Before we get started, this video is one out of six games I will be covering under the topic of modern boomer shooters. So if you would like to see more content, I will be posting not only my completed playthroughs without commentary but other similar reviews. For Rise of the Triad—the remake, not the original—I will have the first two episodes of my playthrough before this video review comes out.
My plan is to finish one video-review from this series per week as I have all the footage ready for these games. Eventually, all these separate reviews will be put together into one video, but this approach allows me to share my content across multiple Steam games. For now, however, if you want something else to watch you can tune into my thoughts on the Real Return to Castle Wolfenstein mod, my Project Warlock review and playthrough, and the soon-to-be-released remake of my DOOM series critique. Thank you.
[The video above is a place-holder for my intro.]
After Project Warlock, you might have expected we would be continuing in a chronological manner, so why have we gone back to the bygone year of 2013? While old-school FPS games—or as I like to colloquially refer to them, Modern Boomer Shooters—are almost commonplace today, we need to keep in mind the fact that these types of games fell out of fashion between the early and late 2000s.
If you’re some Sonny Jim, you might attribute this fading interest to modern-military shooters; or if you’re some posh game critic, you might believe this was another sign of progress for more narrative-driven experiences. Whichever tale of extremes you want to believe, the resurgence of this genre owes much to entries like Serious Sam 3 (2011) and Painkiller: Hell & Damnation (2010,) although I would argue Rise of the Triad marked the beginning of the official renaissance. (As a side note, I am aware that Shadow Warrior (2013) came out months later because I played it at launch; I’m pointing out Rise of the Triad as the starting point, not the sole reason for the genre’s return.) Unfortunately, if you play Rise of the Triad today, the original or the remake, you will probably find that it doesn’t hold up to modern or classic FPS standards, but that makes it no less important.
Now, we could end our history lesson here; however, I want to further point out how my statement is based on more than your typical YouTuber hyperbole. In fact, this idea almost feels like I have stumbled into some grand conspiracy given how far-reaching this rabbit hole can go—or, you know, the likelihood that all these people involved made their connections here for future projects. If you look at the game’s credits, you will find Daniel Hedjazi, Frederik Schreiber, Dave Oshry, Andrew Hulshult, Leon Zawada, and many more familiar names if you have played any recent 3DRealms or New Blood Interactive games. These games include DUSK, Amid Evil, Bombshell, Quake Champions, Ion Fury, and Wrath: Aeon of Ruin—so pretty much every game I will cover in this series besides Project Warlock. (See? There is some method to my madness.) With the exceptions of the Shadow Warrior remakes as well as Bethesda’s Wolfenstein and DOOM reboots, almost every popular throwback FPS to date has had someone involved with the Rise of the Triad remake—and I’m sure the internet will find more connections to add to our collective hive-mind.
You know, Apogee brought Kevin Silverman on board to create the original Rise of the Triad on Apogee's first unfinished Build engine… ow, my brain is starting to hurt.
Again, my point here has less to do with unraveling some greater mystery; it’s to point out how this one project can be viewed as the epicenter for the return of this style of game. It’s not like everyone involved had done nothing noteworthy before this game existed as many made mods or fan-made albums for other retro FPSs. Much like Final DOOM, many people took this opportunity to officially develop their careers, which would later influence the larger video-game landscape. Plus, once I tell you that most of the development costs went towards acquiring the IP and paying for the Unreal Engine 3 license, you will likely appreciate what this game sets out to achieve—even when it fails.
With all that history out of the way, let’s return to the present discussion about Rise of the Triad—and maybe this topic will be important based on my track-record for predicting sequels. (I’ve already predicted Bloodlines 2, Dishonored 2 and Homeworld 3, so this news wouldn’t surprise me.) Anyway, Rise of the Triad (2013) is a remake of the 1994 classic, which should be obvious to everyone, but what is not immediately apparent is that this game was almost the official sequel to Wolfenstein 3D. Needless to say, a lot had changed during its development.
To spare you and I another old-man ramble before my time, John Carmack made it impossible for Apogee (and for Tom Hall) to market a sequel to Wolfenstein nearing the end of DOOM’s development. As a result, Dark War’s development team had to redesign the entire project, which only started out as a map-pack along with a graphical overhaul, but it soon became a drastically different game—with some added ludicrous features. Now I don’t want to paint those at iD as the bad guys because they did agree to share code and engine tweaks from DOOM for Rise of the Triad; however, I’ll let Nostalgia Nerd tell the rest of that story. Although the exact time-frame of these changes is not clear, this context is important because Rise of the Triad doesn’t break its first-person shooter conventions for no reason. This decision was basically the developers playfully covering their own legal asses, and it likely would not exist without those circumstances.
So, when looking at the remake’s mechanics with that context in mind, a lot of these wackier elements will make more sense—and many more will not, which is difficult to make a coherent argument about what issues should be addressed. This dilemma is only a problem if this series continues without a reboot, which after seven years—following an eighteen-year gap before its remake—is not a bad idea. Obviously, some gimmicks could be removed outright like the shrooms power-up because it is a needlessly disorientating health-hazard with no gameplay benefits. You could also remove the rubber-ball power-up because these levels are no longer clutter-free corridors, so this pick-up only shows off how bad the physics can be whenever you collide into nearby objects. However, I would not want to remove the emphasis on platforming or the arcade tokens, but these two features could be streamlined to focus more around the gunplay, which is where Rise of the Triad is at its best.
When you examine the core gameplay, especially the weapons themselves, Rise of the Triad almost has no relation to the first-person shooters of old besides the emphasis on movement. Instead of lugging an arsenal for a one-man army, weapons are broken up into three categories: bullet, explosive and magical weapons. While you can always carry both bullet-weapons, you can only hold one weapon from the other two categories, which is a new addition to the remake, and these two groups are the only ones with limited ammo.
These explosive-based weapons include more traditional choices like a bazooka and a heat-seeking missile launcher, but you also have more exotic options such as a missile launcher that splits apart two missiles at once, a mini-gun rocket launcher that fires in a drunken manner, a grenade launcher that creates a wall of flames, a rocket launcher that fires an X-shape firebomb, and a new weapon dubbed the "Doomstick," which is a shotgun crossed with a grenade-launcher. Much like the Doomstick, some weapons include alternative attacks to make them more useful, so you won’t restrict your options based on the level-design; it will come down to your own preferences and skill. Compared to these more bizarre firearms, the magic weapons may feel tame by comparison with only a magical staff or a baseball bat, but you also have zany pick-up items such as God mode or Dog mode to alleviate this limited selection. All these decisions keep Rise of the Triad focused on the variety of its more explosive moments, which best describes the overall game itself.
Explosions are more important here than in any other first-person shooter, although you may not get this idea at first until you realize how much the game litters these weapons everywhere. Outside of robots, your bullet-based weapons can take out any threat, but you will take significant damage if you solely rely on them because most enemies are hit-scanners. To help offset this problem, your other weapons are more effective when dealing with larger numbers or tougher encounters. Of course, you can use your explosive weapons for rocket-jumping, or you could use them to regain more health by warming up your food. Even when it comes to your enemies, the Enforcers are one of the most deadly threats because their primary tactic is to steal your explosive weapons before using them against you. In short, if I had to summarize the core identity of Rise of the Triad, it would no doubt go like this:
However, when most people recall Rise of the Triad, what they probably remember besides these weapons of mass destruction is the number of platforms, traps and outdated arcade elements that were originally technical limitations. Even before I replayed this game, my memory recalled these blemishes on the overall experience far more than how much they actually make up the entire game, which is probably a sign of how bad these moments can be. Sequences like the first secret level in episode one and level two in episode two are perhaps the worst offenders, but you will constantly come across these elements throughout the game in lesser, more tolerable doses. Thankfully, most stages are focused on combat, but it’s these outlier moments and those brief, terrible platforming sequences all throughout that makes it difficult to recommend this game to anyone but to Rise of the Triad fanatics.
Now there is nothing innately wrong with these concepts, but we can agree Rise of the Triad doesn’t always execute them that well—or they can feel superfluous to the core experience. You don’t need to be a physicist to know how to put explosions and momentum together, and if you’ve played DOOM: Eternal or Quake Champions, then you know there is a proper way to combine platforming with fast-paced first-person shooters. Likewise, the arcade token system, which no longer gives you extra lives, is something not unheard of from modern games—hell, Mario still uses them to this very day—yet it would be nice to make them more relevant. The main issue, however, is that Rise of the Triad almost breaks every rule of what not to do in an FPS, which is understandable in 1994, but not as tolerable in 2013—and especially not in 2020.
These issues include making movable and stationary platforms too small for extensive platforming sequences, creating these traps and platform situations with a low margin for error, having checkpoint placements scattered out too few—and often right before a sudden trap or a difficult jump—and having too many collectables in one area that you act as a lawnmower. Before this game was later updated with a quick-save system, you had to deal with these moments on your own, which is probably why most people remember these issues being more prevalent. Even with this feature, you can still place somewhere on the leaderboards if you actually care about scores as the quick-saves will only dock points—you are even allowed to enable console cheats as well. Something you may want to keep in mind for a couple boss fights that are almost too ludicrous for this game to handle.
The core problem with all these ideas in Rise of the Triad is that they feel haphazardly thrown together, which doesn’t benefit the game’s overall subpar quality. (Hell, I never brought up that this game has a more dynamic difficulty system for multiple characters with stat-based differences.) Even compared to DOOM (2016,) Wolfenstein the New Order (2014) or even Shadow Warrior (2013,) Rise of the Triad feels more dated in its lack of polish, which is ironic because the original’s biggest hurdle was that it came after the success of DOOM 2 (1994.) However, you only need to play levels such as “[E1M1] In the Thick of It,” “[E2L1] Into the Castle,” “[E3EP3] Clear and Present Dangers,” and “[E4EP2] Fire and Brimstone” to see how these ideas can work when they are used in moderation. Even when it comes to boss fights, General Dorian, NME, and El Oscuro are some of the best multi-phase bosses from any first-person-shooter—but this game also includes one of the worst, although I will also admit the second phase for El Oscuro is a little too much. And, oh god, I haven’t even talked about the height of its multiplayer matches where all these mechanics are pushed to their limits, but I think you get the idea.
Much like the previous paragraph, trying to describe Rise of the Triad (2013) can often feel like a mouthful of words; at some point, you have to take it all for what it is and breathe. Given the mixed reception on Steam, there are a lot of flaws some might find more grating than others. As a fan of this game, or as one of the many fans who helped made this remake become reality, Rise of the Triad caters specifically to those who enjoy its more ludicrous elements while accepting its problems. The same kind of fan who, after completing the remake and after planning to record only a little bit of Dark War footage, found another reason to fall in love all over again. Whether or not this game is for you is something I cannot say, but if you can tolerate these legitimate issues, none will keep you from having a good time with this beloved cult classic.
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