KEVIN PRODEUS SOFTWARE
On June 22, 1996, after a long and draining crunch, id Software finally released Quake: a strange mix of sci-fi lasers, nail guns, eyeless horrors, haunted castles, elder gods, and alternate dimensions. McGee did much of the sound design), Quake especially empowered level designers with strong auteur control over the game experience, in a way that almost never happens in the games industry today. While the whole project was a dense collaboration where everyone did everything (e.g. Episode 1 features Willits' tidy castle levels, Episode 2 has Romero's clockwork wizard lairs, Episode 3 holds McGee's metal viking lava tombs, and Episode 4 trembles with Petersen's disorienting eldritch labyrinths. Romero triaged the project into four single player episodes, each led by a different level designer. From David Craddock's excellent in-depth book Rocket Jump (left) John Carmack and (right) John Romero crunching in "the war room" in January 1996 it probably smelled terrible. So id Software hired a Doom modder named Tim Willits, moved everyone into a single open plan office dubbed "the war room", and hunkered down into a marathon crunch, working 7 days a week for 7 months. they were so BROWN", McGee said in a 2011 interview.)īut as long as John Carmack and programmers Michael Abrash and John Cash could nerd out on engineering the most advanced 3D game engine the world had ever seen, maybe it didn't matter if Quake was a Doom clone. Artists Kevin Cloud and Adrian Carmack (no relation to John) had spent a year painting Mesoamerican-themed "Aztec" textures, but discarded everything after level designer American McGee didn't want to use them. Level designer Sandy Petersen pushed for Lovecraft-inspired elements. Most of Romero's levels were dark, medieval "wizard" themed. They hadn't set out to make another sci-fi shooter.
The certainty was a relief, but still disappointing. Then in one fateful team meeting in November 1995, an exhausted team decided they should just make another Doom-like FPS with sci-fi elements. Half the team thought they were making a fantasy adventure about a guy with a magic hammer. For a year, lead programmer John Carmack and lead designer John Romero kept changing directions, forcing people to redo work repeatedly. Despite its success and influence, Quake couldn't escape Doom's shadow, just barely held together, and eventually caused half of id Software to leave.ĭoom's success left the company under heavy pressure for a follow-up. But then I learned about its difficult history, a fascinating mess of cursed magic. I thought it was just a more boring, less colorful Doom. But does anyone care?Ī couple years ago, I sure didn't. Source Engine games like Apex Legends use fancy upgrades of Quake's original movement code, and the internet recently shat itself when it realized Half-Life: Alyx still uses Quake's light flickering presets. Nine Inch Nails' subtle in-game soundtrack is still a high point in video game music.
In 1996 it popularized "true 3D" level design, team multiplayer, the rocket jump, and even mouse look.
KEVIN PRODEUS SERIES
This article is the first of Quake Renaissance, a 3-part series on Quake 1, its history, and community.Įveryone's heard of Quake.
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