DOOM SCROLL

How id Software reclaimed its history by losing its leaders

- Jeremy Peel

In the early days, id Software was all about ego. It wasn’t unique in that regard: like practically all of its contemporaries, id was founded by kids of the late ’70s and early ’80s, for whom game development had started as a bedroom hobby. Without university courses or internships, theirs had been a self-directed education – driven by the thrill of getting light to move across a screen.

Knowledge was shared, through computer clubs and magazines, but games of the time were not made through teamwork – instead they were the godlike act of an individual typing the most efficient, creative and accurate code into an Apple II keyboard.

Thanks to the accessibility and simplicity of the tech, John Romero had developed dozens of published games before working on Wolfenstein 3D. His story was no exception – id’s other founding members, John Carmack, Adrian Carmack (no relation) and Tom Hall, had each spent their most formative decade in self-imposed solitary confinement, programming game after game.

It’s no surprise, then, that this history seeped into the culture of the studio. Though id Software worked together to create Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake, its process wasn’t exactly collaborative by today’s standards. In the beginning, John Carmack would work solo to develop the next innovation in 3D graphics and AI. Then Romero and his fellow designers would build stages alone, placing every door, light and monster by hand.