id Software’s greatest shooters are now playable on iPhone or Apple TV, but you’ll have to work for it
Id Software’s early shooters are now, again, playable on the Apple’s iOS and tvOS platforms, providing players are happy to get their hands dirty to get it working.
Perhaps fittingly for something involving Wolfenstein 3D and the original Doom, a lone hero brought these games back for users on Apple’s platforms. It’s the work of mobile developer Tom Kidd, who saw an opportunity after iOS 10.3 stopped official support for legacy apps using the 32-bit codebase.
Doom and Wolfenstein 3D were released on the iOS App Store back in 2009, but with the sunsetting of support for the legacy apps, Kidd realised that the open source versions of both games were available on id Software’s GitHub page, including their iOS versions.
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So, Kidd started the painstaking work of updating the source code so it would work with modern iOS apps, while writing about the process on his blog. Then he kept going, updating Doom II, Final Doom, and several other games that id Software has released the port for.
This work has now concluded with a version of Doom 3 ported to iOS, which you can see in action below. Throughout the work, Kidd talks a lot about the different work that has gone into each port, claiming that each brought its own challenges, while also nodding to the various open source codebases and engines that he used to help him along the way.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEaeWKSfgB8
There’s a kicker. Getting this to work yourself is going to require some fooling around. These ports are engine ports, and don’t contain any of the game files required to actually get the game running. You’ll need to get your own files from the original releases to actually fill the gaps and get a game that you can actually play. These are available, but you’ll have to do the heavy lifting yourself.
After this, you’ll need to use a Mac with a copy of Xcode and an Apple Developer account to compile your own iOS or tvOS executable. You can also sideload it yourself, but that would be somewhat nefarious.
Fancy playing some of id’s greatest shooters on your iDevice? Let us know how you get on at @TrustedReviews
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
