Rise of the Triad contains code taken from Wolfenstein 3D, as well as early versions of the zone memory and WAD file systems from the Doom source code. Hall also worked the characters from his Doom Bible into the game. The continuous world design feature Hall argued for inclusion in Doom was also originally intended to be included in Rise of the Triad. Having been the lead designer for what was intended to be the retro-prequel, Wolfenstein 3D, he originally planned to migrate many of the features he designed into Wolfenstein, such as push walls to obtain secrets and bonus point items. Tom Hall brought many design elements and ideas with him from id Software. The major drawback of using the Wolfenstein engine was the lack of a z axis, a technical limitation that resulted in maps with no height differences, and a grid-cell-based world with strictly 90º angle architecture. Apogee had licensed the Wolfenstein engine for the game, but the development team added many features to the game, among others fog, dynamic lighting simulation, room-over-room, jumping, gibbing, skyboxes and so on. The game was initially meant to be an official sequel to Wolfenstein 3D, appropriately called Rise of the Triad: Wolfenstein 3D Part II. He immediately started working on Rise of the Triad, and had written the original design document by November of the same year. He had been fired from id Software in early August 1993 due to differences in design philosophy. The lead designer and creative director of Rise of the Triad was Tom Hall, and the game was his first project after Doom.

Rise of the triad mods