Nobody knows when Extreme Rise of the Triad released, including its developer

News
By published

Joe Siegler did level design for the 1995 game, but isn't sure when it actually came out.

(Image credit: Apogee)

Back in 1995 there was this FPS called Rise of the Triad, right? People liked it. So then it got an expansion, Extreme Rise of the Triad, that added 40-some new levels to blast through. These expansion levels were designed by Joe Siegler and Tom Hall, who worked for Apogee, a company that you might now know as 3D Realms. 

Extreme Rise of the Triad released some time in mid or late 1995, or maybe early 1996? It's not clear... because nobody seems to know. Not even Joe Siegler, who co-designed it. "Does anyone have any true, verifiable info as to the PRECISE release date for Extreme @RiseOfTheTriad?," tweeted Siegler a few days ago. "It's *NOT* 17 Feb 95," he followed up, "that's what Google says." 

A few days later,  he followed up to say that the previous date he thought it might have been, 1st Nov 1995, wasn't the release date either. A few folks have chimed in with ideas, but none of those have panned out, and there's not a lot of evidence at hand. It'll clearly take some game historian work to find out. 

While the confusion about a precise release date might surprise you, it's not uncommon. There aren't even dates for the precise release of very famous games, like with Super Mario Bros, let alone the small beans gaming business that was the niche PC market. It was the era before the internet, when everything happened whenever it happened instead of simultaneously through interconnected digital systems. Games simply released when a retailer got them in stock and put them on the shelves—street date be damned, often enough. As for Siegler not knowing, well, that's pretty reasonable. He was a level designer, and per his bio on the vintage 3D Realms website had about a billion other jobs at the company to boot.

I'm just impressed that he's still wearing those black sunglasses all these years later. Anyway, let Joe know if you have some proof.

Jonathan Bolding
Contributor

Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.