With the recent QuakeCon announcement that a sequel is in the works for Rise of the Triad, it's a good time to remember just why it's deserving of a modern reboot. Released on the heels of Doom II, this seminal first-person shooter was a high-octane blend of everything shooter fans had come to expect (Nazi-like troops, blood, secret areas) cranked up to a ridiculous degree. So jump into your time machine and let's travel back to when DOS ruled PC gaming!
Wolf in the Machine
The year was 1995. Bill Clinton was president, Adam Sandler was irritating movie-goers in Billy Madison, and Doom II — released in the fall of 1994 — was the new king of PC shooters. Then on February 17th, Rise of the Triad: Dark War was officially released by Apogee. (An early shareware version had come out in December 1994.) Whereas the Doom series had thrown the legions of Hell at players, RotT would throw everything else and the proverbial kitchen sink.
The Firebomb weapon turns enemies extra crispy in a hurry. Don't use it in close quarters.
In the beginning, RotT started as an expansion pack for Wolfenstein 3D (1992), the pioneering Nazi-killing shooter developed by id Software and published by Apogee Software. Its original title was Rise of the Triad: Wolfenstein 3D Part II and, using Wolf3D's game engine, would augment Wolf3D with new levels, characters, and graphics. There was only one problem: id Software decided to cancel the project (presumably to focus on Doom II) and Apogee, which was developing the expansion in-house, didn't own the rights to release a sequel to Wolfenstein 3D.
Apogee, which modestly called itself "The Developers of Incredible Power," was made up of a who's-who of gaming luminaries.
Apogee (soon to better known as 3D Realms, home of Duke Nukem 3D) decided to continue with development, rechristening the project Rise of the Triad. The development team, which modestly called itself "The Developers of Incredible Power," was made up of a who's-who of gaming luminaries. Designer and Producer Tom Hall, one of id Software's founders, had only recently joined Apogee and would later form the ultimately doomed Ion Storm studio alongside John Romero. In later years, head programmer Mark Dochtermann became the Chief Technology Operator for First-Person Shooters at EA and now holds the vaunted title of "World Changer" at Google. And artist Chuck Jones eventually left Apogee to work at Valve on some new game called Half-Life.Vertical Warfare
While the new storyline casts the player as a member of a top secret United Nations taskforce sent to San Nicolas Island, a real island located some 20 miles off the coast of Los Angeles, to investigate cult activity at a monastery, elements of RotT's Wolf3D origins remain—most notably its Nazi-like enemy troops. Even Apogee realized that RotT's plot was superfluous, closing out the story section of the manual with, "We know this is cliched, but you folks don't care about story do you?" No, us folks don't.
Back in ye olde days of videogamery, a blotch of red pixels was blood.
Armed with 11 different kinds of weapons, including dual pistols, a machine gun, bazooka, missile launchers, and a powerful magical staff, players were more interested in blowing stuff up. (Some kills result in an enemy exploding into bits and the on-screen message "Ludicrous Gibs!") When starting a new game, you select between five different playable characters that offer minor differences in speed, accuracy, and hit points. But unlike more recent shooters, whether you play as red-haired Scottish female Thi Barrett or the swarthy Greco-Spaniard male Ian Paul Freeley (yes, his name is I.P. Freeley) has absolutely no bearing on the storyline.
Secret rooms and triggers were big parts of both the Wolfenstein and Doom franchises, but RotT took the idea and super-sized it.
Because the Wolf3D engine was essentially rewritten and enhanced with new features for RotT, new gameplay was introduced as well, such as the many jump pads that allow you (and enemies) to bounce five stories in the air, killing enemies you land on. Metal discs (nicknamed GADS or Gravitational Anomaly Discs) hang in the air and can be reached by a variety of methods, such as using a jump pad to bounce up to one or unlocking a secret staircase. As opposed to Doom II's mostly single-plane combat, RotT allows you to shoot at enemies above or below, and is one of the first shooters to sport a look up/look down ability — a "feature" that now seems downright quaint. Other firsts in the RotT engine are bullet hole marks in walls, destructible objects like tables and banners, and breakable glass.Secret rooms and triggers were big parts of both the Wolfenstein and Doom franchises, but RotT took the idea and super-sized it. Sliding panels and moving columns are seemingly everywhere, and finding them to reach hidden areas and floating discs so you can uncover armor, weapon upgrades, and extra lives is as much a part of RotT as shooting bad guys.
Eleven is Enough
RotT was also a groundbreaker when it came to multiplayer, allowing up to 11 players simultaneously over a LAN. (Compare that to Doom II's four-player limit.) It also came with an astounding nine multiplayer modes — a wealth of options for the time — that ranged from deathmatch and capture the flag to non-weapon competitions like Collector Mode in which you tried to collect more "Triads" (triangle symbols) than your opponents.
Just climb up these GADS to reach a new area of the map.
Though Doom II may have received more of the attention at the time, Rise of the Triad stands as a trailblazing FPS. Its gameplay, graphics, and MIDI soundtrack are primitive by today's standards, but RotT's pervasive charm is the exuberance and gusto with which the levels and secrets are devised. The story may not make any sense — and I kinda secretly hope that the sequel's doesn't, either — but it's a ridiculously over-the-top experience that deserves to rise again.