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Carmack bringing Wolfenstein to DS and mobile?

Two id DS projects planned for 2008, with BJ Blazkowicz seemingly returning to combat

Carmack bringing Wolfenstein to DS and mobile?
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DS + Java
| Wolfenstein 3D

Given its long-term popularity, not to mention the number of homebrew versions of Wolfenstein 3D that have been created over the years (including some for DS) it's perhaps unsurprising id's original shooter, first released in 1992, is rumoured to be making a comeback.

The form of the announcement is something out of the ordinary, however.

John Carmack, id's founder and technical director, wrote a long (and typically detailed) blog post on IGN explaining the process of creating his first DS game Orcs & Elves, ending with the words:

"I only got to spend four days actually writing all the 3D code for Orcs & Elves, so there are lots of potential directions that I am interested in exploring in the future. We plan to have two more DS projects in development next year, which I hope will let me try out a skeletal animation system, experiment with the networking hardware, and implement a more flexible high level culling algorithm than what I used in O&E."

There then follows the usual array of comments with one poster telling Carmack to consider working on the PSP while another just suggests he's a great DS coder and Carmack should hire him.

Later down the thread one, though, one KatherineKang posts:

"We are looking to hire more programmers, level designers and artists so if you are indeed an uber DS programmer, feel free to email me your resume. We're currently working on Wolf on the DS and cell phones."

Katherine (Anna) Kang, incidentally, is the wife of John Carmack and CEO of Fountainhead Entertainment, the company working with id to make its mobile and handheld games.

Of course, this could just be a clever trick by an archetypal online nameshifter out to cause mischief, but it (and the pristine spelling and punctuation of the post) have the ring of truth about them.

If so, will Wolfenstein's Nazi anthem theme music and Swastikas make it into a Nintendo product this time? The answer to that one seem more straightforward.

Jon Jordan
Jon Jordan
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon can turn his hand to anything except hand turning. He is editor-at-large at PG.biz which means he can arrive anywhere in the world, acting like a slightly confused uncle looking for the way out. He likes letters, cameras, imaginary numbers and legumes.