M.U.S.E. Inc. (Muse Software).
Rise of the Triad
"Rise of the Triad" began its life as a follow-up to "Wolfenstein 3D" (though it reportedly shares some similarities with Hall's "Doom Bible", which laid out Hall's conception of the video game "Doom" and even shares the name of one of the protagonists). The working titles of the game were "Wolfenstein II" and "Wolfenstein 3D: Rise of the Triad". It was to use the same game engine code as "Wolfenstein 3D", and have new levels, art, and characters. The artwork took around six months to do. As the game was getting into deeper development, project leader Scott Miller was contacted by John Romero, informing Miller that the project had been cancelled. Miller suspected that this was because id Software did not want to draw the spotlight away from their upcoming game, "Doom". In order to keep as many of the numerous game assets the team had already created from going to waste, Tom Hall came up with a new storyline which still incorporated the Nazi themes seen in the Wolfenstein series.