The Descent 3 Release Date

[Hebe Newnam]

Descent is a first-person shooter (FPS) game developed by Parallax Software and released by Interplay Productions in 1995 for MS-DOS, and later for Macintosh, PlayStation, and RISC OS. It popularized a subgenre of FPS games employing six degrees of freedom and was the first FPS to feature entirely true-3D graphics. The player is cast as a mercenary hired to eliminate the threat of a mysterious extraterrestrial computer virus infecting off-world mining robots. In a series of mines throughout the Solar System, the protagonist pilots a spaceship and must locate and destroy the mine's power reactor and escape before being caught in the mine's self-destruction, defeating opposing robots along the way. Players can play online and compete in either deathmatches or cooperate to take on the robots.

Descent was a commercial success. Together with its sequel, it sold over 1.1 million units as of 1998 and was critically acclaimed. Commentators and reviewers compared it to Doom and praised its unrestrained range of motion and full 3D graphics. The combination of traditional first-person shooter mechanics with that of a space flight simulator was also well received. Complaints tended to focus on the frequency for the player to become disoriented and the potential to induce motion sickness. The game's success spawned expansion packs and the sequels Descent II (1996) and Descent 3 (1999).

Descent is set in 2169.[4] The story begins with a briefing between PTMC executive S. Dravis and the player's character, PTMC's best "Material Defender", who is hired on a mercenary basis to eliminate the threat of a mysterious alien computer virus infecting the machines and robots used for off-world mining operations.[12]

After defeating the boss robot on Charon, the Material Defender is informed he cannot return to the PTMC's headquarters in Earth orbit, as there is a chance his ship may be infected with the same virus as the defeated robots. His employer also mentions that PTMC has lost contact with their deep-space installations outside the Solar System, setting the stage for the sequel.[15]

Descent was co-created by programmers Mike Kulas and Matt Toschlog. It has origins as far back as 1986, when Toschlog first joined the gaming industry at Sublogic, where he also first met Kulas. There, the pair worked on various simulation titles from Flight Simulator 2 to Jet. Toschlog left the company in 1988 for Looking Glass, where he worked with Ned Lerner to develop Car and Driver. Kulas joined the company in 1990 to develop utilities for Car and Driver. The two had devised an idea of an indoor flight simulator that used shaded polygons. After working on Ultima Underworld however, they realized they could add textures to the polygons for a spectacular effect. By April 1993, they finished a two-page sketch for what would become Descent.[a]

Descent took about 21 months to finish. According to Kulas,[18] the game cost around US$450,000 to make. The game's marketing budget was $1 million.[20] Deciding that their idea was too good for anyone else to develop it, Kulas and Toschlog left Looking Glass in June 1993 to form Parallax Software. They hired Che-Yuan Wang and John Slagel as their programmers, with Wang also being their level designer. They also hired Adam Pletcher as their artist. They set out to contact publishers, including Scott Miller of Apogee Software, id Software's primary publisher, who was excited about their proposal and signed a contract with them. For the next seven months, Apogee invested in Parallax and shared with them experience they had gained from developing their own 3D shareware titles. Parallax would implement artistic and structural changes that Apogee requested. After those months, Apogee had numerous projects in the works, and Parallax's project became more expensive to create, so Apogee severed its involvement in the project.[a]

Left without a publisher, Parallax spent the next three months to develop a mock-up prototype, continuing their coding. The project was originally titled Miner, but Parallax presented their prototype in written letters to 50 game companies as Inferno. Of those letters, three of them received a reply. One of them was from Interplay, who immediately signed the company up. Until the game's full release, Interplay's producer Rusty Buchert would oversee and guide the development of the project. Parallax hired three more people to finish the project: level designers Mark Dinse and Jasen Whiteside and story writer and 3D modeler Josh White.[a]

During level design, the idea of simple connected tunnels as the sole component of level architecture expanded to also include rooms and exits. As levels became more complex and confusing, the developers added an automap to address this problem.[a] To design the levels, Descent's graphics engine uses portal rendering, which uses collections of cubes to form rooms and tunnels. Within the game, sides of cubes can be attached to other cubes, or display up to two texture maps. Cubes can be deformed so long as they remain convex. To create effects like doors and see-through grating, walls could be placed at the connected sides of two cubes.[21] Robots were drawn as polygonal models; sprites were only used to represent the hostages and power-ups.[22] This system was very efficient, and made possible the first truly 3D textured environment in a video game.[21][22]

Another obstacle to overcome was adding online multiplayer. Parallax found it difficult to implement and were initially reluctant to do so. At the same time during development, they had learned of Doom and the popularity of its multiplayer. Interplay sent Rob Huebner to help Parallax program multiplayer. Near their project's completion, Parallax faced yet another obstacle: they needed to make sure that their highly detailed and complex game could run smoothly on computers. Although ultimately the requirements to run the game fast were high, an added option to adjust detail complexity did help.[a]

Parallax Software and Interplay followed the shareware model used by Apogee and id Software, and on December 24, 1994;[23] uploaded a seven-level shareware demo as Descent both in retail and on the Internet.[13]

The full game for MS-DOS was released in the United Kingdom on March 3, 1995,[24][25] and in North America on March 17, 1995,[16][26] followed by a Macintosh port published by MacPlay in December 1995.[27] A modified version of Descent with stereoscopic graphics was released as a bundle with StereoGraphics's SimulEyes VR 3D glasses.[28]

A PlayStation port was released in Japan on January 26, 1996, in the United States on March 12, 1996, and in Europe that same month, with SoftBank being the Japanese version's developer.[29][30][31] The PlayStation version replaces the still screens and text with full-motion video pre-rendered cutscenes incorporating voice acting.[32]

November 22, 1995 also saw the release of Descent: Levels of the World, an add-on containing over 100 winning level submissions from a design competition held by Interplay, plus one level designed by Parallax Software.[33][34] Also in March 1996, Descent: Anniversary Edition was released, which bundled Descent, Levels of the World, as well as additional exclusive levels.

A Sega 32X version of Descent was planned as the first console version,[38] but it was never released. A 3DO Interactive Multiplayer version was showcased at E3 1995 and slated to be published by Interplay, but never came to fruition for unknown reasons.[39] Likewise, a Panasonic M2 version was also announced but never released due to the system's cancellation.[b] A planned Sega Saturn version was cancelled because the programmers found that a straight port of the PlayStation version was not possible, and they did not think it would be worth their while to do a more elaborate port for the Saturn.[45][46] Interplay had plans dating to mid-1996 to port Descent to Nintendo 64 under the name Ultra Descent.[47] The port was delayed before it was eventually cancelled in 1998 in favor of Descent 3, with Parallax's Jim Boone explaining that it never reached the design phase in development.[48][49] In April 2010, Interplay partnered with independent developer G1M2 to release a WiiWare version for Fall 2010.[50] It would have featured enhanced textures and a variety of controls, including motion controls of a Wii Remote and Nunchuk with a MotionPlus accessory and possibly a Wii Balance Board.[51] The deadline was missed, and the last time the developer publicly provided an update on its progress was in a response to a news inquiry in 2011, assuring that the project was still underway,[52] before it was ultimately quietly abandoned.

Descent was re-released on modern digital distribution services. It was one of the launch titles for the open beta version of Good Old Games on September 8, 2008,[56] followed by a Steam release on February 13, 2014.[57] However, the game was withdrawn from Good Old Games in December 2015 along with Descent II and Descent 3, and later from Steam. A representative of Parallax Software responded to speculation on the Good Old Games forums regarding the withdrawal of the titles. Interplay owned the Descent trademark and the publishing rights to those games, but their developers still retained the copyrights to them. The latter pulled their games off because Interplay purportedly had not paid them royalties since 2007. As a result, they had terminated the sales agreement, disallowing Interplay from further selling them.[58]

On Electronic Entertainment's charts in March 1995, the PC and CD-ROM editions of Descent appeared as Nos. 5 and 8 of the top-selling PC and CD-ROM titles before climbing to Nos. 4 and 3 the next month, respectively.[61] The game first appeared on PC Zone's charts of the top-selling games in May 1995, landing on Nos. 4 and 2 on the top full price and CD-ROM titles, respectively. The shareware version appeared as No. 3 on the top budget games.[62] In June 1995, the CD-ROM version dropped off, and the shareware version fell to No. 6 of the budget games and the full game to No. 9 of the full price games[63] before dropping off next month. The full game rose back up in August 1995 to No. 19 of the top full price games, while the shareware version fell down to No. 7 of the top commercial titles.[64] The game dropped off PC Zone's charts altogether the next month.[65] The Macintosh port also landed on No. 10 of the top Macintosh games in December 1995.[66]

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