Alien Breed 3D is the fourth game in Team17's Alien Breed

Alien Breed (series)

The Alien Breed games are a series of Gauntlet-style top-down sci-fi shoot 'em up video games developed by Team17 primarily for the Commodore Amiga in the 1990s, heavily inspired by the Alien films. Later, first person shooter titles were released under the Alien Breed name...

 franchise, a series of science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

-themed shooters largely inspired by the Alien

Alien (film)

Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature which...

 films. It was published in 1995 by Ocean Software, and is the first 3D game in the series. This is also notable for being the first game Team17 did not self-publish.

Team17 made the source code for AB3D freely available in March 1997. They released the source code to AB3Ds sequel, Alien Breed 3D II: The Killing Grounds

Alien Breed 3D II: The Killing Grounds

Alien Breed 3D II: The Killing Grounds is the fifth game in Team17's Alien Breed franchise, a series of Science Fiction-themed shooters largely inspired by the Alien films. It was published in 1996 by Ocean Software....

, on the cover CD of Amiga Format

Amiga Format

Amiga Format was a British computer magazine for Amiga computers, published by Future Publishing. The magazine lasted 136 issues from 1989 to 2000. The magazine was formed when, in the wake of selling ACE to EMAP, Future split the dual-format title ST/Amiga Format into two separate publications...

 magazine issue 95, and although not mentioned in the accompanying magazine the source code to AB3D was also included on the CD.

Gameplay

The surging popularity of FPS games such as Doom, and the appearance of other Doom clones for the Amiga such as Gloom, resulted in Team17 developing AB3D. Their aim was to not only meet but exceed the capabilities of Doom's engine. AB3D is capable of maps of varying depths with platforms and floors above others, something the Doom Engine

Doom engine

The Doom engine is the game engine that powers the id Software games Doom and Doom II. It is also used by HeXen, Heretic, Strife, Freedoom, and HacX, and other games produced by licensees. It was created by John Carmack, with auxiliary functions written by Mike Abrash, John Romero, Dave Taylor and...

 was not capable of. The graphics, although rendered at 2x2 pixel depth in small window, were considered excellent for the Amiga 1200

Amiga 1200

The Amiga 1200, or A1200 , was Commodore International's third-generation Amiga computer, aimed at the home market...

/Amiga CD32

Amiga CD32

The Amiga CD32, styled "CD32" , was the first 32-bit CD-ROM based video game console released in western Europe, Australia, Canada and Brazil. It was first announced at the Science Museum in London, United Kingdom on 16 July 1993, and was released in September of the same year...

.

The game also gives the player a sense of freshness with regards to the series. None of the characters or locations from previous Alien Breed games make appearances, and there are also more varieties of aliens in this game. AB3D can be considered a reboot

Reboot (continuity)

The verb reboot, in media dealing with serial fiction, means to discard much or even all previous continuity in the series and start anew with fresh ideas...

of the franchise.