In January 1993, upstart US game developers id Software put out a press release announcing agame that would revolutionise the world. According to the press release, it was set in a scientific research facility where “wave after wave of demonic creatures are spreading through the base, killing or possessing everyone in sight”. Gamers would play one of four off-duty soldiers. “As you stand knee-deep in the dead, you must eradicate the enemy and find out where they’re coming from… the safest place is behind a trigger.”
The hyperbole didn’t stop there. Such was id’s confidence in the game, they proclaimed that they “fully expect it to be the number one cause of decreased productivity in businesses around the world”. They had a striking name for this soonto-be released classic: Doom. The only problem? Its creators had yet to write a single line of code for it.
Not that the devs at id were worried. They’d already upended the industry the previous year with the anarchic Wolfenstein 3D, a dark, blood-soaked, shoot-the-Nazis counterpoint to Mario and Sonic, with cutting-edge audio that allowed players to feel the impact of every bullet they fired into the bad guys.
That game, like its yet-to-be-written follow-up, had been created by a team that worked and partied together in a small housing complex in Mesquite, Texas. Unlike such corporate counterparts as Electronic Arts, id
