STACK#127 May 2016

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THE WOLFENSTEIN STORY

T he history of Wolfenstein can be name of Robotron 2084 . A small software company known as Muse Software were inspired by the game, but wanted to make something set instead during World War II. Thus, Castle Wolfenstein was born. A top-down stealth-based action-shooter, the game was first released in 1981. Playing as a captured allied soldier, you must fight to escape the Castle, tasked with finding the traced all the way back to the humble beginnings of an arcade title by the

Nazi war plans along the way. As a proprietary stealth-based game, Castle Wolfenstein gave players the chance to kill (or hold hostage) Nazis, pick up helpful items like uniforms to be used as disguises, and get drunk. The game’s sequel, Beyond Castle Wolfenstein , was not as successful, and in 1987 the company went out of business. However, it wasn’t all bad news. From the success of Castle Wolfenstein came the inspiration for id Software’s Wolfenstein 3D. The game that would go on to define the

first-person-shooter genre came to be after the company requested permission from Silas Warner of Muse, having decided to create their own sequel (of sorts) to Castle Wolfenstein. Released in 1992, Wolfenstein 3D is considered by many to be the beginning of the Wolfenstein franchise, and follows the story of WWII allied spy William “B.J.” Blazkowicz. Banned for sale in Germany due to its incorporation of the Swastika, the title was originally released on MS-DOS, with other platforms such as Mac and SNES to follow. But just what was it that made Wolfenstein 3D so vital in the FPS genre’s development? It probably helped that it was originally released as shareware, meaning a lot of The fast pace and technical prowess exhibited within Wolfenstein 3D helped it to become one of the defining games of the shooter genre.

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