Zenimax Media Inc., owners of id Software, have filed a trademark for something called the “Void Engine powered by id Tech,” Siliconera has discovered. The trademark was filed on November 8th, 2013.
What is the Void Engine? We aren’t certain as to its current status, but we do have a little background on it, going back over a decade. Back in the early 2000s, a pair of programmers, Gaz Iqbal and John Schreiner, were working on a 3D FPS engine called Void, which they described as being notable for its “modular and clear coding style”.
The engine supported OpenGL and DirectX, utilized a Quake 3-style shader system, and was capable of implementing “common Quake 3 shader commands”. Void was also compatible with the .BSP level format that id Software’s Quake engine used.
At some point, the two programmers reached the decision to cease working on Void as an engine, and instead, develop a game using the technology. What happened next is anyone’s guess, as the pair stopped updating the engine’s website, and the game they were going to develop never surfaced. Siliconera contacted the programmers, but have not heard back from them yet.
Just what id Software intends to use Void for is unknown.
