The great news of this month has been that Descent 3 has been freed to the open source. Finally, 25 years after its release, the original developers have decided to grant it a position where it can live forever, freed from the shackles of the closed source tomb. This is an exciting time for a guy who happened to get stuck on a series of games who hasn’t enjoyed a release in the franchise since 1999.
Back in 1999
The only game that I didn’t ever have a great time with when I purchased it was Descent 3. It pushed machines of that time well beyond what was common at the time. The PC I had at the time was a Windows 98 with an AMD K6-2 that just didn’t have the graphical horsepower to make it run great. I did have a friend that had the tech that did it but he was the nerd friend that had all the cool toys. Watching Descent 3 play with the Sidewinder joystick and the hardware to push it well at 640×400 was a sight to behold in 1999. Computer graphics better than that was almost unimaginable.
Fast forward to 2005, bought Loki version of Descent 3 to run on my then computer, a Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop. The Loki installer was pretty cool and it did its job perfectly at that time in Linux history. I played the game on and off for some time but life didn’t really allow for a lot of play time. The Inspiron 5100 was a standard aspect ratio, 4:3, so the experience was pretty great. The Pentium 4 in that 5100 with the onboard graphics (AMD of some sort, I think) was the best experience I had with Descent 3 to date. Also, buying “boxed” Linux games was certainly a highlight of my youthful gaming years.
In 2013, I purchased GOG version of Descent 3 because it ran better Crossover Linux than the Loki, Linux ported version did. I think the main issues I was having was related to sound but I could be off on that. Before this point, the performance on Linux was pretty great. I was pleasantly surprised by how well Descent 3 ran on my Dell Latitude D630. I purchased another analog joystick from Logitech and had some great fun playing this game. I think it was this round of playing Descent 3 where I really began to like the Black Pyro and I do believe that it is the ultimate in Pyro line of ships in the franchise. Sure, the others are fine, I guess.
As Linux and open source goes, I started to have some weirdness in 2014 in Wine which killed my D3 experience. The visuals were all sorts of inverted and coloring was wrong, I couldn’t find a solution, I had a major job transition which basically put Descent 3 back on the shelf, as it were. I still spun up Descent 1 and 2 using the open source rebirth project for which I did enjoy the moments, now and again, diving in to the mines to shoot at some robots.
2016 brought some exciting news which was the upcoming Descent Underground. I was an early supporter of this but my Computer at the time couldn’t play it. This was my first early support, “kickstarter-like” project for which I didn’t actually enjoy its the fruits. It looked so cool but I never did actually get to play this and I’m still sort of sad about it.
Last year, in 2023, I spun it up again using the newly encountered, Heroic launcher, which seemingly works flawlessly but I haven’t taken the to play through it. This is largely because there are just so many other games now to play and the way Descent 3 is, it doesn’t really offer anything new. It has been suck in 1999 or maybe, arguably, 2003 and hasn’t moved along. When I fire it up, I am lamenting that Descent 1 and Descent 2 have been substantially updated, graphically improved with dynamic light and work so beautifully in Linux.
I did find out this year, not sure how I missed this one but hey, these things happen, but there were updates to the Loki port of Descent 3 by one of the original people that worked on it at Loki. His post is here about it which is a great read. After reading this, I think I just may purchase a 4th copy of Descent 3…
The exciting news for 2024 is that as of April , so excited to see the game released into the open source. This means, all sorts of new and exciting things could be coming to this incredible game that has, unquestionably, held up over the years. Descent 3 needs the same love that Descent 1 and 2 received so many years ago.
Why This is Exciting
Descent 1 and 2 Rebirth have taken what makes Descent fun and modernized the little irritating bits about it. Taking advantage of wider aspect ratio screens along with improvements to the visuals, AddOn packs to allow for improved textures and lighting, etc. The game is, essentially, better than ever, more enjoyable and because it is in the open source, it will essentially live on.
Descent 3 could, potentially be updated to use modern screens LIKE the Rebirth versions. There could now be a D3X-Rebirth. There is a very active github repository that is bursting with activity. Although there isn’t a release yet, you can clone and build the executable and test out the progress of how the development is going. According to the documentation on Github:
The current milestone is “1.5 Stable”, which is meant to more or less be Descent 3 as it might have been if the 1.5 patch had made it to retail years ago.
I can’t remember all that I messed around with at the time, as this was before I did all the CubicleNate documentation, but there were several community patches created for Descent 3 and I do remember playing with the various versions in 2013. I will have to dig into those notes once again.
What’s Next
For me, with the oodles of time that I have to clone and compile a binary… I am going to have to wait for the time being. I don’t know how much they want to hear yet another person throw in their “two cents” about what should be done with Descent 3, but I will be sticking my nose into the conversation from time to time in the Descent Developer Discord channel.
Since there is much work being done on Descent 3, I am really hoping that this momentum lasts and some really awesome enhancements, whilst retaining compatibility, come to Descent 3. My guess is, when the 1.5 patch is fully fleshed out and all the underlying, foundational bits are updated to work with modern libraries and the underlying code modernized to a satisfactory level. There will be some opportunities for improving the game further. Time will, most certainly, tell.
Final Thoughts
There hasn’t been a game I have been so excited about or have thought to be as cool as Descent 3. I remember playing HALO on the original Xbox in 2004 and thought how this looked like a low-rent version of Descent 3. I was basically ruined by Descent. Sure, played Doom, Heretic, Rise of The Triad but none could compare to Descent. Even games now which are popular by most are still meh, compared to the joys, the excitement, the intensity of network play that I had with Descent.
2024 is a new day, a new chapter in the Descent saga. Just a few updates to this game will make a huge difference with the experience on modern hardware, specifically the wide and ultrawide displays which are far more common and would make playing Descent 3 incredibly more immersive and enjoyable. I am so exited to see where this goes.
References
https://www.patreon.com/posts/project-descent-33611585
https://www.dxx-rebirth.com/
Descent Developer Network Discord Channel
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2024/04/descent-3-has-been-made-open-source/
Leave a Reply