Decades later, John Romero looks back at the birth of the first-person shooter

John Romero remembers the moment he realized what the future of gaming would look like.

In late 1991, ID Software’s Romero and his colleagues had just signaled the beginning. Catacombs 3-D‘rough look’ Color EGA A first person shooter game that was still revolutionary compared to other first person shooter games of the time. “When we started making our 3D games, they weren’t the only 3D games we had,” Romero said in a recent interview with Ars, “They went through a maze with 90-degree turns.”

Trotz Catacombs 3-DAs technology improved in first-person shooters, Romero recalled that after the release, the ID team began working on the next entry to the long-running hit. Commander Ken 2D platform game series. But as the trial continued, Romero told Arce that something was wrong

“In two weeks, [I was up] One morning I said to myself: Guys, we shouldn’t play this game [Keen]”This is not the future,” he said. The future will be better for what we have done Catacombs.’ …and everyone immediately said, “Yeah, you’re right.”

The team has started working Wolfenstein 3D Dr. Romero that night. The rest is history.

Strive for speed

What did he say? Catacombs 3-D Along with other first-person gaming experiences at the time, Romero said: “Our speed – the speed of the game – was crucial for us to make that big difference. Everyone was trying to create a proper 3D world – six degrees of freedom or representation “It was really detailed, and for us it was a simple, high-speed demo with good gameplay that would set it apart from others.”

This focus on speed extended to id’s development process, which Romero said was unfamiliar compared to today’s low-budget indie games. The team didn’t bother writing design documents outlining key concepts in advance because, for example, Romero said, “The design document was right next to us; The creative director was… games weren’t big then, so it was like that.” It’s easy for us to say, “This is what we’re going to make it” and “This is what it’s going to be” and then we all work on our own thing.”

Early ID designers didn’t even use basic development tools like version control systems, Romero said. Instead, development was largely divided between different developers; Romero remembers coding games with John Carmack: “The files I would work on, he wouldn’t touch and I wouldn’t touch his files.” From there it copies everything it has and replaces it because it’s just my file, and vice versa. If for some reason the hard drive crashes, we can do that.” Reassemble the source from anyone’s copy of what he’s got.