1990 saw the height of the Louisiana-based team's vision of the future, including the original concept of what would become Quake.
Most everyone knows of a significant id Software property, has likely played something developed by id, or possesses some sort of common knowledge awareness of that company's contribution to PC gaming advancement. The end of their corporate independence in the 21st century means id Tech is no longer the mainstream game measuring rod, a position now yielded to Epic's Unreal engine family. But Unreal didn't hit the streets until 1998 and the engine wouldn't achieve breakthrough popularity as a developer tool until its 3rd generation in the mid-2000s; until that point a still-independent id Software was all too happy to source its technology with the humble attitude of enabling others to surpass their own ideas.
No doubt individual games by id are fun, fully-playable quests, but from almost the beginning they also doubled as technological showcases (with the elite system requirements that comes with). It would not be wrong, in this author's opinion, to views id's main titles as tech demos that include a game for testing the concept. That is what this post explores today: the numerous instances that an impressive showing by an id game had it's technology taken to a new level by others.
The Softdisk/Apogee Era
Scott Miller's secret deal with John Romero behind Softdisk's back is well known, but in context it must be understood Softdisk itself was the starting point for many shareware pioneers: in addition to future id Software working for them directly their Big Blue Disk had seen the pre-shareware publication of original works by Miller (the Kroz series, several others), Keith Schuler (who would continue his series started with Chagunitzu under the Apogee banner), even Brian Goble (founded what was envisioned as a secondary Apogee studio but instead became Monolith Productions, today known for their LithTech engine family that powers not a few budget games). Another interesting chapter is who took over Gamer's Edge after expiration of id Software's obligations to the line in 1992. While Softdisk was defined by the vintage disk magazine concept they too saw the potential in shareware and would dabble as well.
Yet as gaming history shows it was Miller's gamble on the small Ideas From the Deep crew that paid the greatest dividends, making Apogee a top beneficiary long after the end of their official association with id. Both Apogee and Softdisk were in prime position, by virtue of having published id's games with the breakthrough id technology, to use it for their own productions. John Carmack's open development philosophy is a defining characteristic of the person and his work, thus a titling tribute to the level editor used in these first several generations whose common factor is their predating of what is now known as id Tech.
TED5 Adaptive Tile Refresh (Commander Keen: Invasion of the Vorticons engine)
Game engines consist of multiple programming interfaces, not all of which necessarily get used in other products. As the publisher of Commander Keen and id's chief sponsor of the time (not dissimilar to how Microsoft benefitted from IBM a decade prior) Apogee also became the first licensor of id's technology. The extent of this generation's use is difficult to narrow down but at least some id-produced system was favored by Todd Replogle and used to power parts of Dark Ages and the original Duke Nukem.
TED5 Quasi-3D Platforming (Commander Keen: Goodbye, Galaxy! engine)
Like will come up again later this was arguably more a refinement than actual new engine but playing it definitely feels different than before. Softdisk wasn't mentioned last paragraph because Softdisk games using id technology were the ones by id themselves, both officially for Gamer's Edge (which they helped start) and after as part of the obligations of their severance from Softdisk. This continued with Shadow Knights, Slordax, Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion, and most especially Keen Dreams using one form or another of that which powered either Commander Keen series published by Apogee.
Apogee's Todd Repogle borrowed id musician Bobby Prince and the Adlib music engine for his next set of parallax-scrolling platformers: Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure and Duke Nukem II (the latter assisted with creative direction by id alumnus Tom Hall). An older hybrid of the Keen engine powered violent shooter Bio Menace which is fun but was obsolete at launch due to having been delayed until 1993. Credits are not always forthcoming so it may not be possible to discern how many Apogee games integrated some form of id technology, but the impact goes beyond game engines as smooth scrollers were the defining genre of not just Apogee but shareware games in general for the first half of the 90s.
TED5 Texture-Mapped FPS (Catacomb 3-D engine)
For this one round it was Softdisk rather than Apogee who benefitted first from the new dimension (pun intended) of id advancement, thought Apogee would ultimately find a way to get the better part of that deal. Hovertank came first but was more a functional prototype with Catacomb 3-D maturing the idea into full 16-color EGA glory. Post-id Gamer's Edge made one of their few ventures into true shareware with both a pair of Keen-powered follow-ups in the Dangerous Dave series and a whole trilogy using the engine and concepts of Catacomb 3-D. For these developments Gamer's Edge was helmed by Jim Row and Mike Maynard, a pair of names that will be pertinent later.
TED5 Ray-Casting FPS (Wolfenstein 3D engine)
With the second set of Commander Keen games id had begun its retail ventures, using the same engine to power a shareware series to Apogee (Goodbye, Galaxy!) plus a unique "super episode" for Canada-based FormGen Corporation, a frequent redistribution partner of Apogee's, for retail channels (Aliens Ate My Baby Sitter). This repeated with Wolfenstein 3D having Apogee as its the sole official shareware publisher for decades while Spear of Destiny copies to this day bear the FormGen logo in its end credits despite that company having long died. One matter of interest to note in this relationship is FormGen took the opportunity to produce for themselves what they called the Spear of Destiny Mission Packs but under today's nomenclature would be considered commercial mods: custom level and graphic add-ons made without any involvement of id (and considered to be of inferior quality though the historical lore in the manuals is worth a read).
Apogee deceptively bought out id Software from their final obligation to Gamer's Edge knowing what a hit the follow-up to Catacomb 3-D would be, but Wolfenstein 3D's raging success and id's subsequent divorce from Apogee is not the end of this story. After polishing off their Catacomb trilogy for Softdisk Jim Row and Mike Maynard formed JAM Productions which released its sole contributions to gaming in an ironic twist due to how it paralleled what id was doing: Apogee got an episodic shareware game for publishing directly (Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold) plus a separate non-episodic standalone game built on the same general design for retail distribution via FormGen (Blake Stone: Planet Strike). Apogee was no longer alone in exploiting id's technology with Capstone Software obtained the Wolfenstein 3D engine for its own pair of well-conceived but poorly-executed shooters Corridor 7 and Operation Body Count, however Apogee (via an internal team led by Tom Hall) developed the true pinnacle of that engine's use in Rise of the Triad.
The Raven Era
Aside from the usual hang-ups that occur with software development id generally moved at a rapid pace in the 90s, seemingly abandoning the opportunity to exploit prior developments for themselves as soon as they became successful. This was their peculiar way; John Carmack never had any qualms about not looking back while being a technological trailblazer. After Tom Hall's departure John Romero became the new company visionary, however creative strife would lead to his exit as well which marked the point id became more of a technological than gaming company.
Earlier in Wolfenstein 3D's development id was temporarily based in Wisconsin where they befriended a pair of brothers who were among the last developers in North America enthusiast enough about Amiga that their new company's first game would be exclusive to it: Brian and Steve Raffel. Early publishers for Reven Software games included Electronic Arts, Origin Systems, and Strategic Simulations, all of which were exploring their own pushing of boundaries for gaming technology. Following the special project John Carmack did for them which would become ShadowCaster, id completed its own transition to self-publishing and with that came further opportunities in the two companies' relationship.
id Tech 1 (Doom engine)
John Romero understood what made Doom and its commercial companion Doom II so successful which is why he was excited to build on that with a company like Raven who shared his vision. Heretic is most notable in the history of id as their first published third party game, shareware or otherwise, though like Doom later got expanded for retail into The Ultimate Doom the same would occur for Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders (id was kind enough to release free patches for existing owners of the 3-episode shareware editions of either game to their full retail content). Hexen was the Doom II to Heretic's Doom: a non-shareware standalone game using the same base technology with added features, though this was done to a much further extent than for Doom II: while Doom II was a direct sequel with an additional weapon plus new enemies and design, Hexen looked and played significantly different from Heretic and Doom which stood it out enough to get ported to all three major 5th generation game consoles.
id Tech 2 (Quake [II] engine)
The marked improvement from the original Quake engine to Quake II originally had them considered as separate engines, though the present retroactive view puts them together (Quake II's can be thought of as a 2.5). Raven's only exploitation of the Quake technology was its sequel and trilogy conclusion Hexen II which publisher Activision expanded with the now-rare Mission Pack: Portal of Praevus (rare because of licensing issues stemming from the fact that it wasn't Raven-developed thus it's never been re-released). It's actually remarkable how short the list of original games using the Quake engine is because before it could be widely-adopted its successor was already out and left it in the dust.
The Quake II engine may have had its biggest impact as the base for what became the GoldSrc engine which is what got Valve Software started with the original Half-Life, but that is a topic beyond the scope of today's post. Hipnotic Interactive, who had produced one of the official mission packs for Quake and would continue using id engines for years under their new name Ritual Entertainment, was among the first to develop an original Quake II engine game: SiN. John Romero's new company Ion Storm, despite major developmental difficulties that pushed release dates into commercial obsolescence territory, built on top of the technology with the impressive Daikatana and Anachronox. Raven made a unique duo of its own approaches: revisiting their fantasy universe a final time for third-person action adventure Heretic II and making the first of the infamously-violent licensed Soldier of Fortune series.
id Tech 3 (Quake III engine)
Epic's Unreal was in its infancy in 1999 and while its technology was a solid improvement over Quake II it quickly found itself facing parity, if not outright eclipsed, by Quake III Arena which is probably the most "tech demo" of the id library considering its total lack of a storied single-player campaign. Possibly the most cherished game on this technology was the breakthrough performance of Gray Matter Interactive, an id Tech veteran who'd authored one of the official Quake II expansions under its previous name Xatrix Entertainment: the outstanding cinematic revival of id Software's first successful 3D franchise, Return to Castle Wolfenstein. The Raven Software camp saw breakthroughs of their own on the licensing front in addition to Soldier of Fortune sequel Double Helix: by Star Trek through Voyager Elite Force showcasing how impressive the stock engine could be in a well-tuned science fiction setting while Jedi Outcast and its mission pack sequel Jedi Academy were natural fits due to Raven's previous explorations of fantasy hacking-and-slashing with magic translating perfectly into lightsaber combat with Force powers.
The next engine faced a protracted development like that of the original Quake so id Tech 3 sustained a longer time, ended up ported to more systems than any of its predecessors, and got a "version 3.5" that used its open architecture tools to exploit it further. Activision was id's publisher during this period so it fit that they used an improved id Tech 3 for their 007 games on 6th generation consoles. What remained PC exclusive was the first home computer-specific entry in the Medal of Honor series while the showcase of what was capable with an enhanced Quake III engine was Star Trek: Elite Force II produced by Ritual Entertainment. Yet by far the longest-serving legacy is the franchise that would eventually involve Raven Software in what defines their present-day production: the first Call of Duty used this engine, therefore succeeding generations of the Infinity Ward technology still powering the series today can all trace their origins to id Tech 3.
id Tech 4 (Doom 3 engine)
Enhancements for the second generation of the Unreal engine enabled Epic to start pulling ahead of id in both technology and commercial success which left id Tech 3 as the historical peak...not that Doom 3 was unimpressive by any means particularly how well its Xbox port ran considering the weaker hardware. Raven stuck by id for this one last generation, producing Quake 4 which was fine on PC yet on Xbox 360 was a head-scratcher for how terrible it ran on superior hardware. It most certainly wasn't an issue with the engine itself: a year after Quake 4 a much better performance on Xbox 360 (but still superior on PC) was delivered by Human Head Studios, a new studio consisting of developers of Raven's earlier id Tech-based games, with Prey (which was among the handful of games picked up by Apogee for publishing to help ease their troubled development of Duke Nukem Forever). Wolfenstein by Raven, Brink by Splash Damage (who made the Enemy Territory series, standalone multiplayer spinoffs of id games) and Doom 3 BFG Edition brought id Tech 4 into the full trifecta of PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 which (along with the 3rd generation Unreal engine) made it a tool for evaluating the relative strengths and weaknesses of each system.
The MachineGames Era
The 2010s were a time of transition: id got acquired by ZeniMax Media which restricted publisher access to id games as well as developer licensing of id technology which only further allowed Epic to take the lead. The Quake franchise, the last main entry of which had been produced by Raven, went stagnant as Raven stuck with former id publisher Activision who was happy to have Raven contribute to their super-successful Call of Duty series. After finishing touches on the successor to the Doom 3 engine the last of id's founders and its technology master, John Carmack, would leave for the virtual reality gaming realm.
Raven Software had been the definitive place to exploit id Tech for nearly 2 decades but someone else was able to step up to the plate. Doom 4 had been aborted once already but id itself was determined to continue charting the course of the Doom franchise even if it called for another reboot. The Quake series had been technological and multiplayer showcases rather than story-based epics, though Doom 3 and Quake 4 had shown signs id considered those days best left behind in the Call of Duty era. That left the one id shooter franchise that had been story-based from the beginning and was already known for blending military history with science fiction and the supernatural.
id Tech 5
This was the first official use of the "id Tech" name as well as the retroactive re-designation of previous engine generations that before had been named after their premiere games. Carmack took a different direction though it was the same philosophy of producing an engine that could be used for more than a first-person shooter, hence the driving in RAGE. In his last id production Carmack would backport some components into id Tech 4.5 for Doom 3 BFG Edition.
Sweden-based MachineGames, a new developer acquired ZeniMax, was awarded the privilege of both succeeding Raven as the prime id Tech showcase studio plus continuing the Wolfenstein franchise. The New Order impressed on many levels: despite being an 8th generation title it had editions for previous generation consoles that ran alright [if less detailed], multiplayer was eschewed altogether in favor of the cinematic quest the series was best at being, and its backdrop of an Axis victory in WWII was a powerful motivating element not explored often in popular media. Its mission pack prequel The Old Blood was the peak of id Tech 5, requiring more powerful PC hardware than The New Order and not releasing for 7th generation systems.
id Tech 6
The dichotomy established with id Tech 5 firmly matured here. After much delay and false starts the new Doom was finished and it got very well-received as both a worthy successor to a beloved franchise now old enough to be considered classic plus that its story (as the sequel would bring to light) followed what was established in those previous games rather than being another reboot. MachineGames switched to this engine for Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, its conventional team-based FPS spinoff Youngblood and VR title Cyberpilot.
id Tech 7
This engine is now 4 years old and has still only powered Doom Eternal as it seems there's a focus in this new generational transition to first check the retro gaming boxes. The original Doom games got ported to Unity with a new multiplatform interface that curates mods, some of which have existed for years but been made official in this manner for the first time. While it continues churning out Wolfenstein entries MachineGames (which earned development of a new game on another dormant license, Indiana Jones) produced all-new episodes for the original Quake which had recently been remastered by retro gaming specialists Night Dive Studios via their proprietary KEX engine. On top of all that GPU giant Nvidia used Quake II as a testing base for their new RTX capacity, showing these old games doubling as technology demonstrators still have a potential people want to use in new ways today.