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Games & engines

The technical ludography.

The games and engines designed or led by John Carmack, from Commander Keen to virtual reality, filterable by era.

Original box art, reproduced at reduced size for documentary identification. Rights remain with the publishers.

Commander Keen: original Apogee DOS box for the Invasion of the Vorticons compilation (episodes 1 to 3), with a gameplay screenshot and the Apogee logo.
1990

Commander Keen

Apogee. Smooth PC side-scrolling via adaptive tile refresh; the founding team takes shape.

See the page ↗ Early days (Keen)
Commander Keen, Goodbye Galaxy: original 1991 DOS box art, the helmeted boy fleeing a red robot, listing IBM PC, EGA/VGA and AdLib.
1991

Commander Keen: Goodbye, Galaxy

Apogee. A sequel in the platforming series.

See the page ↗ Early days (Keen)
Hovertank 3D and Catacomb 3-D: original Gamer's Edge and Softdisk boxes, a hovering tank above, a wizard and monster below.
1991

Hovertank 3D · Catacomb 3-D

Softdisk. Early pseudo-3D ray-casting engines, before Wolfenstein.

See the page ↗ First engines
Wolfenstein 3D: original box art, B.J. Blazkowicz firing on soldiers in a stone dungeon.
1992

Wolfenstein 3D

Apogee / id Software. Textured ray casting establishes the first-person shooter. Music by Bobby Prince.

See the page ↗ id Software (FPS)
Doom: original 1993 box art by Don Ivan Punchatz, a green-armored marine swarmed by demons under the DOOM logo.
1993

Doom

id Software. A BSP engine, height changes, network multiplayer, and an open WAD format for modding: a cultural and technical landmark. Music by Bobby Prince.

See the page ↗ id Software (FPS)
Doom II, Hell on Earth: original box art, a marine seen from behind facing the Cyberdemon in a burning city.
1994

Doom II: Hell on Earth

id Software. A major expansion on the Doom engine. Music by Bobby Prince.

See the page ↗ id Software (FPS)
Quake: original 1996 box art, the copper nail-Q emblem on a dark ground.
1996

Quake

id Software. The first real-time polygonal 3D engine; network play, QuakeC, and a modding community. Music by Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails.

See the page ↗ id Software (FPS)
Quake II: original box art, the oxidized green II emblem on dark metal.
1997

Quake II

id Software. A new engine with OpenGL hardware acceleration. Music by Sonic Mayhem (Sascha Dikiciyan) and Bill Brown, main theme co-written with Rob Zombie.

See the page ↗ id Software (FPS)
Quake III Arena: original box art, a red trident logo on a metallic circuit-board ground.
1999

Quake III Arena

id Software. The id Tech 3 engine and competitive multiplayer; the “fast inverse square root” trick was popularized through its code. The engine still powered Quake Live a decade later, an idea Carmack came up with himself.

See the page ↗ id Software (FPS)
Doom 3: original box art, a snarling Hellknight behind the DOOM 3 logo.
2004

Doom 3

id Software. id Tech 4: real-time dynamic lighting and cast shadows.

See the page ↗ id Software (FPS)
Rage: original box art, a survivor seen from behind walking toward the word RAGE built from ruins in the desert.
2011

Rage

id Software. id Tech 5 and MegaTexture virtual-texturing technology.

See the page ↗ id Software (FPS)
Doom 3 BFG Edition: original box art, a marine in bronze armor firing at a horned demon.
2012

Doom 3: BFG Edition (VR port)

id Software. VR experiments that foreshadow his move to Oculus.

See the page ↗ Virtual reality
Samsung Gear VR: a photograph of the mobile virtual reality headset, white shell and black straps, resting on a wooden table.
2014

Oculus mobile (Gear VR)

Oculus / Samsung. The software architecture of mobile VR, under his technical direction.

See the page ↗ Virtual reality
Oculus Quest: a photograph of the standalone virtual reality headset, dark blue fabric covering, with one of its tracking cameras visible.
2019

Oculus Quest

Oculus / Facebook. A standalone VR headset; software optimizations driven by Carmack.

See the page ↗ Virtual reality

Cite this page

John Carmack Archive, "John Carmack's Games and Engines", updated 15 août 2026, https://carmack-archive.com/en/games (accessed [date]).