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THE WOLFENSTEIN STORY
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1
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T
he history of Wolfenstein can be
traced all the way back to the humble
beginnings of an arcade title by the
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
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.