Today is May 5th, 2022 – and 30 years ago today, id Software unleashed their second major release (after Commander Keen, of course) on an unsuspecting world, in the form of the Wolfenstein 3D shareware episode uploaded to the infamous Software Creations BBS, allegedly at 4AM after pulling an all-nighter squashing last minute bugs.
Little did they know that their WWII-themed First Person Shooter – based on the 1981 Apple II action adventure game Castle Wolfenstein – would go on to spawn a multi-billion dollar industry that is still going from strength to strength 3 decades later.
Making its way onto multiple “greatest game of all time” lists in the intervening 30 years, in addition to regularly being touted as the “grandfather of 3D shooters”, it’s hard to overestimate the historical importance of this game – and that’s before we even consider that its creation led to Doom only a year later.
So join me as I reminisce and put together a period-correct 286 PC to enjoy this game as I did for the very first time as an impressionable 8 year old – on original hardware.
