Everyone loves game maps. Especially when it comes to large game worlds, there’s nothing quite like looking at a mesmerising map filled with awesome detail, and imagine (re)inhabiting parts of this virtual world. When studying a map of a game that I’ve spent dozens if not hundreds of hours in, I often get a sense of both familiarity and strangeness. It’s not just that the map shows a different perspective of the same world I experienced as a game avatar, but that the map misrepresents the player experience world in fundamental ways.

My love of game maps drove me to hand-draw this map of the obscure DOS roguelike Magus recently. From https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@congusbongus/111900901099931635

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There are two good reasons why almost all travel itineraries for first-time visits to Japan will involve Tokyo and Osaka: they are very well served by high speed rail, and both are large cities with lots of things to see and do. While starting a tour in Tokyo makes sense, there are many good travel locations much closer to Tokyo - in Greater Tokyo or not far out - that often get neglected. This discrepancy becomes apparent when you start looking at a map of Japan. Of course, the reason is obvious when you consider transit, and the personal experience of actually doing the travelling, but the map won’t make this apparent at all.

With few exceptions, first-time Japan travel itineraries will include the Tokyo-Osaka rail corridor, occasionally including day trips from either city. Destinations outside these areas sadly get neglected. From: https://www.voyagedmagazine.com/how-to-plan-your-first-trip-to-japan-travel-guide-itinerary/

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In the 2022 book Goldeneye 007 by Alyse Knorr, interviews with the dev team reveal the incredibly unlikely success of this groundbreaking game. An inexperienced hodgepodge team left to their own devices produced an industry-changing, record-breaking game, despite many odds going against them. It was truly a lightning-in-a-bottle story. One thing that stayed with me however was how insanely hard the team worked. 12-hour days, 7-day weeks, high even by industry standards, but the team was young, talented, loved their work and wanted to prove themselves, so they sustained this workload for years until the game was done. And they were richly rewarded for their efforts.

“GoldenEye the movie and game featured an OMEGA Seamaster watch like this one. In the game, the watch serves as a laser weapon and pause screen. Rare gifted each member of the GoldenEye team one of these watches after the game’s release.”

Excerpt From GoldenEye 007 by Alyse Knorr

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In the closing days of 1993, id Software released Doom, and the gaming world was changed forever. A landmark title that arguably established the first person shooter (FPS) genre, it was technically and artistically foundational, became one of the top selling and critically acclaimed games of all time, and even sparked a moral panic over its violence. And recently, as Doom turned 30, its cultural impact can still be felt. It’s hard to overstate what a big deal Doom was.

Yet Doom was not the first big deal by id Software, nor was it the first FPS. Little more than a year prior, id released Wolfenstein 3D, an action-packed and immersive 3D shooter that many consider the “grandfather of FPS”, and topped many game-of-the-year lists. Compared to Doom, it was clearly inferior, but through its frenetic pace and ultra violence, it was easy to see where Doom came from. Even as id slaved away at breakneck pace making Doom, competitors saw Wolfenstein 3D and the possibilities of immersive 3D gaming and rushed to make clones and their unique spins on the emerging paradigm. Some knew that id was coming up with something big but few anticipated how utterly massive Doom would become.

And thus we are left with the gaming and cultural behemoth that was Doom, and in its wake, lie numerous could-have-beens, hopelessly overshadowed and forgotten. Some were quality games that could have enjoyed great success, some were decent and could have sustained the budding studios behind them, and some were, well, forgettable me-toos that nevertheless could have built modest followings. In this post, as we look back on 30 years of Doom, let’s also look back on the the losers of history, the games that deserved more love than they did, in the shadow of Doom.

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Having big and interesting game worlds has been a holy grail of games since the beginning. In the early years, technical constraints meant that big worlds were simply infeasible, without heavy use of procedural generation - Elite in 1984 for example boasted thousands of planets - but nowadays, the main constraint is dev effort. Put simply, to create lots of interesting content, you need to put in lots of work.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t use clever techniques to get the most bang for buck.

Bigger is not Better

When we look at lists of biggest game worlds, space games like Elite Dangerous and Starfield dominate, but that’s not particularly insightful when you consider they are mostly empty space. A bit lower in the rankings you’ll find Daggerfall, which dwarfs other Elder Scrolls game worlds while being much older than them - notably having “the size of Great Britain” - but again, isn’t interesting as most of the game is empty wilderness, sparsely filled with randomly generated towns.

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I love games and music, and one of my favourite game genres is RTS. I don’t know which led to the other, but one thing’s for sure: RTS music slaps. I would argue that it is one of the best genres for awesome, listenable music that you can put in your playlist. For example, RPGs have great music too but their soundtracks are too eclectic, as they are strongly themed to specific levels or characters. Action games can also have great music but they are very situational, with a mix of stealth, action and boss tracks. RTS games have a perfect blend of strong yet consistent themes, and the gameplay gives the music plenty of space to develop itself, not being dictated by the action onscreen.

In this post we’ll review great RTS music from its golden age, from the mid-90’s to early-mid-00’s. We’ll see how diverse studios and composers take different approaches to what style of music to use, and how they serve the game.

A brief history of golden age RTS music

The start of the RTS golden age (variously reckoned to be somewhere between Dune II and Command and Conquer) coincided with the wide availability of CD technology, and RTS music rode this technological wave and showcased high-fidelity soundtracks. The genre is perfect for music, its 10-30 minute gameplay sessions allowing uninterrupted, extended play. While Dune II had to use limited chiptune, by the time games like Command and Conquer came around, everyone jumped onto the CD audio bandwagon, since music is so key to RTS games.

The golden age is often characterized by the fierce rivalry between Westwood (Command and Conquer) and Blizzard (Warcraft, Starcraft), but was by no means a two-horse race, with quality releases from many other studios such as Ensemble (Age of Empires), Relic (Homeworld, later Dawn of War and Company of Heroes), Cavedog (Total Annihilation), and not to mention the numerous clones and contenders. The best of these entries also had fantastic music.

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