I was 11 years old when Quake released. I'd played id's games before - Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM - along with some of the more memorable "DOOM Clones" (what we now call FPSes). Your Hexens, your Duke Nukem 3Ds, your Dark Forces (I especially played a lot of Dark Forces).
My older brother, who did not get into computer games the way I did, was at the time still pretty into them. This is why I knew that Quake was out - because he came home one day with the Quake shareware CD (complete with Nine Inch Nails soundtrack, naturally), installed it on the family computer/my dad's work computer, and proceeded to blow all of our minds when he booted it up. Quake was a visual revelation - you could move in 3D! You could mouselook! You pulled down a little console and typed in an arcane command and you just looked all over the place with the mouse! The enemies were all 3D models and they blew apart in satisfying ways, and when you circled their corpses they didn't spin because they were actual 3D objects in space. I can't emphasize how mind-blowing this was!
It also had multiplayer, of a sort that we'd never seen before. We'd done dial-up one-on-one in Duke3D but Quake? Quake you could join bigger multiplayer matches over TCP/IP, and there were plenty of websites where people just posted their IP addresses (it was a different time) and you could go join a random multiplayer deathmatch! With tons of people, even! Like, more than four! It would work crazy well too!
I can't actually tell you how much time we spent playing just the first episode of Quake before my older brother (once again) obtained the rest of the game. I don't know if he did this by paying for it, or by uh... other means (it was probably other means - he had, at the time, a pretty cavalier view on software piracy and more than a few dirtbag friends who knew where to look), but for me the juice of Quake was always the multiplayer. I think I mentioned this elsewhere, but my cousins came to visit one week and we were up so late playing Quake multiplayer that either my dad or my uncle (I do not remember which) came upstairs to the attic and told us to go to bed because it was five in the morning or whatever. Now Quake is 30 goddamn years old!
The Development Cycle from Hell/Some Eldritch Dimension
Quake was, like DOOM, created to be the Next Big Thing from id. This was the general pattern for early id - Carmack would lock himself in an airless room and emerge with a new game engine, Romero and the others would build a new game that would set the world on fire, it would sell insanely well, and id would make a sequel to it while Carmack locked himself in an airless room to eventually emerge with a new game engine that would result in a new game to blow everyone's minds. Wash, rinse, repeat. Quake changed that - or more accurately, Quake proved to show the limits of that approach, because the problem with this approach is that the level designers and artists had to learn a new engine every two games - and what happens when the new engine keeps getting tweaked or worse, handed over half-finished for you to try to get some, any kind of work done? Well, you get Quake.
Look at these goobers fighting each other. I am going to shoot a rocket up that shambler's ass
I'm oversimplifying things, but only because this is somehow even more well-worn territory than the story of how DOOM got made is. Which makes complete sense, because depending on who you ask (Hi Sandy, hope you're doing well), Quake killed id Software. Killed it dead!
Which I mean... there's some truth to this, from a certain point of view. It was certainly the end of id As It Was, because by the time it was over Romero was gone and Carmack was now the main shot-caller at id. You're free to argue about whether or not this was a good thing in the comments, but for my part I think the fault lines were there as early as DOOM (that's when they jettisoned Tom Holland, after all), and all Quake did was make them too pronounced to ignore.
Anyway apart from all that, Mister Romero, how was the play?
Setting the Scene
Quake had a lot of excitement surrounding it, partially because id really talked up how incredible the game was going to be. Like, the weight of expectations was so heavy it's even less surprising to hear how bad the development process was. The game ended up being a deeply-compromised version of Romero's original vision for the game beyond its art direction, and is instead, you know, kind of just a retread of the storyline of DOOM, really. Portal technology ends up summoning The Horrors, except in this case the Horrors are a guy named Quake and, ultimately Shub-niggurath, the Black Goat Mother of a Thousand Young or whatever the hell. Look, I might be a DOOM lore sicko but there's no power that will make me pay attention to what passes for that in Quake.
I will say, however, the intro text in the manual is great.
Background: You get the phone call at 4 am. By 5:30 you're in the secret installation. The commander explains tersely, “It's about the Slipgate device. Once we perfect these, we'll be able to use them to transport people and cargo from one place to another instantly.
“An enemy, codenamed Quake, is using his own slipgates to insert death squads inside our bases to kill, steal, and kidnap...
“The hell of it is we have no idea where he's from. Our top scientists think Quake's not from Earth, but another dimension. They say Quake's preparing to unleash his real army, whatever that is.
“You're our best man. This is Operation Counterstrike and you're in charge, Find Quake, and stop him... or it. You have full authority to requisition anything you need, If the eggheads are right, all our lives are expendable..
Prelude to Destruction: While scouting the neighborhood, you fear shots back at the base. Damn, that Quake bastard works fast! He heard about Operation Counterstrike, and hit first. Racing back, you see the place is overrun, You are almost certainly the only survivor. Operation Counterstrike is over. Except for you.
You know that the heart of the installation holds a slipgate. Since Quake's killers came through, it is still set to his dimension, You can use it to get loose in his hometown. Maybe you can get to the asshole personally. You pump a round into your shotgun, and get moving
Okay you know what maybe it was just cooler when I was eleven.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Nine Inch Nails
Quake is a patchwork of a game that somehow manages to still have a real atmosphere and vibe to it which is, at least partially, because of the soundtrack. Unlike DOOM's metal-inspired soundtrack, Quake leans into the uncanny and creepy atmosphere. Having Nine Inch Nails do the soundtrack helps - but I think the surprising thing about it is just how restrained it is. The title track is a fucking banger, which hooks you and, at least in my case, set an expectation of a DOOM-like soundtrack to follow. That's not what you get! You'll get spooky ambient tracks and babies crying and shit and you'll like it!
This game has atmosphere for days. Days, I tell you!
Which I mean yeah you will like it because it's fuckin' Nine Inch Nails! They know how to make music, it turns out, and they also knew how to make everything feel creepy! It's one of those swerves that sets the scene for the kind of game Quake begins to be once you get out of the techbase, which is some kind of weird eldritch nightmare, except you can shoot the eldritch nightmares in the fucking face.
Man, I love this soundtrack. It's not something I'm putting on to listen to (that's for the DOOM soundtracks), but it fits the vision of what Quake wanted to be. It fits it so well in fact that playing without the soundtrack makes me feel like something's missing. This is a problem I have with the Nightdive release, actually - it gives you the option to run Original Quake, but the soundtrack doesn't work because Original Quake played the soundtrack off the game disc and... they didn't do that.
A Descent Into Madness
Each episode has its own weird vibe to it, which yes, I will say they did this in DOOM but it's not as noticable. The full complement of monsters is more or less set in that episode too - except for a few surprises that only show up regularly in episodes three and four. Wisely, the game knows what it can get away with in terms of "guys that are basically DOOM enemies" and uses them pretty sparingly. Zombie soldiers exist but they are mostly confined to the techbase levels that start each episode rather than used as regular fodder. Zombie dogs are similarly used with a light touch, because zombie dogs are kind of boring and once you've seen the real weird shit the game is working with they become even less compelling.
The masterpiece of the game is its Ogres: big lumbering monsters with grenade launchers and chainsaws. They're also beefy and - importantly - not actually as hard to deal with as you might think. You can just run up close to get them to swing, dodge out of the way, and pump their asses full of buckshot. It's good as hell! I think I love this game.
It also has the Shamblers, which are like the iconic Quake enemy in a way that no other Quake enemy has even come close to being. Shamblers shoot your ass with lightning and it's brutal. They also have a shitload of health! Real fuckin' hard to kill, but a delight! I love you, Shamblers! I think they look furry, but Adrian Carmack (you know, the guy who drew them) says that's not fur, it's just really gross skin. Nasty! Don't worry Shambler, even if you aren't covered in soft white fur I think you're still neat.
You know what I guess I can see it as skin here also I did not survive this encounter
The only place where the game really falls on its ass is its boss fights, which is a very generous way to describe how each episode ends. The first episode you run around and step on some switches and electrocute a big lava worm. It's possible to make your way around the arena so fast that you have to stand around waiting for the electrodes to get into place before you can administer the coup de grace and it's... it's not challenging.
Episodes two and three don't even really have boss fights. Episode two technically does, I guess, in that it introduces a new monster and has you fight it, but then it's just in episodes three and four (like the two Barons at the end of episode one, you have to fight two of them). I don't even remember what episode three does, I think it's just a big fight?
Episode four is where you fight Shub-niggurath, except you don't actually fight Shub. What you do is wait for a little moving diamond...thing to travel around the arena and eventually pass through Shub's body, at which point you step into a teleporter and telefrag her. While this is going on, Shamblers are also trying to kill you. You know, just for a little extra spice. It's not that challenging! It's kind of a letdown! Hell, at least the Icon of Sin made you do it three times, this is a one and done!
And Yet
Everything about the movement in Quake feels so good. There is a speed and a fluidity to its movement that just Feels Right, and I haven't mentioned it yet because I just read about id getting gutted by Microsoft and I've been trying to figure out how to address it, but the guns all fucking rule. You have a nailgun, then just in case that isn't enough you have a Bigger Nailgun, a super-shotgun that feels fucking amazing, an AXE if you want to do melee for some reason I guess, a grenade launcher - just like the ones the Ogres have and the bouncing grenade sound is locked in my brain forever - a rocket launcher that allows you to jump higher (this is the game that invented rocket jumping, if you weren't aware - not to be confused with archvile jumping in DOOM II which is way more dangerous).
There's also the lightning gun. It shoots lightning! It's what the Shamblers do to you but a gun! If you fire it underwater it drains the battery and usually kills you. I haven't even mentioned the pickups, most importantly the QUAD DAMAGE pickup which both makes an extremely satisfying noise when you pick it up and kill things and also, you know, quadruples the amount of damage all your guns do. There's also invulnerability, and magic armor that gives you 666 armor which is, you know, it's an id game after all.
QUAD DAMAGE QUAD DAMAGE QUAD DAMAGE QUAD DAMAGE
If there was ever a game that rose above its messy development and boss encounters that feel not even half-assed, like quarter-assed, maybe, it's Quake. The level design is still incredible, and it's the last levels Romero ever made for id Software! American McGee turns in some extremely good work! Even Sandy Peterson, fresh off of his numerous sins in DOOM II, puts in a good performance! Quake is riddled with flaws but none of them end up mattering because you'll be having too much fucking fun to even begin to care.
Maybe one day they could've made a sequel to it, who knows?
RIP id
Quake was the moment where the Good Times came to an end for Quake. The band broke up after that - Romero left, and Carmack took over, and the next thing we got was Quake 2 which is also a good game but there's something... boring about it. The magic of DOOM was the decision to not do generic space marines vs aliens and make it space marines vs THE FUCKIN' DEVIL. Quake did the same thing - soldiers fighting LOVECRAFTIAN NIGHTMARES and also fully-armored knights for some reason. Quake II did... space marines fighting aliens.
The original pitch for Quake was way too ambitious for what technology could do at the time. Hell, even when Romero had a chance to make something a little more like he imagined that original pitch, the result was Daikatana. Not exactly what you'd hope for, is it?
I've long hoped that we would eventually get a return to the original Quake setting. Something dark and eldritch and suitably spooky that would leave this stupid-ass Strogg behind where they belonged. My hopes even got kinda high when it turned out the extra campaign they made for the Quake II remake kind of made a backdoor argument for tying Quake and Quake II together! Maybe we'd see something neat!
Instead we've got a bloodbath at id Software. Half the team's gone, and depending on what reports and scuttlebutt you see, idtech is maybe dead as an engine altogether! I think that's a fucking crime, to be honest. I think gutting id Software is a travesty, and it breaks my fucking heart. I don't know where they go from here! I know it's extreme homerism, but I think if you tried to sell me a Quake or a DOOM game running in Unreal 5 I would slap you in the face! id's whole fucking identity is tied up in idtech, it's like their biggest contribution to gaming history! Every FPS out there has a little bit of idtech code (idtech 3 specifically) in its DNA, and that's frankly incredible. I really hope that idtech is not in fact dead, but I don't even know where id goes from here. Maybe they end up getting ejected completely (shit, it probably would've been the better outcome). I guess we'll see.
Okay Wait
The problem with things going down the way they've gone down is that writing this keeps having extra bits tacked on. So at least id might survive after all! I guess we'll see what QuakeCon brings, even if part of me can't help but think id's been dealt a mortal blow here. We live in hope, I guess!
Raise a glass to Quake - or just go boot it up and play through a couple levels. You'll see for yourself how rad it is.