Windows

Rise of the Triad: Dark War

Trivia

ROTT was originally Wolfenstein II - id Software licensed the Wolf3D engine to Apogee so Tom Hall could create another sequel to Wolfenstein a year after Spear of Destiny was released. Eventually id Software decided not to let another company handle their IP and cancelled the contract for Wolfenstein II but allowed them to continue licensing the Wolf3D engine.

Contributed by John Romero (1033) on Apr 07, 2006.

The game engine that ROTT uses is actually a heavily modified version of the original Wolfenstein 3-D engine. This may seem hard to believe, as ROTT pushes the engine to its very limits, and outperforms the Doom engine in some ways. However, this may explain why the walls in the level designs are only joined at 90-degree angles.

Later, Tom Hall admitted that he made a huge mistake by deciding to stick with the original Wolf3D engine rather than switching to the Build engine that the "team next door" was using for Duke Nukem 3D. He said that if he had switched ROTT to the Build engine, he could've gotten a technologically advanced game up and running in no time, as opposed to the hard time that Apogee had modifying the Wolf3D engine. (His statements about this can be found in the readme file included with the ROTT public source code that was released on December 20, 2002.)

On March 31, 1995, Rise of the Triad: Dark War was put on the infamous German index by the BPjS. For more information about what this means and to see a list of games sharing the same fate, take a look here: BPjS/BPjM indexed games.

Sebastian "Doyle" Krist's (the second boss in the game) chair is actually just an office chair, and the controls he uses are staplers. The actor who played Krist, ROTT Level Designer Joe Siegler, admitted that he almost stapled his hands a couple times during filming.

If you play ROTT when your system clock indicates that it's one of five different holidays, the "group picture" of the five main characters is changed slightly. In addition, on Christmas, the music for the first level is changed to a familiar Christmas tune. The holidays and effects are as follows:

Easter (date varies) - Lorelei Ni wears Easter Bunny ears.

Cinco de Mayo (May 5th) - Ian wears a sombrero.

Independence Day (July 4th) - Doug holds an American flag.

Halloween (October 31st) - Thi wears a witch's hat.

Christmas (December 24th) - Taradino wears a Santa Claus hat, on December 25th, new music plays in the first level the first level.

Also, there's a way to get all five "holiday hats" in Rise Of The Triad to show up on the screen at the same time. If you finish the game the right way, and destroy all the larvae in the last level, watch ALL the credits (takes several minutes). You'll get to a screen that says "The HUNT is victorious. The End." Do nothing. Let it sit there for about a minute or two, and you'll get another "The End" screen where all five "holiday hats" are shown at once.

After blowing up an enemy, depending on how quick your eyes are, you can sometimes spot a severed arm flipping you off as the arm flies off the screen. A member of the ROTT development team said that this was almost impossible to capture in a screenshot. See the screenshots for the infamous hand.

It was the first game to get an RSAC rating of 4 (the highest) with wanton and gratuitous violence. Once you blew up somebody, their head might hurtle towards you, their eyeballs might fall in front of your face, their blood might linger in the air or stick on the walls for a few minutes. If that's not enough, there is also an EKG mode (Engine Killing Gibs) that's accessible with a cheat code.

Among the topic of 'firsts' in the ROTT In Hell article, Rise of the Triad was the first game to have different characters to play as, and they all had different voices (only things like death, grunt sounds…they didn't talk like Duke Nukem) and abilities. Incidentally, some of the level traps were designed so you could only get by them with certain players.

Rise of the Triad featured some very unique weapons which unfortunately have not become very common since. Highlights include:
-Firebomb: A weapon that splits out into a devestating 4-direction "cross" of fire on the ground.
-Flamewall: A large burning line of fire which spreads outward and away from you.
-Drunk Missile: Five Missiles that have no guidance and head every which way
-Split Missile: Not one but TWO heat-seeking missiles, that spread off at 45degree angles when you release the fire button
-Excalibat: An enchanted Baseball Bat
-God Mode: And not just any god mode, the one in long flowing white robes and a homing ball of divine power that is dispersed from his fingertip
-Dog Mode: Turns you into an invincible dog who can bite and let loose a mighty powered up roar
-Shrooms: Possibly the first FPS to imply drug usage. Your display will wobble up and down and you'll find it hard to make a level shot
-Elasto: Turns you into highly bouncible rubber that will ricochet off of most anything

It's a shame these clever and fun to use weapons haven't been available since.

After many years of requests from fans, Apogee released the source code for Rise of the Triad on December 20, 2002; almost 8 years to the day of the original release of the game. To find out where you can download it, visit Apogee's official site: http://www.apogee1.com

December, 1994
Apogee releases Rise of the Triad, which was originally a sequel to Wolfenstein 3-D, until id decided to pull the rug on the project. ROTT, as it became known, had many innovations, such as being the first game with a parental lock-out feature, 11-player LAN games, 9 multiplayer games built-in, 5 characters (with unique attributes) to play, and it was shipped with a random level generator. Unfortunately, the 90-degree walls was a serious limitation passed down from the game's Wolfenstein 3-D engine roots. (It still sold over 150,000 copies, which is a "hit" by industry standards.)

In July of 1997, an article was published online called ROTT in Hell, calling ROTT the "..best Deathmatch game of all time"; showing how ROTT had many game industry firsts.

Contributed by Indra was here... (13184) on Jun 17, 2003.

Ever wondered what´s the Triad? Historically, following the fall of the Qing Dynasty of China in 1911, followers of the original Taiping Rebellion suddenly found themselves lost without a purpose. Unable to revert to normal civilian lives after spending years living under grave danger and extreme violence, many ex-rebels reunited to form a cult which later came to be known as the "Triad". The "Triad" (commonly known as Chinese Mafia) is actually a collective term that refers to the many branches of the underground society based in Hong Kong. It is engaged in all forms of organized crimes such as drug trafficking, money laundering etc. Major source of "Triad" income today is from counterfeiting products of intellectual property, such as computer software, music CDs and movie VCDs/DVDs! Inf act, the triangular logo used in the game is actually a modified version of the actual "Triad" logo. (from www.wikipedia.org)

Speaking of Dopefish, ever tried scrolling down to the very end of the help (ROTTHELP.EXE)?

After completing the game, you are treated to a show of all the enemy characters including ones that were cut from the final game.

When you exit the game, the game asks you "Yes or No?" in a variety of ways. This in itself is not special, but with each question you get a different sound byte. Here are some examples:

Press Y to pull your plug (makes a that notorious long beep as if your heart stopped)

Press Y to open trap door (sound of someone falling and a rope twisting)

Press Y to release cyanide gas (sound of liquid spilling and gas rising)

Press Y to activate the electric chair (electric snap and sizzle)

Press Y to drive your car off the cliff (car skidding and crashing)

Press Y to activate guillotine (sound of blade falling and thump of head spilling into a pan)

Press Y to signal firing squad ("Ready, aim, fire!")

If you make the screen-size really small a message appears. It says: "Buy a 486 :)"

This game has sponsored several ideas that later became basics in the genre of FPS. For instance this is the first game to sponsor mods in Multiplayer, the mods included basic deathmatch, collectors (a weird game where you needed to collect triads, kind of a children game actually), scavenger (same with weapons) tag, eluder/deluder (the triads move this time), and Capture the Triad. That's right, this is the first game ever to have the most clinched MP mode ever :). This was also the first game to have jump pads, and the ever so famous "quake" rocket jump.

Try starting up Rise Of The Triad using: "rott dopefish"

It will bring you into "dopefish" mode, where instead of getting the level name at the loading screen you get a smart-ass comment, and a special dopefish death cam for when you're hit by enemy missile fire. There's probably other secrets hidden in this mode as well...

ROTT contained lots of cute easter eggs. For instance, if you play the game on one of five holidays, the "group picture" of the game's characters will be altered slightly. On Christmas, the first level backgroup music is different.

Also, if one of the game's "moving walls" attempts to leave the map grid (through a level design error), the game displays a funny black and white sketch of a block yelling, "I'm free!" before crashing.

Rise of the Triad was released only a few days before Christmas 1994- Talk about bad timing! ROTT was the first game to get a 4 (the highest level) in RSAC's violence rating scale. Also, ROTT started life as Wolfenstein 3D II, which explains the Nazi-like guards. There is tons more trivia in the ROTT FAQ, available at Apogee/3D Realms's website.