Tim Willits | |
|---|---|
 Willits in 2016 | |
| Born | September 13, 1971 |
| Occupation(s) | Studio director, id Software (1995–2019) Chief creative officer, Saber Interactive (2019–present) |
Tim Willits is the former studio director, co-owner, and level designer of id Software. As of August 2019, Willits is the chief creative officer at Saber Interactive. He became a Director of 3D Realms with Saber Interactive’s acquisition of the company. [1]
Willits is a computer science and business graduate of the University of Minnesota [2] and a former member of the University of Minnesota Army ROTC program. Willits was the battalion cadet-command sergeant major (C/CSM) during his junior year and attended ROTC Advanced Camp at Fort Lewis, Washington during the summer between his junior and senior years of college. After an injury during the summer, Willits completed two rotations, being assigned to both the first and seventh cadet regiments during that summer. He held the rank of cadet-major (C/MAJ) during his senior year and was assigned as the battalion training officer.[ citation needed ]
Married for the second time in 2009, Willits currently lives in a Dallas suburb with his wife, Alison Barron Willits. Together, both of them have triplets. [3] [2]
Willits has stated in numerous interviews that he was inspired to make video games when he downloaded a shareware version of Doom . He played the first room of E1M1, thinking that was the entire demo, then, discovering a door that led the player to the other rooms. It was that moment when the door opened that Willits decided he wanted to make video games. [2] [4] [5] He joined id Software in 1995 after impressing the owners and development team with Doom levels he forged in his spare time and distributed free over the Internet. Willits has worked on Strife , The Ultimate Doom , Quake , Quake II , Quake III Arena , Quake III: Team Arena and Doom 3 .[ citation needed ]
Willits was lead designer on Doom 3, and executive producer on Quake 4 . He was also the creative director on Rage and Quake Live, as well as the game director on the arena shooter, Quake Champions. [ citation needed ]
Willits was the only id Software employee to attend every single QuakeCon event since its inception in 1996 until his departure from id in 2019, something of which he is proud. [4] [5] On July 18, 2019, Willits announced he would leave id Software after serving for 24 years. [6] He is now the chief creative officer at Saber Interactive. [7]
Willits was referenced in the Doom movie as Dr. Willits. [8]
Willits received attention in August 2017 for claiming that he created the concept of multiplayer maps during the development of Quake. According to Willits, he approached coworkers John Romero and John Carmack with the idea of maps which could only be played in multiplayer, which Willits claimed the two dismissed as "the stupidest idea they'd ever heard". [9]
The following day, Romero refuted Willits' statement on his personal blog, claiming that Willits' alleged encounter between him and Carmack never happened. [10] Carmack said that he does not recall the conversation between Tim Willits, John Romero, and himself, and he trusts Romero's recollection of events, in line with the account detailed on Romero's blog. [11] Romero explained that many hundreds of deathmatch-only maps had been made for Doom prior to Quake's release, including a deathmatch map created by then-id Software employee American McGee. Romero also noted that Marathon and Rise of the Triad , first person shooters which predated Quake by over a year, both shipped with maps exclusive to multiplayer. Tom Hall, co-founder of id Software and director of Rise of the Triad, gave his support for Romero. [11] Willits responded to the article by posting an early video of a map fragment with elements of Q1DM3 shown named Tim14.bsp on his Instagram, and stated that "I stand by what I said". [12] In January 2020, Willits was on the Arcade Attack Podcast and clarifies that when he talked about multiplayer-only maps he was specifically talking about Quake, not FPS games in general. He also added that Quake was the first FPS game that had dedicated client-server architecture for multiplayer. [13]
Willits was interviewed by Warren Spector in 2007, giving the same account of creating the concept of multiplayer-only maps. [14] Willits also claimed to have created all of Quake's shareware levels; this was disputed by John Romero. [10]
These are the works Tim has done, which includes titles mostly from id Software:
| Year | Title | System(s) | Role(s) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | The Ultimate Doom | MS-DOS [a] | Level Designer for Episode 4: "Thy Flesh Consumed" | Updated release of the original 1993 game featuring an additional episode, "Thy Flesh Consumed" |
| Master Levels for Doom II | MS-DOS | "Attack" and "Canyon" map designer | — | |
| 1996 | Strife | MS-DOS | Level Designer | Primarily developed by Rogue Entertainment |
| Quake | MS-DOS | Level and scenario designer | — | |
| Hexen: Beyond Heretic | Sega Saturn | Designer | Primarily developed by Raven Software | |
| 1997 | Quake II | Microsoft Windows | Level designer | — |
| 1999 | Quake III Arena | Microsoft Windows | Level and scenario design | — |
| 2004 | Doom 3 | Microsoft Windows | Lead designer | — |
| 2005 | Quake 4 | Microsoft Windows | Executive producer | Primarily developed by Raven Software |
| 2010 | Quake Live | Microsoft Windows | Creative director | — |
| 2011 | Rage | Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 | Studio Director and creative director | — |
| 2012 | Doom 3 BFG Edition | Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 | Studio Director | — |
| 2016 | Doom | Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch | Studio Director | — |
| 2017 | Quake Champions | Microsoft Windows | Game and Studio Director | — |
| 2019 | Rage 2 | Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One | Studio Director | Collaboration with Avalanche Studios |
| 2024 | Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine II | Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S | CCO at Saber Interactive | announced at The Game Awards 2021 |
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.
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.
Wolfenstein 3D is a first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Apogee Software and FormGen. Originally released on May 5, 1992, for DOS, it was inspired by the 1981 Muse Software video game Castle Wolfenstein, and is the third installment in the Wolfenstein series. In Wolfenstein 3D, the player assumes the role of Allied spy William "B.J." Blazkowicz during World War II as he escapes from the Nazi German prison Castle Wolfenstein and carries out a series of crucial missions against the Nazis. The player traverses each of the game's levels to find an elevator to the next level or kill a final boss, fighting Nazi soldiers, dogs, and other enemies with a knife and a variety of guns.
Commander Keen is a series of side-scrolling platform video games developed primarily by id Software. The series consists of six main episodes, a "lost" episode, and a final game; all but the final game were released for MS-DOS in 1990 and 1991, while the 2001 Commander Keen was released for the Game Boy Color. The series follows the eponymous Commander Keen, the secret identity of the eight-year-old genius Billy Blaze, as he defends the Earth and the galaxy from alien threats with his homemade spaceship, rayguns, and pogo stick.
John D. Carmack II is an American computer programmer and video game developer. He co-founded the video game company id Software and was the lead programmer of its 1990s games Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, and their sequels. Carmack made innovations in 3D computer graphics, such as his Carmack's Reverse algorithm for shadow volumes.
Alfonso John Romero is an American video game developer. He co-founded id Software and designed their early games, including Wolfenstein 3D (1992), Doom (1993), Doom II (1994), Hexen (1995) and Quake (1996). His designs and development tools, along with programming techniques developed by the id programmer John Carmack, popularized the first-person shooter (FPS) genre. Romero is also credited with coining the multiplayer term "deathmatch".
Doom II, also known as Doom II: Hell on Earth, is a first-person shooter game in the Doom franchise developed by id Software. It was released for MS-DOS in 1994 and Mac OS in 1995. Unlike the original Doom, which was initially only available through shareware and mail order, Doom II was sold in stores.
American James McGee is a retired American video game designer. He is best known as the designer of American McGee's Alice, its sequel Alice: Madness Returns, and his works on various video games from id Software.
QuakeCon is a yearly convention held by ZeniMax Media to celebrate and promote the major franchises of id Software and other studios owned by ZeniMax. It includes a large, paid, bring-your-own-computer (BYOC) LAN party event with a competitive tournament held every year in Dallas, Texas, USA. The event, which is named after id Software's game Quake, sees thousands of gamers from all over the world attend every year to celebrate the company's gaming dynasty.
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.
Doom, a first-person shooter game by id Software, was released in December 1993 and is considered one of the most significant and influential video games in history. Development began in November 1992, with programmers John Carmack and John Romero, artists Adrian Carmack and Kevin Cloud, and designer Tom Hall. Late in development, Hall was replaced by Sandy Petersen and programmer Dave Taylor joined. The music and sound effects were created by Bobby Prince.
The Dial-up Wide-Area Network Game Operation, better known by the acronym DWANGO, was an early online gaming service based in the United States. Launched in 1994, it was originally known for its compatibility with Doom, for which it functioned as a matchmaking service for online multiplayer. The service also supported various other titles, including other id Software games such as Doom II and Heretic as well as titles from other companies like Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, and Shadow Warrior from 3D Realms.
Rage is a first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Bethesda Softworks, released in October 2011 for Microsoft Windows, the PlayStation 3, and the Xbox 360, and in February 2012 for OS X. It was first shown as a tech demo at the 2007 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference and was announced at the QuakeCon. Rage uses id Software's id Tech 5 game engine and is the final game released by the company under the supervision of founder John Carmack.
Doom is an American media franchise created by John Carmack, John Romero, Adrian Carmack, Kevin Cloud, and Tom Hall. The series usually focuses on the exploits of an unnamed space marine operating under the auspices of the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC), who fights hordes of demons and the undead to save Earth from an apocalyptic invasion.
A first-person shooter (FPS) is a video game centered on gun fighting and other weapon-based combat seen from a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action directly through the eyes of the main character. This genre shares multiple common traits with other shooter games, and in turn falls under the action games category. Since the genre's inception, advanced 3D and pseudo-3D graphics have proven fundamental to allow a reasonable level of immersion in the game world, and this type of game helped pushing technology progressively further, challenging hardware developers worldwide to introduce numerous innovations in the field of graphics processing units. Multiplayer gaming has been an integral part of the experience, and became even more prominent with the diffusion of internet connectivity in recent years.
Blackroom was a planned first-person shooter game from the independent studio Night Work Games, created by former id Software developers John Romero and Adrian Carmack. It was planned to be crowdfunded on the Kickstarter platform, but the crowdfunding campaign was cancelled in April 2016. The game was set to launch during the winter quarter of 2018. In 2023, it was confirmed to be cancelled.
Based on id Software's open stance towards game modifications, their Quake series became a popular subject for player mods beginning with Quake in 1996. Spurred by user-created hacked content on their previous games and the company's desire to encourage the hacker ethic, Id included dedicated modification tools into Quake, including the QuakeC programming language and a level editor. As a game that popularized online first-person shooter multiplayer, early games were team- and strategy-based and led to prominent mods like Team Fortress, whose developers were later hired by Valve to create a dedicated version for the company. Id's openness and modding tools led to a "Quake movie" community, which altered gameplay data to add camera angles in post-production, a practice that became known as machinima.