Thirty years ago, creating a video game looked very different than it does today. Back then, most games came together in a flash. But even a small increase in how long it took to make a game felt like a big deal for game maker John Romero.
Romero, a true legend in the gaming world, recently shared some stories. He spoke in a video from Nightdive Studios, titled “John Romero & Larry Kuperman Discuss The Games Industry | Deep Dive.” He talked about how id Software, his company in the 1990s, completely changed the game industry. They had technology that was far ahead of others. One interesting detail he shared was about how quickly they used to make games.
For a long time, the team at id Software had a kind of unwritten rule. Most of their games were finished in only about two months. It was a fast-paced way to work, helping them put out many titles quickly.
However, when they started work on Wolfenstein 3D, things changed. This game was one of their very first first-person shooter titles. It didn’t follow the usual two-month schedule. Romero explained that Wolfenstein 3D took a full four months to create. This was twice the time id Software had ever spent on a single game before.
“Wolfenstein was the very first game where we decided to take all the time we needed,” Romero told PC Gamer in a related interview. He explained their old habit: “Before that, we just kept to a two-month cycle for every game.” He added that for Wolfenstein, they lifted that time limit. They put in all the work, even the time it took to upload the shareware version. This added up to the full four months.
Romero recalled how the team felt during development. “We knew we were creating something truly special,” he said. “Nobody had really seen anything like it back then.” He explained their main goal was to make players feel fast and free. They removed anything that got in the way of smooth movement and action. And as history shows, their hard work paid off.
That extra dedication really paid off. Wolfenstein 3D became a groundbreaking game that changed what people thought was possible. It also laid the foundation for another massive hit that followed: DOOM.