Descent Video Game Wiki

**Welcome to the wiki of the Descent Video Games!**
This wiki is about the three video games Descent and its video game sequels Descent II and Descent 3.

In this wiki you can read articles about or to do with these video games, watch and upload videos and upload images to do with the games.

**What is this game?**

Created by Parallax Software and published by Interplay in 1995, Descent is a first person shooter that is played with six-degrees of freedom.

The player is able to move in any direction they choose.

The player may move forward, backward, left and right, up and down, and can bank left or right without any restriction.

This freedom of movement has been the game’s defining feature.

Descent II was released as a three-mission demo in 1995 and the full retail version was released in 1996.

The game was very well received, and was given an expansion pack titled The Vertigo Series in 1997 and a loose port of Descent II was released on the Play-station called Descent Maximum in 1997.

In Descent, you were a mercenary with the call sign Vertigo-One hired by the Post-Terran Mineral Corporation (PTMC) to act as a material defender.

PTMC mines across the solar system were overrun by an alien virus that reprogrammed the mining robots into killing machines.

Your mission was to destroy the reactor of each mine so you could eliminate the threat of an invasion of Earth.

But when the reactor was destroyed, you had to flee the mine by using the emergency exit or perish with the mine when it blew.

These objectives are the same in Descent II.

After destroying the final mine in Descent 1, you learn that Vertigo-One must return to a PTMC base in the asteroid belt before you can collect your reward.

It turns out that your contractor, Samuel Dravis, has acted on your mercenary contract and evoked a clause that allows PTMC to retain Vertigo-One for an additional 72 hours and that there is suspicion that the alien virus may be carried on your ship.

After rearming Vertigo-One’s Pyro-GX, the ship is also equipped with a prototype warp core that will send the Pyro to systems outside of the solar system in order to destroy the mines in those systems.

This is your ship, the Pyro-GX:   **What’s new in this game?**
Thirty brand new levels, an entirely new bestiary of robots, ten new weapons in addition to the original ten from Descent, several upgrades to your ship, and new mechanics for navigating the mines.

**Who are you guys and what are you doing?**

I will be the main host and recording my gameplay for this Let’s Play.

UZworm, Major\_JF, and SeriousSirrus were my co-hosts for Descent 1, but I will be joined ~~primarily by Taoto and Elephantgun for Descent II~~ whichever poor saps I can rope into this.

The last game’s co-hosts will likely make appearances at some point in this LP.

Because Descent and Descent II were originally released for DOS, that makes it difficult for many people to play the games on newer computers.

I believe the Mac ports can be played on OS9, but without emulation for it, OSX can’t play it. Instead of playing Descent II on DOS Box, I am instead playing the game on Descent Rebirth (DXX-Rebirth).

**What’s Descent Rebirth?**

In 1997, Parallax released the source code for Descent to end users.

The source code for Descent II was released in 1998.

This has been a very valuable tool in keeping the games playable on contemporary operating systems.

Rebirth allows for Descent to be played on any contemporary operating system and presents the game as close to the original as possible while giving features not available in the past.

You can find out more about Descent Rebirth and how to get your old copies of Descent and Descent II playing again by visiting the project website.

Descent can also be purchased at Good Old Games via download and will be up and running right out of the box.

**Descent Links and Resources:**

DescentBB.net - *The* Descent message board.

Planet Descent - The other Descent message board.

Also home to many Descent files and utilities for all three games.

Descent Rebirth - A Descent-engine project that allows you to play the game outside of DOSBox on any platform.

It's goal is to present Descent and Descent II in an environment that recreates the original playing experience.

This LP uses DXX software.

Good Old Games - Digital copies of the Descent series and other games can be found here.

DOS games found here will be played in DOSBox.

See the Descent Rebirth website for setting up your games for play in DXX.

Moon's Descendarium - Moon's website provides demos and explanations on how to get through the game's trickier parts.

Part one of a documentary covering the history of Volition that discusses the making of Descent 1 and Descent II.

Features, Weapons, Accessories and Items.

What is this game? Created by Parallax Software and published by Interplay in 1995, Descent is a first person shooter that is played with six-degrees of freedom.

The player is able to move in any direction they choose.

The player may move forward, backward, left and right, up and down, and can bank left or right without any restriction.

This freedom of movement has been the game's defining feature.

In this game, you are a mercenary with the call sign Vertigo-One hired by the Post Terran Mineral Corporation (PTMC) to act as a material defender.

PTMC mines across the solar system have been overrun by an alien virus that has reprogrammed the mining robots into killing machines.

Your mission is to destroy the reactor of each mine so you can eliminate the threat of an invasion of Earth.

But when the reactor is destroyed, you have to flee the mine by using the emergency exit or perish with the mine when it blows.

This is your ship, the Pyro-GX:   Descent was originally released as shareware in December of 1994, and the retail version was released in March of 1995.
The game could be purchased on a series of floppy discs or on CD for DOS.

Descent was ported to the Play-station and for Macintosh in 1996.

Both ports feature remastered soundtracks of some of the game's MIDI music.

The Play-station version also features a handful of fully rendered videos for the opening, ending, and the exit sequences of each mine (I do not know if the Mac version has video as well).

Descent will eventually be released on WiiWare by Interplay, but so far there is no known release date.

Screenshots featured on Interplay's WiiWare page show a new HUD for the Pyro-GX and it appears that the resolution of the game's textures have been upgraded a little bit.

Hopefully this re-release turns out.

**Who are you guys and what are you doing?** I will be playing this game from start to finish on Hotshot difficulty (medium-hard).

Major\_JF and UZworm will be joining me again after the madness we put ourselves through in the Short Game Theatre Mk.

III with Cyberia.

Because Descent was originally released on DOS, that makes it difficult for many people to play the game on newer computers.

I believe the Mac port can be played on OS9, but without emulation for it, OSX can't play it. Instead of playing Descent on DOS Box, I am instead playing the game on Descent Rebirth (DXX-Rebirth).

The plan for creating content will be to record a planet's worth of levels every week, then put up videos of each mine every three or four days.

I'll let you all know when I'm recording gameplay in case you want to point something out to me.

**What's Descent Rebirth?**

In 1997, Parallax released the source code for Descent to end users.

This has been a very valuable tool in keeping the game playable on contemporary operating systems.

Rebirth allows for Descent to be played on any contemporary operating system and presents the game as close to the original as possible while giving features not available in the past.

I could play the game using D2X-XL, but I would then be playing the game with Descent II's improvements in enemy AI and features.

And it's bloated with way too many features.

You can find out more about Descent Rebirth and how to get your old copies of Descent and Descent II playing again by visiting the project website.

Descent can also be purchased at Good Old Games via download and will be up and running right out of the box.

**The game's music in Level 2 isn't what I remember when I played it.**

**What's going on?**

The Playstation and Mac ports of Descent featured a remastered soundtrack for certain pieces of music.

Whenever a mine with a remastered track comes up, I will be replacing the MIDI music with the remastered track.

You can still hear the original MIDI track in the video by selecting the appropriate audio track if you download the video.

**Descent Links and Resources:**

DescentBB.net - *The* Descent message board.

Planet Descent - The other Descent message board.

Also home to many Descent files and utilities for all three games.

Descent Rebirth - A Descent-engine project that allows you to play the game outside of DOSBox on any platform.

It's goal is to present Descent 1 and Descent II in an environment that recreates the original playing experience.

This LP uses DXX software.

Good Old Games - Digital copies of the Descent series and other games can be found here. DOS games found here will be played in DOSBox.

See the Descent Rebirth website for setting up your games for play in DXX.

Part one of a documentary covering the history of Volition that discusses the making of Descent and Descent II.

**Fan Art:**

An image I made for UZworm:   The team banner for the multiplayer tournament that never happened:
Veloxyll tried his hand at creating a pirate flag for our ship of fools:

..but Musical\_Daredevil came out on top and won UZworm's eternal affection: