Chapter 119: True 3D and the Missing Piece
Chapter 119: True 3D and the Missing Piece
It’s real 3D?
Something suddenly came to mind, so he checked the developer. It was Sandfire, the company that made Slayer (this world’s equivalent of Doom). Thinking just as I expected, Insu let out a short sigh.
Even after confirming the developer’s name, Insu could not immediately believe it. He moved the in-game character around, looked around the environment, and checked carefully just in case.
No matter how he looked at it, this was not pre-rendered imagery being loaded in. It was truly being rendered in real time. It was proper polygon-based 3D graphics, and not some visual trick. The world genuinely had XYZ axes and real three-dimensional space.
He felt goosebumps rise all over his body.
Proper 3D graphics had finally arrived.
It’s Quake.
The optimization was clean enough that it ran perfectly fine on Insu’s 586 computer. In this 3D world filled with a sense of spatial depth, properly polygonal characters moved quickly and poured out bullets nonstop, yet the game showed perfect action without any stuttering.
...How the hell did they even make this?
Of course, compared to PUBG or Battlefield from his previous life, the graphics were obviously inferior, but the fundamental structure—spotting enemies in a 3D space, aiming, and shooting them—was no different.
And even in 2025, FPS gamers often deliberately lowered graphics settings for frame rates, so the visuals were not particularly distracting.
FPS games originally prioritized functionality over fine graphical detail because the rules were simple, the concentration intense, and matches were decided in an instant.
Even in 2025, there were still a lot of people playing Sudden Attack.
(Translator’s Notes: Sudden Attack — Online FPS developed by GameHi and released in 2005, famous in Korea for its accessibility and long service life.)
Of course, even Sudden Attack had graphics far more advanced than Quake 1, but regardless, FPS games tended to place relatively less importance on graphics because of other elements like viewpoint, 3D space, and powerful sound effects.
So once players got used to it a little, even gamers from 2025 would probably be able to immerse themselves in it completely.
Though of course, if Battlefield or PUBG existed, they’d play those instead.
What disappointed him was that internet-based multiplayer did not exist yet. The game was not unfun as it was, but unlike the FPS games from his previous life, he could only shoot computers instead of other people, which made it feel like eating fish-shaped bread without the filling.
Are they planning to add online multiplayer later?
As he remembered it, Quake initially only supported LAN-based multiplayer like this game, and only added internet-based multiplayer around half a year after release.
Was it QuakeWorld?
Thinking about it, Quake also seemed to be the first single-player package game that added important content like that long after release.
Still, the more he played, the harder it became to believe they had implemented graphics like this on these specifications. Obviously it was possible since they had actually done it, but this was still an era without 3D acceleration hardware. Creating fully realized 3D graphics that moved this smoothly using only a 90MHz CPU and 16MB of RAM was practically a miracle.
Since Insu personally developed games, the shock hit him even harder.
He could not think of a perfect comparison, but it felt like watching someone modify a tiny compact car and win a professional racing championship with it.
After playing for a long time, growing tired, and being overwhelmed by both the arrival of the true 3D era and Rayden Cole’s talent, Insu stopped moving and blankly stared at the 3D screen for a while.
Then he suddenly remembered something and immediately exited the game.
He connected to the internet and went straight to Sandfire’s homepage.
“Ah. As expected.”
[It is time to breathe life into your game.
The Riftborn Engine is a next-generation game development platform featuring real-time 3D rendering, multi-platform support, and a modular structure.
Technical Features
Full 3D Spatial Processing
BSP Tree-Based Map Optimization
(Translator’s Note: BSP Tree (Binary Space Partitioning Tree) — A method used in 3D graphics engines to efficiently divide and render space, heavily used in early FPS games like Quake.)
Real-Time Lightmaps and Texture Processing
(Translator’s Note: Lightmap — A precomputed lighting texture applied to 3D environments to simulate realistic lighting without requiring expensive real-time calculations.)
Multiplayer Network Support]
Sandfire was selling the engine used for the game alongside it.
Even for Rayden Cole, implementing graphics like this could not possibly have been easy. And if he was convinced that the 3D era was coming, he would naturally realize that selling the engine he created could become an excellent business.
In reality, before eventually losing the throne to Unreal, the Quake engine maintained a strong presence in the game engine market for quite a long time through multiple series.
Quake was considered the game that truly opened the 3D era not simply because it implemented proper 3D graphics first, but also because it accelerated the development of 3D games for other developers by selling its engine.
3D, huh...
The thought that the true 3D era was right before his eyes made his heart race slightly. Since Insu’s goal was creating virtual reality, he would eventually use 3D technology anyway.
But when he launched Riftborn again and looked at the graphics, he naturally let out a bitter smile.
It was still far too distant.
Insu was not delusional enough to think he could create truly reality-like graphics straight out of movies or comics.
But even to barely reach a level where one could squint and feel a hint of realism, each object would need around one million polygons. That would not become possible until near 2020, and even then, only some major objects barely used around a million polygons.
Even if I somehow accelerate technology, it’d probably only become possible around the time I died in my previous life.
So for now, focusing on systems and networks to grow as large as possible was the correct choice rather than concentrating on virtual reality technology.
Of course, that did not mean he would completely avoid 3D until then. It simply meant he would not overreach and would instead gradually follow the trend while steadily building capability.
As 3D graphics evolved, the sense of outdatedness became increasingly severe. If he struggled to implement them too early, a long-service MMORPG would inevitably start feeling ancient. It was better to focus on 2D until technology reached a certain level.
And in reality, even until 2025, when Insu died, there were still multiple MMORPGs operating with 2D graphics.
Development on TLF Online had started in July 1993 and released in June 1996, meaning it had taken almost exactly three years.
It had truly been a frantic period.
Of course, online games still required continuous management and development even after launch, but it was definitely more relaxed than when they had been completely consumed by development.
Naturally so. They had not exactly developed the game leisurely.
Originally, the plan had been to complete it within 1995, but delays kept pushing it back. They worried competitors might steal the lead while simultaneously refusing to sacrifice quality, so they never relaxed and continuously drove the team harder.
There was no way that had not been exhausting.
In any case, now that it was completed, they finally had room to look at other businesses.
In truth, even during development, he had occasionally read magazines or played games to rest, but that had not been because he had free time. It was closer to desperately releasing pressure from stress and exhaustion just to survive.
What? Is this all?
Insu was looking through documents related to companies Parallel Soft had invested in or acquired.
Parallel Soft was not particularly aggressive with investment business, but it also was not completely inactive.
They had invested quite heavily in game companies like Cristforge and Astrium, and there was also BidBarn, an open-market company connected to WET.
BidBarn was similar to eBay from his previous life. It was still only a startup-level company, so Parallel Soft had bought 45% of the shares for two million dollars and signed a cooperation agreement.
(Translator’s Notes: eBay — American online marketplace company that acquired PayPal in 2002.)
If it became the equivalent of eBay, that would be a massive win, but honestly, there was no way to know what would happen. Businesses like this were not solved simply by having the idea. Operation mattered more, and there were many similar services competing already, so no one could know which would survive.
Even so, they invested two million dollars because even if it failed, they could still take its systems and brand recognition and use them as WET’s shopping mall platform.
He had also been watching for the existence of Amazon, but at the moment, there were no e-commerce companies actually operating physical distribution networks. Even Amazon had only begun building logistics infrastructure in the early 2000s.
So at present, it was not much different from BidBarn. It would only become overlapping investment, so they were simply observing for now.
But the reason Insu was disappointed and thought Is this all? was not because there were too few investments or because they looked insignificant.
He had been reviewing Cristforge’s documents.
Out of all their investments, it was the company he cared about most, and earlier this year, it had released The Others 2 and achieved considerable success.
But among the planned and ongoing projects, there was nothing he had been expecting.
Why isn’t Diablo here?
(Translator’s Notes: Diablo / Diablo II — Real-world action RPG series developed by Blizzard Entertainment, famous for hack-and-slash combat, loot farming, and click-based skill systems that heavily influenced later ARPGs.)
As far as he remembered, it had originally released in 1996. If a similar game existed in this world, it should already have been in development to some extent.
Did something go wrong?
Insu’s expression grew serious. Diablo was not merely a hit game. It was a highly significant title in gaming history.
First of all, there was the introduction of real-time combat into RPGs. Real-time RPGs had existed before, of course, but on PC they had mostly been niche attempts and had never achieved major success.
So during an era when most RPGs were still turn-based, Diablo appeared with real-time combat. Combined with its intuitive mouse-centered interface, it secured tremendous mainstream appeal.
RPGs were already a fairly popular genre, and turn-based combat could be fun once players became accustomed to it, but it undeniably had a frustrating side, especially for newcomers unfamiliar with RPGs. There was a fairly high barrier to entry.
But Diablo appeared during a period when computers were rapidly spreading and spoon-fed the RPG genre to newcomers using sheer accessibility.
Then there was the random option item system. Hunting immediately rewarded players with items while simultaneously motivating them to continue farming for better options. And once players acquired sufficient equipment and character growth, they could wipe out monsters instantly, allowing them to strongly feel the effectiveness of their items.
Those systems meshed perfectly together.
Furthermore, the enemies were designed as clearly evil demons that players could kill without moral hesitation, while the dark and terrifying atmosphere allowed players to focus completely on slaughtering enemies without stress or overthinking. On top of that, dungeon layouts changed every playthrough, reducing boredom and encouraging players to endlessly grind while enjoying themselves.
These characteristics heavily influenced the design of later MMORPGs and mobile games that relied on repetitive combat.
It would not be an exaggeration to say Diablo opened a new path for RPGs and expanded the genre’s horizons.
“Ah! Right!”
While pressing a hand to his forehead and thinking, Insu suddenly remembered something he had temporarily forgotten.
Come to think of it, Diablo really was a Blizzard game, but it had not been made by Blizzard’s main studio. It had been developed by another studio Blizzard acquired.
What was it called again? Condor?
He could not perfectly remember the name from before Blizzard North existed as an independent studio, but since this was another world anyway, that detail did not really matter.
And the merger and acquisition had originally not been done by Blizzard’s own development team. It had been carried out by the company that acquired Blizzard.
In this world, Parallel Soft had effectively taken that role instead.
What should I do? Should I try to find the company developing Diablo even now?