The Reception of Wolfenstein 3D Upon Its Release, An Overlong Essay

Special thanks to Matthew Henzel for providing me with material for this piece, and to a very patient person who helped me edit it.

To assess the reaction Wolfenstein 3D received following its release, we will be looking at a number of published reviews, alongside some internet comments taken from Usenet groups. Hopefully, this will provide a comprehensive view of the game as it was seen in 1992. The formal reviews used are drawn from Computer Gaming World, Dragon Magazine, VideoGames and Computer Entertainment, Tilt, PC Zone and the Toronto Star. The authors of these pieces will be named as each becomes relevant. The Usenet posts, on the other hand, will be kept anonymous to protect the privacy of the authors, who never intended their posts to be published. For the same reason, the bibliography of this essay will not include any links to the original posts. If you require links to these Usenet posts for any research you might be doing, please get in touch.

Any text within a quotation appearing in square brackets is a correction or note added for clarity.

In the latter months of 1991, id Software, fresh off the success of a number of platform games and a few 3D experiments, set out to make an ambitious first-person game: Wolfenstein 3D. It was to be a homage to a childhood favourite for many on the team, the 1981 Castle Wolfenstein and its sequel, Beyond Castle Wolfenstein. In these influential Apple II games, stealth and caution are the ally of a very fragile player character, as they attempt to make their escape from the titular castle. Had id stuck to their original vision and imitated Castle Wolfenstein as closely as they’d originally intended, their legacy today might be very different. Instead, the team’s focus shifted from stealth to action, largely thanks to designer and programmer John Romero. As development progressed, he keenly assessed what parts of the game were working, while weeding out nearly everything else. Where Castle Wolfenstein had chests, loot, grenades and interactions with guards beyond just shooting them, id’s version condensed the experience to speeding through colourful labyrinths and shooting Nazis. Regardless, the team were excited at the game’s potential. Programmer John Carmack recognised the technical challenge in making a smooth, fast-paced 3D game when such games typically accepted framerate as a necessary sacrifice. Romero wanted to focus on the action, to ensure everything was about making Nazis bleed. Blood, while not unheard of in games, was still extremely rare, and practically unheard of alongside a wartime setting. But for Wolfenstein 3D, Romero wanted blood ‘like you never see in games.’ Artist Adrian Carmack, frustrated with the cartoon style of id’s previous games, such as the Commander Keen series, was eager to do something gorier, that appealed to his violent sense of humour. They knew they’d meet resistance, and when their retail publisher, Formgen, called and asked them to tone down the violence, maybe even drop the Second World War setting, they instead dialled it up. Digital sound effects were added, a first for id, including German phrases and agonised screams. A MIDI rendition of the Nazi anthem, without lyrics, was added to the soundtrack, playing as the game started up. However, some of the wilder features, such as stopping to urinate on Nazi corpses, would not make it into the final game. Regardless, they aimed to make a scene.

Wolfenstein 3D was released as a shareware product, just as DOOM was a year later, which means it never came to store shelves. Shareware was a business model commonly used by smaller independent companies. A portion of a game would be released for free, and could be downloaded from the internet. If the player wanted more, they could contact the publisher directly to register it and purchase the full game. In this case, there was an episode consisting of ten levels released for free, with two more episodes up for sale. Apogee, the publisher, also hit upon the idea of producing a further three episodes and selling each of them separately, a forebear to today’s downloadable content models. Shareware was not a business model that was universally understood in 1992, although magazines covering the game often took time to explain it, printing the necessary contact details to order the game in specific regions. Chris Lombardi of Computer Gaming World admits to being unfamiliar with shareware prior to reviewing Wolfenstein 3D, but having researched it he directs readers to acquire the first episode ‘through a public bulletin board,’ and to register the game if they like the it. Dragon Magazine’s Sandy Petersen remarks that Wolfenstein 3D is ‘an unusual type of game,’ as it was unlikely to be found in any stores, but instead via ‘bulletin boards or from professional shareware distributors either for free or for a nominal fee.’ He points out that you can only get ‘the first adventure’ for free, and that to ‘get further adventures, you must pay Apogee’. Peter Olafson of PC Games says that any reader not swayed by his glowing review should try the game for themselves, given that it’s free of charge. David Moskowitz of Video Games & Computer Entertainment expresses delight at such an exciting game coming out of the humble shareware scene, believing that it ‘almost single-handedly [justifies] the existence of shareware,’ and proves that games don’t need ‘a million-dollar marketing department to be the best available’. Similarly, The Role of Computers section in Dragon Magazine claims it ‘proves that not all of the best games have to come from mammoth software publishers’.

While Wolfenstein 3-D might now be looked back upon as id Software’s breakout hit, when released it could not avoid comparison to its inspiration, the 1981 Castle Wolfenstein. A very short article appeared in the Toronto Star on November 21st, 1992, simply titled ‘Revived game is heavy on the gore,’ celebrating Wolfenstein 3D as a gory resurrection of the Apple II original. The game also had Lombardi hearkening back to his youth: ‘my first experience with a computer game was in 1983 with a remarkable little program called Castle Wolfenstein [. . .] with only a gun and eight bullets, the player had to creep from room to room, quietly disposing of guards and gathering more bullets, bandages and The Secret War Plans on his way to freedom.’ He never mentions the features from the Apple II game that didn’t make it into id’s version, instead simply marvelling at being able to explore the space in first-person: ‘Id has put the player inside the head of Our Hero, now named B.J. Blazkowicz, where s/he will see first hand what it’s like to tip-toe cautiously past daydreaming guards, to sprint frantically out of a stream of lead, and to machine gun an advancing SS Trooper in bloody detail’. Olafson sees Wolfenstein 3D as a work built upon Castle Wolfenstein’s foundations: ‘Eleven years later [since Castle Wolfenstein’s release] you can be captivated all over again. Id Software has taken the Wolfenstein frame and built a wonderful first-person, three-dimensional action game around it’. Sandy Petersen acknowledges that the game has ‘evolved almost beyond recognition’ from the original, but marvels at the ‘prisoner’s-eyeview of the castle, with spectacular vistas of brick, stone, or wooden walls,’ and the ‘lantern-jawed Nazis [. . .] sneering viciously as they fire at you’. Not all critics were as charitable about the changes in gameplay. Moskowitz, otherwise very happy with the game, criticises the missing features from Castle Wolfenstein, such as ‘grenades, uniforms or bulletproof vests.’ He also misses the more complicated non-player-character interactions, whereby the player might hold up a guard ‘with an empty gun, [steal] his bullets, then [shoot] him with them’. Castle Wolfenstein also influenced the expectations of Usenet posters, to the extent that a number of people can be seen referring to Wolfenstein 3D as ‘Castle Wolfenstein 3D.’ While many players didn’t mind the changes, some were a little let down. Posting on May 6th, 1992, one user laments the lack of alarm systems and hand grenades, both of which featured in Castle Wolfenstein. Another user responds with ‘what happened to the bullet proof vests and picking locks? Are there chests or do those barrels contain anything?’

Wherever Wolfenstein 3D was not being compared to its inspiration, it was instead measured against 1992’s other big 3D release: Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss, a computer role-playing game from Blue Sky Productions (later Looking Glass Studios) and Origin Systems. Ultima Underworld offers the player a character of their own creation, an underground civilisation to explore and the opportunity to resolve problems with either combat or conversation, as well as a more sophisticated (if slower) engine than Wolfenstein 3D. The stark differences between these two games were very evident at the time. To return to the Toronto Star, the writer feels that ‘only Origin’s Ultima Underworld: The [Stygian] Abyss, with its creepy, crawly highly detailed dungeon mazes, rivals the almost virtual-reality detail of [Wolfenstein 3D]’. Chris Lombardi from Computer Gaming World claims that although both games feature full 3D movement (as opposed to tile-based movement such as in Dungeon Master), Ultima Underworld is the more richly detailed, at the expense of having a lower framerate. He also delights in how the player’s ‘animated knife, pistol or machine gun’ extends ‘into the screen like the swords and fists in Ultima Underworld,’ and suggests that both are the first games ‘technologically capable of creating a sufficient element of disbelief-suspension to emotionally immerse the player in a threatening environment’. The Role of Computers section in Dragon Magazine writes that the ‘unique approach that [they] enjoyed most is that the adventure is completely three dimensional, similar in effect to the first-person perspective offered in Origin’s Ultima [Underworld]’. David Moskowitz of Video Games & Computer Entertainment, impressed at Wolfenstein 3D’s framerate, writes that ‘Wolfenstein [3D] offers what at least looks like 360 [degree] rotation at all locations [. . .] the walls zoom in and out faster than just about anything around — including Ultima [Underworld]’. The games were being measured against each other online too. One user remarks on May 8th, 1992: ‘[Wolfenstein 3D] blows away the action of [Ultima Underworld, despite being] nine times smaller. [. . .] the main contribution to this is the loud slamming of doors and gunshots; Ultima [Underworld] is very lacking in sound.’ Not everybody was as charitable. An anonymous user criticises Wolfenstein 3D for not being truly 3D, as it uses no 3D objects (whereas Ultima Underworld does, to a limited degree) and is therefore ‘nothing more than scaled bitmaps to create a very effective illusion of “3D.”’ User Alvaro Han responds with ‘I fail to see where you draw the line between ‘using “3d objects” and creating “a very effective illusion” of 3d [. . .] not even the most advanced combinations of radiosity & raytracing yet show “reality,” just very good renditions.’ Another user asks if anybody else noticed ‘that the objects are not 3-d? No matter what angle you look at them they are always the same view’. Another user responds with ‘[yeah], I really didn’t notice though [until] I killed that Big guy on the 9th level to end the game… I kept going around him to observe him, and no matter where I was standing he was the same… Ugh…’

Wolfenstein 3D might have fallen short of Ultima Underworld in terms of depth and detail, but it was praised for its smooth movement, fast-paced action and violent depictions of injury and death. The speed and smoothness of movement was frequently picked up on, with Lombardi remarking that ‘the player can race through the castle hallways at impressive speeds, can glance side to side at nearly the pace of one’s head, and can spin around in an instant’, and Petersefeeling similarly, believing speed to be Wolfenstein 3D’s greatest asset. Thomas Alexandre of Tilt says that the player can navigate ‘much faster than in [Ultima] Underworld,’ judging the movement mechanics to be less realistic than Ultima Underworld’s, but more fluid. Both Lombardi and Alexandre claim this lends itself to building immersion and place, Lombardi describing it as drawing ‘the player in; so much so that I found myself actually craning my head back and forth as B.J. scoped out a hallway, ducked my head as B.J. sprinted for cover under fire and leapt in my chair as B.J. spun around to find himself face to face with an equally surprised guard’. Alexandre describes the cautious advancement into unknown territory, ‘looking left and right and then backing off quickly after hearing “achtung”’. On Usenet, some users were impressed with the frame rate of Wolfenstein 3D. One user, claiming to have been a programmer in his ‘younger days,’ asks for an explanation: ‘the speed at which wolfenstein-3D (apogee) generates its images amazes me. Can anyone give me a rough overview of how wolfenstein 3D generates its images?’ Somebody replies with ‘the trick used in [Wolfenstein 3D] to get fast texture-mapping seems to be to use a non-regular scaling of a pixmap. If you look at the images generated you’ll see that the texels are not perspective projected — they’re simply scaled (axis-aligned) rectangles. [. . .] Also, keep in mind that in your “younger days” the processors were a lot slower — well [that’s] what I tell myself when I see some of these games.’

id’s mission to make a bloody and gruesome game didn’t go unnoticed by critics. Petersen specifically mentions that Wolfenstein 3D has been banned in Germany (an exclamation mark following this statement implies he might believe this to be something of a badge of honour for a violent game). He goes on to describe how, when a guard is shot, he ‘jerks back, then collapses while blood spurts,’ and how the protagonist’s face (shown on screen) grows more injured as the player loses health, until ‘he looks like he’s gone 10 rounds with George Frazier’. Lombardi provides examples of the death screams emitted by guards (‘“Mien Lieben!” or just “Hiyeeee”’), and details the death animation of Nazi guards, the final shot causing them to ‘jerk back spasmodically in a spray of blood.’ He is struck by the scale of violence, believing the game’s joking ‘Profound Carnage’ age rating (shown on the title screen) to be too mild, as a finished level in Wolfenstein 3D is likely to contain ‘a few dozen bleeding corpses, dogs and men, piled high in the hallways.’ Although he ‘killed hundreds of stick-figure guards in the original Castle Wolfenstein and never thought twice, for him the ‘first-person perspective [of Wolfenstein 3D] with the graphic detail and digitized sound really brings the act of killing home.’ He warns ‘those sensitive to such things to steer clear’ of the game. Olafson recommends that children under twelve be kept away, as ‘guards writhe when machine gunned. They go down with helmets and blood flying and a variety of splendidly blood-curdling digitized screams.’ Despite this warning, he feels the violence in Wolfenstein 3D is ultimately harmless, possessing an ‘Itchy & Scratchy quality,’ as opposed to ‘a fully interactive environment with the pretense of reality’. Moskowitz is undisturbed by the gore. As far as he’s concerned, Castle Wolfenstein was a violent game, and Wolfenstein 3D is merely carrying that on. He’s happy that the ‘corpses now look like corpses,’ and notes that ‘the German shepherds die especially gracefully’. The Nazi imagery also draws comment. Petersen feels the need to warn his readers: ‘if you are offended by the sight of Nazi regalia (even if your own goal is to kill the Nazis), or if wholesale slaughter disturbs you, this game is not for you’. Lombardi thinks it suits the atmosphere; the ‘stained glass windows of der Fuhrer, the German eagle [Parteiadler] [. . .] prison cells with the skeletal remains of [prisoners of war] still clutching the bars’ all contribute to displaying ‘the brutality of the Wehrmacht’. On Usenet, Leonard Boykins writes ‘did anyone find this game extreeeemly violent? [Were] you shocked by the gore left when your bullets riddled another helpless guard? [. . .] If you found these things offensive…too bad, I LOVED IT.’ Another, less enthusiastic user posts: ‘For those of you who expressed distaste about the violence and Nazi [portrayal] in Wolfenstein 3D: There is a file called WOLFNPAC.ZIP which changes all brown uniformed guards in the game into cute little raytraced pacmen. On the down side, you still have to shoot them and there is still blood, plus the blue guards and dogs remain unchanged. Still, it’s a step in the right direction…’ The effort to soften Wolfenstein 3D’s violent content continues to this day, with a mod called Woof3d being released in 2018, which allows you to pet dogs to sleep rather than kill them.

Before DOOM was announced, and even before all the episodes for Wolfenstein 3D had been released, some fans were getting carried away imagining potential future Wolfenstein 3D content from id. Phillip Mullins writes that ‘HOPEFULLY in later volumes which are [reportedly] out May 25, you will be like out in a field or around a town or something and not just endless corridors.’ Phillip Thornhill replies with ‘I wouldn’t count on this happening. Changing from a corridor to [a] field view would be a MAJOR change, and not just new levels and graphics [. . .] It is possible that an enhanced version, a la Commander Keen IV, will come out somewhere down the line, though.’ Michael Mullins hopes for a game that revisits Castle Wolfenstein’s stealth and item-based gameplay: ‘passes and uniforms would be cool, so we could sneak around unnoticed. And I miss not having any chests to pick open for schnapps or other goodies.’ Luis Nelson claims that the game is too easy, and hopes that ‘Apogee increases the AI somehow: after playing more of this I kinda feel 3d Wolf will get boring after awhile. Too easy and too few enemy types and weapons.’ Jerry Bono comes away with a lukewarm impression: ‘good game, but too slow on my 286 [line of processors], and too short of a game. (Only 10 levels). I don’t usually get into these games, but since all of the beamers said the game was so “awesome,” I had to see it. Not as good as everyone said, but good for shareware.’ On July 27th, King Walters submits ideas for a sequel, which he names Beyond Castle Wolfenstein 3D (probably in reference to Castle Wolfenstein’s sequel). He writes ‘[okay], finished all episodes of Wolfenstein 3D. Considered it well worth the $50 and I do [applaud] ID/Apogee… But now I want more. This one was [okay] for starters, but I’m still hungry. So here’s a small wishlist. More dynamics. [The people in this newsgroup] mentioned exploding chests, grenades etc. before. More variation in the environment. How about shoot-outs in a city etc. LAN-support! I want to fight my [colleagues]. If the above cannot be done on short notice, build in LAN-support first (might be a little easier?)’ While id were not interested in doing much more with Wolfenstein 3D themselves, the community obviously were, and happily the game is very moddable. On May 2nd, 1993, Carter Guzman posted on Usenet: ‘this is one of the reasons I defend Wolfenstein 3D so highly; not only is it a [terrific] game, but using a map editor, you can create your own worlds from scratch or change the game if you don’t like it.’ He goes on to detail some changes he made to the first level. These mods were often shared over the internet, and some of the more acclaimed got mentions within magazines. PC Zone lists some notable mods in June of 1993, including some nudity mods, which replace the portraits of Hitler with photographs of naked women. Thankfully, over the years the modding scene attracted some more ambitious projects, and, like modding of DOOM, it continues to this day.

Wolfenstein 3D was celebrated by critics as one of the best releases of 1992. Peter Olafson has few reservations: ‘Wolfenstein 3D is drop-dead gorgeous, outrageous to the ear, stay-up-all-night addictive, and easily the best action game available for the IBM.’ He struggles to find much wrong with it, beyond the lives system being pointless due to saved games, and that the ‘scrolling [3D movement] was sometimes a bit jerky soon after startup’. Thomas Alexandre of Tilt claims the game is one you could never get bored of. He acknowledges that the violence could be off-putting to some, but assures the reader that it’s satisfying. Chris Lombardi is impressed with the game and what it suggests for the future of video games: ‘I can’t remember a game making such effective use of perspective and sound and thereby evoking such intense physiological responses from its players. I recommend gamers take a look at this one, if only for a cheap peek at part of interactive entertainment’s potential for a sensory immersed virtual future’. The Role of Computers section in Dragon Magazine gives an enthusiastic recommendation: ‘The game is fun and exciting [. . .] if you’re looking for fast-paced action, look no further, for [Wolfenstein 3D] is a game that will keep you rooted to your seat for weeks.’ However, they do warn readers that ‘the graphics are bloody. Dead soldiers actually bleed and sometimes scream when shot’. Sandy Petersen simply states: ‘if you like a fun game with lots of action, I unreservedly recommend Wolfenstein [3D].’ Similarly to The Role of Computers, he caveats this with a warning about the violent content and Nazi imagery. Moskowitz praises it as ‘fast, violent, brutal and flashy,’ and despite his previous disappointment over the changes from Castle Wolfenstein, claims it to be ‘a worthy successor to the original Castle Wolfenstein games’. Even before the press got to it, however, it was growing into an underground hit, thanks to its shareware release model. Online communities were alight with discussions of the game, ranging from praise to reports of sickness and vomiting. By June of 1993, nearly a year after release, sales of Wolfenstein 3D were still going strong. But its technology seemed more mundane thanks to an increasing number of 3D games, and all eyes were on id’s follow-up, DOOM, to see if it could deliver.

Sources:

Alexandre, T. (1992) Wolfenstein 3D, Tilt, 105, pp.58–59

Burgess, M. (1993) Happy Birthday Wolfenstein, PC Zone, 3, p.101

Burrill, W. (1992). Revived game is heavy on the gore, Toronto Star, p.J.4

Hartley, Patricia, Lesser, K. (1993) The Role of Computers, Dragon Magazine, 192, p.62

Kushner, D. (2003) Masters of Doom, Random House

Lombardi, C. (1992) The Third Reich in the Third Dimension, Computer Gaming World, 98, pp.50–52

Moskowitz, D. (1992) Wolfenstein 3-D, Video Games & Computer Entertainment, September, p.113

Olafson, P. (1992) PCG Reviews, PC Games, November, pp.46–47

Petersen, S. (1993) The Eye of the Monitor, Dragon Magazine, 197, pp.57–60