Wolfenstein 3D

Wolfenstein 3D (also known as Wolfenstein, Wolf3d, or Wolf) is a first-person shooter created by id Software and published by Apogee Software in 1992. It involves the adventures of an Allied soldier, B.J. Blaskowicz, fighting his way through a series of Nazi dungeons during World War II. It owes much of its success to an aggressive shareware marketing campaign which was later repeated with even greater success for Doom. It also spawned a commercial sequel, Spear of Destiny, which used the same engine, and was the inspiration for id's Return to Castle Wolfenstein, released in 2001.

Inspiration for this game came from the even older 2D games Castle Wolfenstein and Beyond Castle Wolfenstein, published by Muse Software. Unlike these predecessors, Wolfenstein 3D shifted the focus away from puzzle solving in favor of more action-oriented gameplay. Though id had planned to include more strategic elements seen in these earlier games (such as wearing captured uniforms and dragging bodies), these features made gameplay too complex, slowing the action down. The final release did retain some arcade-style concepts, such as lives and scoring.

Technical
The engine is fairly simple, using maps composed of tiles, which only allow 90-degree angles between walls. Floors and ceilings are shaded with flat colors instead of having textures. Much of the source code for Wolfenstein 3D was later reused in Apogee's Rise of the Triad, released in 1995.

Fanbase
At the time of its release, Wolfenstein 3D was seen as a revolutionary new product, and is regarded by many to be the grandfather of all FPS games, as it popularized the genre tremendously. It is especially noteworthy for having directly led to the development and publication of Doom just a year after its release. Although Doom and its successors quickly superseded Wolfenstein to become an equally important milestone in the development of the first person shooter, Wolfenstein still enjoys a substantial following on the Internet, including websites, user-created maps, and even totally new games based on the source code (released on July 21, 1995), such as "Spear of Destiny: Resurrection".

A Wolfenstein total conversion for Doom also exists (the Wolfendoom series), created by Laz Rojas, which uses the Doom engine and DeHackEd files to recreate an enhanced version of the Wolfenstein environment. All of the original levels are meticulously reproduced, but Rojas has also created a number of extremely atmospheric standalone missions following the theme of fighting Nazis in a WWII setting, such as "Operation Arctic Wolf", "Astrostein", and "Operation Rheingold", which push the engine to its limits with new weapons, enemies, maps, and special effects. Since releasing a special edition of "Operation Arctic Wolf" in 2003 after a three year hiatus, Rojas has not updated his site any further, although updates of "Arctic Wolf" have emerged on a sporadic basis.