Tom Hall on Wolfenstein 3D

27 Aug 2009 at 20:25:08 by Peter Parrish

For Wolfenstein 3D, the 'first' in first-person shooter counts double. Created by id Software and released on May 5 1992, the game is widely credited with inventing the FPS genre in all its armed and bloodstained glory. Though there are other games with legitimate claim to being the first (including some of id's earlier work like Catacombs 3D, and even going as far back as 1974's Maze War by Steve Colley), the fundamental gameplay mechanics still recognisable in todays FPS titles trace their lineage back to Wolf 3D.

So iconic to gaming are protagonist William 'B.J.' Blazkowicz and the Wolfenstein name that they have spawned multiple sequels over the years. This month, our Polish-American hero has returned for a brand new 2009 outing, co-developed by Raven, id, Pi and Endrant. It seems that as long as those damn Nazis keep meddling in the supernatural, B.J. will always have a job to do (Ed - Steady on readers, that's not what he meant).

SS Stands For Spooky Squad

Tom Hall, co-designer and one of the creative talents behind the original Wolf 3D, finds the continuing momentum behind the title a little odd to think about, "Kinda weird to hear about the sequels and possible movie for a character you came up with, somewhat surreal. Well, ya know, this is an odd industry."

As if to confirm just how odd, Tom explains that the game's birth owed something to an entirely different studio - Looking Glass. "We’d started on it when [John] Romero talked to a friend at Looking Glass, and they said they were making a game with texture mapping (Ultima Underworld)" he says, "Romero told [John] Carmack, who looked up, thinking, then said, 'I can do that.'"

"We did 2 games building up to Wolfenstein (Hovertank: 3D, no textures; Catacombs 3D: EGA, but an FPS), then wound up releasing Wolfenstein 3D I think a month after [Looking Glass] shipped their product. We had really short dev times. But the two games were very different – theirs was more exploration and Ultima-style battles, ours was a first-person shooter."

id, like many early-90s developers, were a small, close-knit team. As a result, Hall's involvement in the creation and design process was extensive; "I mostly designed the game, did 2/3 of the maps, and strangely, programmed the end of level bonus screen on Wolfenstein 3D for the Super Nintendo. Romero came up with the Wolfenstein theme idea – we were all fans of the [Apple II] game. That was brilliant as it really fit how moving fast and shooting 'felt.' I came up with B.J. and the story."

Only as development progressed did it begin to dawn that the team had something really special on their hands. "As we were making it, we were kinda looking at each other and going, 'Nobody's… done this before…'" recalls Tom, "It was weird, like we were wondering if it was okay, were we missing something, was this actually something totally new? Turns out it was!"

Long In The Tooth

Wolf 3D's combination of violent, exploratory gameplay and first-person perspective were revolutionary, but the Wolfenstein concept itself harked all the way back to an Apple II title from 1981: Castle Wolfenstein. I asked Tom about the extent to which this early 2D, stealth-shooter had influenced the development of id's game, "Massive, in theme, of course, and it too had kinda brutal shooting, at least as far as an Apple II could. We met Silas Warner, the guy that did the original. He was really nice, signed one of our manuals."

At one stage Wolf 3D was on course to be even closer in style to its thematic inspiration: "Initially, it incorporated stealth, like the original Castle Wolfenstein; kill guard, drag body out of sight, take their uniform, sneak past guards without shooting" says Tom, "but we soon realized the brutal, fast nature of it was better for just a blasting-action game, like it’s little predecessor, Catacombs 3D." With stealth dropped, Hall battled hard for the inclusion of hidden areas, reasoning that they would provide both a break from gunning down Nazis and a little depth to the maze-like exploration. "I’m glad we got pushwalls and thus secret areas in the game – you have to have that 10% thing you do apart from the main type of gameplay," he explains. "If you hate seeing pots and pans hanging there turning this square room into 'kitchen', blame me. If you like pushwalls, you can give me some props for that. I really fought to have those."

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