In 1991 id Software, a team formed from employees at Softdisk, began experimenting with 3D graphics on ordinary PCs. John Carmack built a ray-casting engine that drew only the surfaces visible to the player, which made fast 3D action possible on hardware of the time. After Hovertank 3D and Catacomb 3-D, the team proposed a 3D remake of Castle Wolfenstein, with fast gameplay where the player fights Nazi soldiers. They tracked the original trademark to a Michigan owner and bought it in April 1992 for $5,000. The game was published both as shareware and in retail, and it moved from 16-colour EGA to 256-colour VGA shortly before release. The project showed that fast first-person action could work on a home PC.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.