Missing Holidays of Commander Keen

Improvised Thumbnail. Credits to Bethesda & Foone's Death Generator.

With another Winter Sale getting started on Steam & GOG, I was looking through several titles in order to see how much discounts have changed in comparison to previous ones. Overall there doesn't seem to be huge changes, but then I stumbled across Commander Keen Complete Pack on both platforms and... Nothing. These classic platformers arrived on GOG back in February 2021 and even then they had usual 70% sale. But now this seem to be the first time Commander Keen games skipped New Year's sale, which seems odd. I even tried to contact id Software (as they're the sole publisher of these games) through their website, but obviously didn't get any kind of response from them.

Something like that can happen whenever publisher abandones their game or... I don't really know. Examples that come to my mind are Rune Classic and Full Throttle Remastered with the first one not getting on Steam sales ever since that peculiar closure of Human Head Studios. Either way, I decided to take my time and look at what's up with Commander Keen nowadays and what could be stored for Billy Blaze in the near future.

Missing Episodes.

All Commander Keen fans know very well that the current bundle offered by id Software isn't actually "complete". There're two titles they can't add in due to lack of publishing rights: Keen Dreams and Alliens Ate My Baby Sitter! Although they're technically not the part of "Invasion of the Vorticons" and "Goodbye, Galaxy!" series, its still Commander Keen games and many players would've loved to see them available in such package.

Can't id Software just get the publishing rights back? Well, they can do that in theory. But the reality seems to be more complex than that. From what I understand, FormGen retained the publishing rights for so-called "Keen 6" while id Software took over Spear of Destiny later down the line. It could've happen due to other priorities of the company at the time with not reaching the expected (but still good enough) amount of sales. FormGen Corporation was acquried by GT Interactive that nowadays carries the name and brand of Atari... Yep, so that's basically a dead end. Just look at Blood: Fresh Supply.

Keen's "lost episode" had more... interesting story. The rights for Keen Dreams remained with SoftDisk and moved over to Flat Rock Software after they acquired a lot of titles from their catalog. In 2014, thanks to crowdfunding campaign, certain enthusiast was able to purchase publishing rights for $1500. Seems great, but this individual ended up being some cringy edgelord. It still reached Steam and was even published by Nightdive Studios, but eventually was pulled down in 2018 likely because of previously mentioned guy. The game is sold for Nintendo Switch with Android version available for free from developer's website. You can also track down shareware version of Keen Dreams. Besides all that, I think its safe to assume that this is another dead end for id Software.

Aliens Are My Babysitter! CGA Title Screen. Taken from MobyGames.

It's interesting that id Anthology from November 1996 included only CGA version of Aliens Ate My Neighbors!, according to MobyGames. Perhaps they can distribute that iteration of the game specifically, but I think not many people would really want to get it, except for some retro gamers who enjoy its purple beauty. And even Keen Dreams was there as Softdisk was still around. That was probably the only time when all Commander Keen games were part of one bundle. Game Boy Color game came out in 2001, so it doesn't really count in this case.

Abandoned Return.

But it's not like they've actually forgot about Commander Keen, far from it. We got to remember that E3 2019 announcement from Zenimax Online Studios who id Software "trusted" with making a new... mobile game that was just never meant to be and that's for the best. Nobody was happy about it: not the fans, not original developers. Tom Hall's tweet in particular pretty much mirrors overall reaction of Commander Keen's fans. You know, I never thought about it, but this announcement was embarrassingly worse than Diablo: Immortal due to how Bethesda managed to perfectly handle reveal of The Elder Scrolls: Blades by saving themselves with announcement of sixth game a year earlier.

So its no wonder that most traces of the game vanished: from dedicated website and official YouTube videos to social media accounts and mentioning on ZeniMax Online Studios' website. Game's page on Google Play is surprisingly still available and reviews are mostly negative with big focus on bad controls, connections issues and franchise's treatment. This response from November 27, 2019 to one of the reviews particularly caught my eye:

"...Our two new Commander Keens have a different adventure on mobile than the original Billy did on MS-DOS. We hope new players will revisit the original games, too."

I think that's one of the key point for this project, its abandonment and potential new direction for Commander Keen. Because, as you might've noticed, id Software knew how to treat their classic franchises right. In fact, Bethesda most likely also realized that back in 2019 with DOOM and, most recently, Quake. But they haven't abandoned experimenting with mobile titles as Mightly Doom by Alpha Dog Games seem to be another game that most likely will head into obscurity.

Thriving Classics.

One year after 25th anniversary of original DOOM, new re-releases of two classic titles from Nerve Software and new iteration of DOOM 3 by Panic Button were published by Bethesda on all current platforms at the time. Despite some flaws and issues with intrusive connection to Bethesda.net, these "Unity ports" are much more beloved nowadays as the perfect option for newcomers to experience original DOOM with Hell on Earth. Although getting the source port of your choice is better option in the long way, overall these versions of the games are overall good if you just don't wanna bother with it. Meanwhile latest version of the game seem to be overall fine, but it misses some content in comparison to original and BFG editions.

Peachy Keen's Rewards.
Taken from Slayers Club.

With the arrival of QuakeCon 2021 and 25th anniversary of the series that started this event, we got a new re-release of Quake by Nightdive Studios that Bethesda and id Software appropriately call "Enhanced version". Its pretty much the same deal as re-release of first two DOOM games: solid option for new players on PC and consoles, but not mobile this time. They even made a trailer for an update with Horde Mode and "new" Honey Add-on on top of more typical articles & social media posts.

Lastly, DOOM Eternal acknowledged many old games from multiple id Software's franchises by getting a special skins for them. Before much anticipated DOOM 64 version of the marine and Ranger outfit for the Doomguy, there was Commander Keen skin offered through in-game event. Which shows yet again that they remember Billy. Does it actually mean something though? I don't know, but I think 2022 might give us more clues for that.

Conclusion.

Have you noticed that Commander Keen was not only published exclussively by id Software on Steam and GOG, but its also absent on Bethesda's platforms? As before, that likely was caused by the lack of interested and the fact that their deal with 3D Realms was still active all those years up until July 9, 2020. Yeah, up until that point you were able to buy both Commander Keen series and original Wolfenstein 3D from them directly.

Speaking of which, I believe that Wolfenstein is really the key in all of this. This year marks its 30th anniversary and that's when id Software with Bethesda did mostly cool things for DOOM and Quake (actually these two reached 25th anniversary for it). The chances of getting "Unity port" of Wolfenstein 3D and maybe even re-release of Return to Castle Wolfenstein with the reveal of the third Wolfenstein's "New" entry seems quite possible.

There's a catch though... Invasion of the Vorticons is 31 years old right now. Goodbye, Galaxy! celebrated its 30th anniversary. Which leaves us with two options: either we will see a miracle and modern re-release of those games will arrive this or next year, maybe together with Wolfenstein 3D if it doesn't follow re-release schedule of both DOOM titles, or we would have to wait 4 more years for such potential. Their abscense on digital sales with unreasonable optimism do gravitate me towards the first option, but who really knows. Anyway, that's gonna be my somewhat accurate predictions of re-releases for this year. Before I managed to kind of predict the re-release of Quake and Blizzard Arcade Collection, even though that's probably more of a overstatement. Gonna do it anyway!

What about "Keen 6" and Dreams then? Well, from what I understand, both of them can be pretty much treated as spin-off titles from my understanding. At least from their position within franchise's timeline. id Software can get away with what they have. However, with Microsoft now being behind Zenimax, perhaps there's a chance... Probably not though.