Wolfenstein 3D (DOS)

This page details development materials of Wolfenstein 3D (DOS).

A number of work-in-progress art assets have been released from the Wolfenstein 3D development files over the years.

2001 Graphics#

The following assets were released by John Romero in a 2001 blogpost commemorating the Wolfenstein franchise's 20th birthday. Please note that they were all originally uploaded as JPGs, and as such will be provided as is (for now at the very least) out of historical accuracy.

The EGA version of the title screen, bearing an "Alpha" watermark. The game was originally planned to support EGA, with alternate artwork created specifically for the mode (primarily by Bio Menace developer Jim Norwood). This plan was apparently ditched a month into development.

The final VGA titlescreen, but with a giant "BETA" watermark and a less-than-veiled threat. Supposedly the game entered Beta just five months into development!

The EGA version of the HUD graphics. You can see a bunch of buttons at the top for different actions that would presumably be bound to the number keys - looking under rugs for items, opening treasure chests for items, opening doors quietly, and dragging a corpse. There is also a HUD element for a stolen uniform. You can see that the stealth elements were already being discarded, as a bunch of extra buttons have been drawn over with elements from the final HUD.

The VGA version of the HUD graphics. These appear to be from an earlier state than the EGA sprites, as several of the face slots (for the difficulty settings) are filled by a cartoony placeholder face, and the buttons that were covered up by final HUD elements in the EGA sheet are fully visible here. They appear to correspond to weapons - bare hands, knife, luger, stick grenade and machinegun. The bare hands and grenade did not make it into the final game, and the Chaingun is not present on the sheet.

2021 Graphics#

To do: These files are also present in the Wolf3D Engine License. They should probably be moved to the corresponding section, just with something to denote these came out a little early.

In 2021, fan website Wolf3d.net released several spritesheets from throughout development, apparently granted by former Capstone programmer Les Bird a couple of years prior.

A sheet of artwork for the "Read This!" help section. Isolated copies of BJ's face from the intermission screen are present, presumably as reference, and there's a graphic of the treasure items and 1UP with their score values that isn't used.

A spritesheet of General Fettgesicht's walking and firing sprites. At the bottom, you can see work-in progress bits and pieces from converting Otto Giftmacher's sprites into Fettgesichts.

General Fettgesicht's death frames. Under them are stretched copies of Giftmacher's frames, presumably used as a base.

The Gatling Gun's sprites, with two grey frames - EGA equivalents?

The Machine Gun's sprites, with some obvious EGA equivalents.

The Guard's pain and death frames, with two unused frames unconverted from EGA - laying stripped and unconscious on the ground after being deprived of his uniform, and with his hands raised in surrender.

Furniture and scenery. An unused alternate vase with an intricate pattern drawn on it is also present.

Debris and scenery. An unused sprite of chunks of meat on hooks is also present, as well as an unfinished piece of placeholder art presumably depicting a surgical curtain.

The same sheet, except the meathooks are replaced with the final game's "DEATHCAM™" sprite, and the surgical curtain is replaced with the final game's vines sprite. The unsquished original version of the "DEATHCAM™" graphic is also present.

The SS's pain and death frames, along with an EGA surrender frame. A blank sprite is present where the guard's unconscious/stripped frame was - the SS would keep his dignity and his bright blue pants.

Wall textures, with an unused variant of the blue-brick-with-a-skull texture replacing the skull with a row of swastikas.

WOLFSTUFF.ZIP Graphics#

To do: Add more stuff from the leaked dev-kit

Found in the Wolf3D Engine License are several never-before-seen graphics found at the licensee folder.

Sloppily drawn placeholder manual images from the April 13, 1992 prototype build and separated versions of the mouse, joystick, and Gravis GamePad from the final version's controller graphic.

Various graphics for ordering information screens. It features mockups of two games, a space-themed shoot-'em-up and a platformer starring a fairy. Near the bottom, there is art of a fax machine next to a coffee mug printing out a paper labeled "ORDER". There are also maps of Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada, presumably planned for use in sections detailing how to order the game in each map's respective countries.

Thumbnails for each episode, featuring slightly different versions of the art for Episodes 3, 5, and 6. Notably, two of these thumbnails are not seen anywhere in the final game. While one is simply a cropped version of Castle Wolfenstein from the game's story text with a red carpet added, the other one features unique art of green oil keg similar to the ones littered throughout the castle. There were never any plans to develop more than six episodes, so it is likely that this is an early version of Episode 4's thumbnail. Much like the unused graphic, it also depicts an oil keg, albeit with a completely different camera angle and design.

Intermission screen graphics with leftovers from an earlier serif-style font compared to the more militaristic one from the final game.

Work-in-progress graphics for the game's menus, such as the hard drive disk without its actuator. These also contain additional material from the original EGA version of Wolfenstein 3D: a "Sound" header in a much simpler style and a "Getting knife..." prompt similar to the ones from the original Apple II games.

Art of the optional joystick controller. An earlier cyan variant can be seen to the left of the finished version.

Early versions of the "Demo" text and additional, ultimately unused HUD graphics from the more stealth-oriented EGA version. Along with the "Getting knife..." prompt seen earlier with an added timer, there are also text boxes for moving corpses, searching guards or chests, and coming up empty. Most striking are the various inventory icons; there are two extra key colors (emerald and jade, along with a bronze key instead of the silver key from the finished game), grenades, and the various uniforms of Nazi soldiers. BJ would've even been able to take the armor off of suits and wear it for extra protection, a concept that would be revisited in Doom. Given their later redundancy, these were eventually drawn over with a smaller version of the "Get Psyched!" loading screen and the PC-13 advisory. The latter features extra text reading "PARENTAL COMPUTING SUGGESTED" that was cut for the final release.

The many faces of BJ Blazkowicz. An early set of god mode sprites can be seen, along with a second frame of the mutant BJ seen when killed by one of Dr. Schabbs' needles.

The HUD's weapon icons without the anti-aliasing seen in the finished product.

Hans Grosse, Castle Wolfenstein's head warden. His legs, arms, and chainguns are separated at the bottom to allow for easier posing. The sheet for his firing and death animations features Hans with blue hands and two extra placeholder frames with blue circles occupying the otherwise purple void.