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.
Wolfenstein 3D
As development continued, id Software hired their former Softdisk liaison Kevin Cloud as an assistant artist, and moved 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 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.