Doom is a first-person shooter game developed and published by id Software. Released on December 10, 1993, for DOS, it is the first installment in the Doom franchise. The player assumes the role of a space marine, later unofficially referred to as Doomguy, fighting through hordes of undead humans and invading demons. The game begins on the moons of Mars and finishes in hell, with the player traversing each level to find its exit or defeat its final boss. It is an early example of 3D graphics in video games, and has enemies and objects as 2D images, a technique sometimes referred to as 2.5D graphics.
Hexen: Beyond Heretic is a fantasy first-person shooter video game developed by Raven Software and published by id Software distributed through GT Interactive on October 30, 1995. It is the sequel to 1994's Heretic, and the second game in Raven Software's "Serpent Riders" trilogy, which culminated with Hexen II. The title comes from the German noun Hexen, which means "witches", and/or the verb hexen, which means "to cast a spell". Game producer John Romero stated that a third, unreleased game in this series was to be called Hecatomb.
id Software LLC is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and artist Adrian Carmack.
Quake II is a 1997 first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Activision. It is the second installment of the Quake series, following Quake.
Quake is a first-person shooter game developed by id Software and published by GT Interactive. The first game in the Quake series, it was originally released for MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows, and Linux in 1996, followed by Mac OS and Sega Saturn in 1997 and Nintendo 64 in 1998.
Michael Z. Land is an American video game composer and musician best known for his scores for various games produced by LucasArts.
Quake 4 is a 2005 first-person shooter video game developed by Raven Software and published by Activision. It is the fourth title in the Quake series, after the multiplayer Quake III Arena, and a sequel to Quake II. Raven Software collaborated with id Software, who supervised the development of the game as well as provided the id Tech 4 engine upon which it was built. The game has an increased emphasis on single-player gameplay compared to previous installments; its multiplayer mode does not support playable bots.
Video game music (VGM) is the soundtrack that accompanies video games. Early video game music was once limited to sounds of early sound chips, such as programmable sound generators (PSG) or FM synthesis chips. These limitations have led to the style of music known as chiptune, which became the sound of the first video games.
Koichi Sugiyama was a Japanese composer, conductor, and orchestrator. He was best known for composing for the Dragon Quest franchise, along with several other video games, anime, film, television shows, and pop songs. Classically trained, Sugiyama was considered a major inspiration for other Japanese game music composers and was active from the 1960s until his death from septic shock in 2021.
Timothy John Follin is an English video game music composer, cinematographer, visual effects artist and game developer, who has written tracks for a variety of titles and home gaming systems, including the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST, Nintendo Entertainment System, Mega Drive, Super NES, Game Boy, Dreamcast, and PlayStation.
Ryuji Sasai is a Japanese video game composer and bass guitarist. He is best known for his work on Xak, Final Fantasy Legend III and Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. His musical career came about when he was 15 years old, and he formed a band. Before entering the gaming industry, Sasai was involved in the anime department, scoring two television series and a film. After creating music for four games as a freelancer, he was employed at Square from 1991 to 1998, where he worked on five games in total. Sasai often collaborated with fellow composers Tadahiro Nitta and Chihiro Fujioka during his career. He has also been a member of the rock bands Novela and Action and is currently performing as a bassist.
Doom WAD is the default format of package files for the video game Doom and its sequel Doom II: Hell on Earth, that contain sprites, levels, and game data. WAD stands for Where's All the Data?. Immediately after its release in 1993, Doom attracted a sizeable following of players who created their own mods for WAD files—packages containing new levels or graphics—and played a vital part in spawning the mod-making culture which is now commonplace for first-person shooter games. Thousands of WADs have been created for Doom, ranging from single custom levels to full original games; most of these can be freely downloaded over the Internet. Several WADs have also been released commercially, and for some people the WAD-making hobby became a gateway to a professional career as a level designer.
Final Doom is a first-person shooter video game developed by TeamTNT, and Dario and Milo Casali, and was released by id Software and distributed by GT Interactive in 1996. It was released for MS-DOS and Macintosh computers, as well as for the PlayStation, although the latter featured a selection of levels from Final Doom and from Master Levels for Doom II.
Doom 64 is a first-person shooter game by Midway. It was first released for the Nintendo 64 in 1997, as the second spin-off game in the Doom series after Final Doom (1996), and the fourth game in the series overall. A remastered port was developed by Nightdive Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One in March 2020, and for Stadia in May 2020.
Inon Zur is an Israeli-American composer of soundtracks for film, television, and video games. He has composed soundtracks for over 80 video games, which include Dragon Age, EverQuest, Fallout, Prince of Persia, Star Trek, the Syberia series, and Starfield. He has received multiple nominations, including three BAFTAs, and has won several awards, including an Emmy. Various music awards for his soundtracks on Men of Valor (2004), Crysis (2008), Dragon Age: Origins (2009), The Elder Scrolls: Blades (2019), Syberia: The World Before (2023) and Starfield (2024).
Jack Wall is an American video game music composer. He has worked on video game music for over 20 games including the Myst franchise, Splinter Cell, Jade Empire, Mass Effect, and Call of Duty. Wall earned a degree in civil engineering from Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and, after a brief stint working in civil engineering, transitioned into music production. He worked with musicians such as John Cale, David Byrne, and Patti Smith, and, after performing increasingly complex production and sound engineering tasks, moved into music composition in 1995.
Masaharu Iwata is a Japanese video game composer. In high school his musical projects included composing on a synthesizer and playing in a cover band. After graduating from high school he joined Bothtec as a composer. He composed the soundtrack to several games there, beginning with 1987's Bakusou Buggy Ippatsu Yarou. After Bothtec was merged into Quest Corporation, he left to become a freelance composer.
Doom Eternal is a 2020 first-person shooter game developed by id Software and published by Bethesda Softworks. The sequel to Doom (2016), and the seventh game in the Doom series, it was released for PlayStation 4, Stadia, Windows, and Xbox One on March 20, 2020, with a port for Nintendo Switch released on December 8, 2020, and versions for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S released on June 29, 2021.
The music of Dragon Age: Origins, a role-playing video game developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts in 2009, was composed and arranged by Israeli American music composer Inon Zur and American singer-songwriter Aubrey Ashburn, and performed by the Northwest Sinfonia. The game features an orchestral soundtrack with a choir, used both in-game and during cutscenes. The score also features contributions from Simon Pressey, who was Audio Director at BioWare and acted as musical supervisor for the project, as well as vocal performances by Ashburn who had since become a frequent collaborator with Zur. Several vocal tracks were produced for the game, which were all performed by Ashburn. Zur intentionally made most of the soundtrack feel "dark" in synergy with the theme of Origins.
Randal (Randy) Linden is a Canadian computer programmer known for his intricate work in re-implementing video game titles, as well as for creating emulators. Linden's works include several notable video game re-implementations, approaches to emulation, code recompilation and optimization techniques, and programming practices.
