In celebration of the thirty fifth anniversary of Doom developer id Software program’s founding, co-founder John Romero has launched a video retrospective on one in every of id’s most unsung video games: Catacomb 3-D.
The video featured Romero’s personal recollections, in addition to these of id vets Tom Corridor, John Carmack, and Adrian Carmack—no relation on these final two, by the best way. I solely discovered that out embarrassingly just lately.
id started work on Catacomb 3-D in October 1991, after finishing Commander Eager in Aliens Ate My Babysitter. This was in the course of the studio’s transient stint in Madison, Wisconsin after leaving Shreveport, Louisiana, however earlier than settling in Texas for good.
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Catacomb 3-D was a part of a deal id had with its founders’ former employer, Softdisk. A few of id’s first video games—made in blisteringly quick two-month improvement cycles till Wolfenstein 3-D—had been distributed in Gamer’s Edge, a month-to-month, subscription-based demo disk of video games put out by the software program firm. Much like shareware, it is a distribution mannequin that sounds prefer it got here from one other universe trying again from 2026.
Talking of issues we take without any consideration, “FPS” wasn’t even a correct style at this level: id’s early FPSes had been usually in comparison with top-down, arcade-style shooters. John Carmack referred to as it “mainly a quarter-eater nonetheless, put onto the PC” within the video, but additionally characterised Catacomb as id planting its sport design flag.
“It did not have the overarching story and depth that folks felt the PC was higher suited to,” mentioned Carmack. “And we had been nonetheless kinda hanging out and saying: ‘No. Motion, quick twitch, that also is a superb, viable gaming factor to do.’
“We simply had this one, new, tremendous novel new perspective, actually, by placing it in 3D.”
Tom Corridor famous that id opted for first-person in its early 3D video games partly because of technical limitations. “It was very expensive to attract massive issues on-screen—do not need to decelerate the sport,” mentioned Corridor. However like different design coups in gaming, this technical constraint resulted in one thing particular.
“We may have finished it over the participant’s shoulder and stuff,” mentioned Corridor. “But it surely made it very easy to purpose if one thing’s simply within the heart, and it is quite simple, and it is quick to attract. It additionally will increase the participant immersion, like ‘that is me.'”
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Romero revealed that id solely made $5,000 on Catacomb 3-D by way of its Gamer’s Edge deal—approaching $12,000 in immediately’s cash, however that is nonetheless not a terrific paycheck for 2 months of labor by six folks. Commander Eager was extra worthwhile and common, so id launched into improvement of Commander Eager 7 at first of 1992, shortly after Catacomb 3-D was accomplished.
However the workforce was starting to comprehend that they’d chanced on one thing transformative, that immersion Tom Corridor talked about. Johns Carmack and Romero each level to an incident with Artist Adrian Carmack as a little bit of a eureka second.
“Certainly one of my extra cherished reminiscences of creating Catacomb was Adrian nearly falling out of the seat when he rotated proper within the face of a troll. That is the place we may inform we’re beginning to get it,” mentioned Carmack. “That is the way forward for gaming, slightly than trying on the little sprites transferring round on the display screen and possibly getting tense. But it surely was the sense of shock. That was the primary second that locked into my thoughts that we had been actually onto one thing on this new style and elegance of play.”
“It simply routinely sucked you in visually. You could not assist it,” Adrian Carmack recalled. “That is simply what your eyes and your thoughts did.
“That was simply one of many craziest issues in a videogame I would ever seen. We undoubtedly knew that we would discovered a brand new sport type, a brand new sport kind.”
id deserted improvement on Commander Eager 7 after simply two weeks, by no means to return to the collection. “One night time, we talked about how Catacomb 3D was just the start of a brand new technique to play video games, and that the longer term was 3D,” mentioned Romero. “Inside an hour, we had determined what our subsequent sport can be: Wolfenstein 3-D, the grandfather of first particular person shooters.”
By Romero’s reckoning, Catacomb was a essential step on the trail to Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake—the FPS style, in addition to 3D graphics and design writ massive, as we all know them. “This all started with Catacomb 3-D,” Romero concluded.
Romero Video games is providing a classic-style, PC huge field reissue of Catacomb 3-D on its web site alongside different goodies like the massive field launch of Sigil or Romero’s sport dev memoir, Doom Man. And after a Microsoft-induced scare, John and Brenda Romero’s studio sounds prefer it’s again on monitor to launch its long-awaited subsequent gen FPS.
