Rise of the Triad was always a weird game. It felt like the first-person shooter for people that got burned out on Doom's standard deathmatch. It was full of weapons that, at the time, seemed nonsensical, like drunk missiles and a "god mode" power-up that temporarily replaced your weapon with the ability to shoot homing fireballs out of your hand. It was full of ridiculous trampolines that gave the game a vertical element that you didn't see in most other early first-person shooters. It was fast-paced mayhem for fans of the genre that wanted something a little looser and weirder than the other shooters of its day. And now it's coming back.
This afternoon at QuakeCon, Apogee (which apparently still exists) announced that Rise of the Triad is coming back via an Unreal Engine 3-based first-person shooter heading for PC later this year. The studio behind the game is Interceptor Entertainment, a Denmark-based crew that was previously working on a non-commercial UE3 remake of Duke Nukem 3D. That game was put on hold on 2011.
Like the original game, the new ROTT will have five playable characters. Popular weapons and modes like shroom mode, dog mode, and "Excalibat" will return, as will the aforementioned drunk missiles and god mode. It will contain a single-player campaign as well as multiplayer mode, and the game will have Steam Workshop support to enable easy sharing of user-created levels and mods. From the looks of the screenshots, the weird little trampolines that were one of the hallmarks of ROTT's level design will make an appearance.
The game will also contain "full character and enemy dismemberment," which I expect means that the game will contain... ludicrous gibs. Of course it will. I mean, if you're not going to put that stuff in, you're not really making a new ROTT game at all, right?
Anyway, there isn't really a ton of info out there right now, but it'll be set up at QuakeCon for people who want to take the multiplayer for a spin, which officially makes this the first time in well over a decade that I've said "man, I should have gone to QuakeCon." QuakeCon opens today in Dallas and runs through the weekend. Since you're probably not there, well, here are a few screenshots of enemy soldiers getting blown into bits. Cool?
