In 2000, a video game with a rumored $30 million budget, helmed by the co-creator of Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake, sold barely 40,000 copies in its first months. This episode traces the complete history of Daikatana, from John Romero's departure to found Ion Storm with a $13 million advance from Eidos Interactive, through the 400-page design document spanning four time periods, the fatal mid-development engine switch after a 1997 trade show, and the sidekick AI that kept walking into lava.

We examine the collapse of Ion Storm's Dallas studio culture, the infamous 1997 print ad that promised the director would dominate the player, the 12-frames-per-second 1999 demo, and the brutal May 2000 reviews that compared the game unfavorably to Half-Life. Then the story pivots to the surprisingly well-received Game Boy Color version that never laun ...