#WW2 #39: Spear of Destiny Mission Packs
They make prisoners play this in Castle Wolfenstein
Initial release: May 1994
Platform: DOS (Expansions for Wolfenstein 3D: Spear of Destiny)
Developers: FormGen
The expansion pack, going back to the tabletop RPG days of the 1970s, is an interesting entity. At first, it’s an obvious artifact of capitalism: gotta squeeze out as much money from a popular game as possible, and ideally prolong said game’s shelf-life. But at the same time, expansion packs have been used to, variously, address criticisms of the base game (Broken Steel for Fallout 3,) fix bugs and broken things (Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty,) give unused content a chance to shine (Phantom Liberty, again) and give fledgeling studios something to build a portfolio on (Gearbox built its early reputation on Half-Life expansions.) But sometimes expansion packs just fall flat. Blizzard famously considers the original Diablo’s sole expansion, Hellfire, to be a non-entity. Did anyone even bother with the DLC for Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands? And then there’s id Software, who are no strangers to having their games expanded upon. Catacomb 3-D had not one but three stand-alone sequels developed by Softdisk, the id founders’ former employer. Quake and Quake II both have a small pile of authorized and unauthorized expansions even into the 21st century. Doom and its sequel both had official expansions developed in-house, largely built by talent hired directly from the community. Wolfenstein 3D: Spear of Destiny had… a pair of expansion packs titled Return to Danger and The Ultimate Challenge.
FormGen was a publisher based out of Scottsdale, AZ that is known primarily for being id Software’s first retail distributor and for being involved in a lawsuit that basically made user-made levels for video games illegal (which everyone subsequently ignored.) During Wolfenstein 3D’s development, FormGen bigwigs — who were in talks to publish the game — expressed concern about the game’s violent content; in response, id Software added more violent content. id Software eventually went with Apogee Software to get the game out on shelves, but when it came time to do a stand-alone sequel during the long development time of Doom, FormGen were tapped as retail publisher, and this time they had no objections to the content.
Spear of Destiny was of course a big hit — I personally prefer it over the original game — but right around the corner was Doom; FormGen, however, thought there was still money to be made with Wolfenstein, and developed a pair of expansion packs, both released the same month (and possibly the same day?) Both of them follow basically the same format as the original: 21 levels, with secret exits on specific levels. The music is unchanged, and even the ending goes totally unmodified. What is different is the game has been given a complete graphical and audio overhaul: sprites are completely redone, retaining mostly the same aesthetic but with a new look; new textures are less cartoony yet simultaneously more colorful, giving the game a bit of a trippy, slightly futuristic aesthetic; and the audio makes use of real gunshots and accurate German. The German Shepherds have been traded for Doberman Pinschers (with an upsettingly over-long death sound, to boot), the Nazi troopers all dress slightly more realistically colored, and the MP40 is now the infamous STG-44, the world’s first assault rifle. The chaingun, by the way, has been replaced by something similar, but far more ridiculous looking. Why not just use an MG42?
The plot for both is as throwaway as you can get — Hitler manages to steal back the Spear of Destiny, not once but twice. Who cares? The only real difference between the two mission packs is the first one centers around a nuclear lab built over a submarine pen and the second one is a futuristic weapons lab. They nonetheless use most of the same graphics and sounds.
While the new aesthetic was controversial — personally I like it, even if (or if I’m honest, because) it leans heavily on blue — it was the level design that really cemented these two mission packs’ reputation as garbage. Here’s the thing: Wolfenstein 3D has a very simple core gameplay loop that is repeated over and over. Its simplistic presentation — a quasi-3D representation of a grid-based playing board — doesn’t allow for much variety in design or even what the kids might call DoomCute (WolfCute?) As such, its level design kind of lives and dies on exploration. Many of the better levels in the official games have well-trod areas that are easy to navigate, with maze-like bonus areas for you to explore. These bonus areas are typically optional; they can be quite grating to get through, but the rewards typically make it worth the trouble. In FormGen’s expansions, the opposite is true: progress through these maps is often opaque, requiring that you hunt for pushwalls — but be careful, or you might softlock yourself by covering up the gold key! It’s truly a monument to bad Wolfenstein map design, which is a shame because there are moments of brilliance — a clever texture usage here, a semi-realistic layout there. But even this can’t overcome the fact that by 1994, there was really no need to keep making Wolfenstein content — not anything people would pay for, anyway. (Unless you were on Mac, but that’s another story…)
There is shockingly little information on the development history of these two games. FormGen mostly developed business software; publishing video games was their side deal, and as evidenced by their initial reaction to Wolfenstein 3D, they clearly initially assumed video games were basically family-friendly kid’s toys — their first video game publication was id Software’s Commander Keen. (And in supreme irony, their last published game before being bought out by GT Interactive was Duke Nukem 3D.) But beyond these publicly-available facts there’s almost nothing about how the business was structured or its day to day work. We don’t even know who put the mission packs together, really. As far as credits, MobyGames has a single line on both games:
Of these, only Archer and Reiser actually have links, but their respective profiles only list the mission packs. “Speedy Pete” is an amusing moniker, but low-information (any relation to Breaking Bad’s Skinny Pete?) And your guess is as good as mine on who “The Axe” is. I even went on Twitter and turned up very little of note. I could ask John Romero, but he doesn’t usually answer fan questions on BlueSky or Twitter.
Ultimately, the development history of these packs will remain a mystery. In any case, they were initially sold separately, with their box art being identical to Spear of Destiny’s but with a colored border around it; later in the year they compiled the two expansions with the original Spear of Destiny into a single bundle called the Super CD Pack. It came with a map editor, too, so that’s nice.
The Spear Missions are an odd little piece of Wolfenstein history. Long considered the black sheep of the franchise, and for good reason, they’re nevertheless an interesting curiosity for their aesthetic overhaul — and the cute detail of the final level of Ultimate Challenge sending you into the future, with textures ripped directly from Doom! But as games, they leave much to be desired, and in general have been pretty well forgotten in most re-releases. It’s for the best, really.
