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 both a remake and a reboot to the "Wolfenstein" series. It was developed by Gray Matter Interactive and Nerve Software developed its multiplayer mode. id Software, the creators of "Wolfenstein 3D", oversaw the development and were credited as executive producers. The multiplayer side eventually became the most popular part of the game, and was influential in the genre. Splash Damage created some of the maps for the Game of the Year edition. A sequel, titled "Wolfenstein", was released on August 18, 2009.
Development of Doom
Following the release of "Spear of Destiny" and the completion of the "ShadowCaster" engine, id Software discussed what their next title would be. They wanted to create another 3D game using Carmack's new engine as a starting point, but were largely tired of "Wolfenstein". Lead designer Tom Hall was especially weary of it, and pushed for the team to make another game in the "Commander Keen" series; the team had created seven episodes in the series in 1990–91 as their first games, but the planned third set of episodes had been dropped in favor of "Wolfenstein 3D". While Carmack was initially interested in the idea, the rest of the team was not. They collectively felt that the platforming gameplay of the series was a poor fit for Carmack's fast-paced 3D engines, and especially after the success of "Wolfenstein" were interested in pursuing more games of that type. Additionally, the other two co-founders of id were not interested in creating another "Keen" game: John Romero, the designer of "Wolfenstein", was not interested in doing another "cutesy" game, and lead artist Adrian Carmack preferred to create art in a darker style than the "Keen" games. John Carmack soon lost interest in "Keen" idea as well, instead coming up with his own concept: a game about using technology to fight demons, inspired by the "Dungeons & Dragons" campaigns the team played, combining the styles of "Evil Dead II" and "Aliens". The concept originally had a working title of "Green and Pissed", which was also the name of a concept Hall had proposed prior to "Wolfenstein", but Carmack soon named the proposed game after a line in the film "The Color of Money": "'What's in the case?' / 'In here? Doom.'"