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Quake (video game): the story on HearLore | HearLore
Common questions
When was Quake released?
Quake was released in the early hours of the 22nd of June 1996. The game was developed by id Software and marked a significant technological leap in the first-person shooter genre.
Who developed the Quake video game?
Quake was developed by id Software with programming by John Carmack, Michael Abrash, and John Cash. The levels and scenarios were designed by American McGee, Sandy Petersen, John Romero, and Tim Willits.
What is the plot of Quake?
The plot of Quake centers on a government experiment gone wrong where teleportation devices known as slipgates were compromised by a hostile force codenamed Quake. Players assume the role of a soldier tasked with traveling through these slipgates to find and destroy the source of the invasion.
Who composed the music for Quake?
Quake's music and sound design were done by Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails. The soundtrack uses ambient soundscapes and synthesized drones to create an atmospheric and sinister experience.
When was QuakeWorld released?
QuakeWorld was released on the 13th of December 1996. This build of the Quake engine featured significantly revamped network code including the addition of client-side prediction to improve online play.
What platforms was Quake ported to?
Quake was ported to multiple platforms including Linux, Mac OS, Sega Saturn, Nintendo 64, and various mobile phones. The first port to be completed was the Linux port on the 5th of July 1996.
In the early hours of the 22nd of June 1996, a digital invasion began not with a bang, but with a whisper of static and the hum of a modem connecting to the internet. Quake, the first-person shooter developed by id Software, arrived to redefine the boundaries of video game technology and culture. Unlike its predecessor, Doom, which relied on flat, two-dimensional sprites to create the illusion of depth, Quake introduced a fully three-dimensional world where every wall, enemy, and weapon existed as a polygonal model. This technological leap allowed for real-time rendering of complex environments, turning the game into a living, breathing entity that could be explored from any angle. The game's plot centered on a government experiment gone wrong, where teleportation devices known as slipgates were compromised by a hostile force codenamed Quake, leading to an invasion of Earth by a vast army of monsters. Players assumed the role of a soldier, later dubbed Ranger, tasked with traveling through these slipgates to find and destroy the source of the invasion. The game's setting was a haunting blend of futuristic military bases and medieval, gothic environments, featuring both science fiction and fantasy weaponry and enemies. The game heavily took inspiration from gothic fiction and in particular the works of H. P. Lovecraft, creating a dark, atmospheric experience that was unlike anything seen before. The game went through many revisions during development, and had originally been inspired by a Dungeons & Dragons campaign held among id Software staff. The team's creative differences and the intense pressure of development would eventually lead to the departure of key figures, including co-founder John Romero, marking the end of an era for the company. Despite the controversy and the challenges faced during its creation, Quake was often cited as one of the best video games ever made, setting a new standard for the genre and influencing the development of online multiplayer gaming for decades to come.
From Dungeons To Digital Realms
The origins of Quake can be traced back to the early 1990s, when the staff at id Software engaged in a private Dungeons & Dragons game that would go on to inspire a number of elements in their titles over the following years. With John Carmack as the Dungeon Master, the campaign featured a group of adventurers named the Silver Shadow Band, who were named for the silver dragon on which they flew. Among them was a powerful character named Quake, representing strength, who fought with a magic hammer capable of destroying buildings. Quake was accompanied by a floating magic artefact named the Hellgate Cube which attacked his foes with lightning bolts. John Romero described fighting alongside Quake as the most fun they had playing D&D. The Silver Shadow Band did contract work for Justice, an even more powerful group. The original campaign concluded in early 1992, after Romero's character made a deal with a demon, exchanging a book called the Demonomicron for a magic sword called the Daikatana, which resulted in a demonic invasion that wiped out the Material Plane. A preview included with id Software's first release, 1990's Commander Keen, advertised a game entitled The Fight for Justice as a follow-up to the Commander Keen trilogy. It would feature a character named Quake, the strongest, most dangerous person on the continent, armed with thunderbolts and a Ring of Regeneration. Conceived as a VGA full-color side-scrolling role-playing video game, The Fight for Justice was never released. The team briefly explored making the project in 1991 but abandoned the idea as the technology for it simply did not exist at the time. The project was only in development for about two weeks. A return to the Quake concept was raised by John Romero in a meeting in late 1994, when discussing the next engine and main project after the completion of Doom II. Newer members of the team, including American McGee and Sandy Petersen, had not been present for the original D&D campaign or game project, but were on board with the idea after it was explained to them, and the team was then in agreement about the broad direction of the title. In a the 1st of December 1994, post to an online bulletin board, John Romero wrote, Okay, people. It seems that everyone is speculating on whether Quake is going to be a slow, RPG-style light-action game. Wrong! What does id do best and dominate at? Can you say action? I knew you could. Quake will be constant, hectic action throughout , probably more so than Doom. The team entered into an R&D phase while Carmack was working on the engine. By 1995, the outline for the game included a medieval setting, hand-to-hand combat, thrown weapons, an area of effect attack with the hammer, and feeding souls to the Hellgate Cube. Some early information on Quake was released publicly, focusing on a Thor-like character who wields a giant hammer. A close up of Quake holding his hammer was on the cover of PC Gamer for the October 1995 issue, and screenshots showed medieval environments and a dragon. Romero revealed in 2023 that the dragon model was never actually implemented, and had simply been placed in the sky for the screenshot. The plan was for the game to have more role-playing-style elements. An Aztec style texture set was developed for the project, but the set was not used due to artistic opposition from American McGee, who preferred a more heavy metal themed look for his levels. This second texture set was used for the Vaults of Zin. Before gameplay could be worked on in earnest, Carmack would need to build the game engine which was a significant undertaking, and took much longer than anticipated. Carmack was not only developing a fully 3D engine, but also a TCP/IP networking model. Carmack later said that he should have done two separate projects which developed those things- the networking model first, used for a game which was otherwise in the Doom II engine, and then the 3D overhaul for a second title. The Quake engine popularized several major advances in the genre: polygonal models instead of prerendered sprites; full 3D level design instead of a 2.5D map; prerendered lightmaps; and allowing end users to partially program the game (in this case with QuakeC), which popularized fan-created modifications (mods). Working with a game engine that was still in development presented difficulties for the designers. Around fifty levels were developed during the R&D process, but engine changes meant that the team was frequently having to redo work. Much of this needed to be scrapped by the time the engine was completed in late 1995. The team was burned out from the process, and raised the idea of using the existing demo levels for a first person shooter, as it would be faster and less risky. Romero opposed the change, but relented. The creative differences would ultimately lead to his departure from the company after completing Quake. Quake was programmed by John Carmack, Michael Abrash, and John Cash. The levels and scenarios were designed by American McGee, Sandy Petersen, John Romero, and Tim Willits, and the graphics were designed by Adrian Carmack, Kevin Cloud and Paul Steed. Cloud created the monster and player graphics using Alias. Initially, the game was designed so that when the player ran out of ammunition, the player character would hit enemies with the butt of a gun. Shortly before release this was replaced with an axe. id Software released QTest on the 24th of February 1996, a technology demo limited to three multiplayer maps. There was no single-player support and some of the gameplay and graphics were unfinished or different from their final versions. QTest gave gamers their first peek into the filesystem and modifiability of the Quake engine, and many entity mods (that placed monsters in the otherwise empty multiplayer maps) and custom player skins began appearing online before the full game was even released. Morale on the project was low, and developers were under crunch from December 1995 through to release in June 1996. Romero has described the process as one of the hardest grinds of his career. He was the only member of the team to attend the office on launch day to upload the files.
Quake's music and sound design was done by Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails, using ambient soundscapes and synthesized drones to create atmospheric tracks. In an interview, Reznor remarked that the Quake soundtrack is not music; it's textures and ambiences and whirling machine noises and stuff. We tried to make the most sinister, depressive, scary, frightening kind of thing... It's been fun. The game includes an homage to Reznor in the form of ammo boxes for the Nailgun and Super Nailgun decorated with the Nine Inch Nails logo. The idea to use Nine Inch Nails for the soundtrack was raised by American McGee, who had been listening to their album The Downward Spiral during his work on the game. Romero was initially skeptical as he had envisioned a more ambient tone, but was open to the idea of the band composing with that tone in mind. id approached the band's agents, and the group had agreed to do the soundtrack by the following day as they were Doom fans and excited by the project. McGee handled the delivery of the soundtrack from there on. A legal issue that rose late in development with the record company meant that the code to play the audio from the CD was among the final changes made before release. Some digital re-releases of the game lack the CD soundtrack that came with the original shareware release. The 2021 enhanced version includes the soundtrack. The game's audio design was a crucial element in creating the immersive experience that Quake offered. The use of ambient soundscapes and synthesized drones helped to create a sense of unease and tension that was essential to the game's horror themes. The soundtrack was not just background noise; it was an integral part of the gameplay, enhancing the player's emotional response to the game's events. The game's sound effects were also highly praised, with many critics noting the realism and impact of the audio. The combination of the music and sound effects created a unique auditory experience that set Quake apart from other games of the time. The game's audio design was a testament to the team's attention to detail and their commitment to creating a truly immersive experience. The use of ambient soundscapes and synthesized drones helped to create a sense of unease and tension that was essential to the game's horror themes. The soundtrack was not just background noise; it was an integral part of the gameplay, enhancing the player's emotional response to the game's events. The game's sound effects were also highly praised, with many critics noting the realism and impact of the audio. The combination of the music and sound effects created a unique auditory experience that set Quake apart from other games of the time. The game's audio design was a testament to the team's attention to detail and their commitment to creating a truly immersive experience.
The Network That Changed Everything
In late 1996, id Software released VQuake, a source port of the Quake engine to support hardware accelerated rendering on graphics cards using the Rendition Vérité chipset. Aside from the expected benefit of improved performance, VQuake offered numerous visual improvements over the original software-rendered Quake. It boasted full 16-bit color, bilinear filtering (reducing pixelation), improved dynamic lighting, optional anti-aliasing, and improved source code clarity, as the improved performance finally allowed the use of gotos to be abandoned in favor of proper loop constructs. As the name implied, VQuake was a proprietary source port specifically for the Vérité; consumer 3D acceleration was in its infancy at the time, and there was no standard 3D API for the consumer market. After completing VQuake, John Carmack vowed to never write a proprietary port again, citing his frustration with Rendition's Speedy3D API. To improve the quality of online play, id Software released QuakeWorld in December 1996, a build of the Quake engine that featured significantly revamped network code including the addition of client-side prediction. The original Quake network code would not show the player the results of their actions until the server sent back a reply acknowledging them. For example, if the player attempted to move forward, the client would send the request to move forward to the server, and the server would determine whether the client was actually able to move forward or if they ran into an obstacle, such as a wall or another player. The server would then respond to the client, and only then would the client display movement to the player. This was fine for play on a LAN, a high bandwidth, very low latency connection, but the latency over a dial-up Internet connection is much larger than on a LAN, and this caused a noticeable delay between when a player tried to act and when that action was visible on the screen. This made gameplay much more difficult, especially since the unpredictable nature of the Internet made the amount of delay vary from moment to moment. Players would experience jerky, laggy motion that sometimes felt like ice skating, where they would slide around with seemingly no ability to stop, due to a build-up of previously sent movement requests. John Carmack has admitted that this was a serious problem that should have been fixed before release, but it was not caught because he and other developers had high-speed Internet access at home. After months of private beta testing, QuakeWorld, written by John Carmack with help from John Cash and Christian Antkow, was released on the 13th of December 1996. The client portion followed on December 17. Official id Software development stopped with the test release of QuakeWorld 2.33 on the 21st of December 1998. The last official stable release was 2.30. QuakeWorld has been described by IGN as the first popular first-person shooter meant to be played online. With the help of client-side prediction, which allowed players to see their own movement immediately without waiting for a response from the server, QuakeWorld's network code allowed players with high-latency connections to control their character's movement almost as precisely as when playing in single-player mode. The Netcode parameters could be adjusted by the user so that QuakeWorld performed well for users with high and low latency. The trade off to client-side prediction was that sometimes other players or objects would no longer be quite where they had appeared to be, or, in extreme cases, that the player would be pulled back to a previous position when the client received a late reply from the server which overrode movement the client had already previewed; this was known as warping. As a result, some serious players, particularly in the U.S., still preferred to play online using the original Quake engine (commonly called NetQuake) rather than QuakeWorld. However, the majority of players, especially those on dial-up connections, preferred the newer network model, and QuakeWorld soon became the dominant form of online play. Following the success of QuakeWorld, client-side prediction has become a standard feature of nearly all real-time online games. As with all other Quake upgrades, QuakeWorld was released as a free, unsupported add-on to the game and was updated numerous times through 1998. In January 1997 an independent developer, Nick Maher, developed a version of the Quake World master server (called QuakeWorld Local) that could be run on a LAN without an Internet connection. The software tracked player statistics over time and allowed international players without a QuakeWorld server on their continent, or without Internet access at all, to enjoy the new client. On the 22nd of January 1997, id Software released the first beta of GLQuake. This was designed to use the OpenGL 3D API to access hardware 3D graphics acceleration cards to rasterize the graphics, rather than having the computer's CPU fill in every pixel. In addition to higher framerates for most players, GLQuake provided higher resolution modes and texture filtering. GLQuake also experimented with reflections, transparent water, and even rudimentary shadows. GLQuake came with a driver enabling the subset of OpenGL used by the game to function on the 3dfx Voodoo Graphics card, the only consumer-level card at the time capable of running GLQuake well. Previously, John Carmack had experimented with a version of Quake specifically written for the Rendition Vérité chip used in the Creative Labs PCI 3D Blaster card. This version had met with only limited success, and Carmack decided to write for generic APIs in the future rather than tailoring for specific hardware. On the 11th of March 1997, id Software released WinQuake, a version of the non-OpenGL engine designed to run under Microsoft Windows; the original Quake had been written for MS-DOS, allowing for launch from Windows 95, but could not run under Windows NT-based operating systems because it needed direct access to hardware. WinQuake instead accessed hardware via Win32-based APIs such as DirectSound, DirectInput, and DirectDraw that were supported on Windows 95, Windows NT 4.0 and later releases. Like GLQuake, WinQuake also allowed higher resolution video modes. This removed the last barrier to widespread popularity of the game. On the 20th of July 2016, Axel Gneiting, an id Tech employee responsible for implementing the Vulkan rendering path to the id Tech 6 engine used in Doom (2016), released a source port called vkQuake under the GPLv2.
Ports And Platforms Across The Globe
Quake was ported to multiple platforms. The first port to be completed was the Linux port Quake 0.91 by id Software employee Dave D. Taylor using X11 on the 5th of July 1996, followed by a SPARC Solaris port later that year also by Taylor. An SVGAlib port for Linux was created by programmer Greg Alexander in 1997 using leaked source code but was later mainlined by id, unlike similar unofficial ports for OS/2, Amiga, Java VMs, and Mac OS. The first commercially released port was for Mac OS, done by MacSoft and Lion Entertainment, Inc. (the latter company ceased to exist just prior to the port's release, Thursday, the 7th of August 1997 - MacQuake Maker Closes?: According to a USENET posting apparently written by Lion Entertainment President Douglas Grounds, Lion, the software house working on the Macintosh ports of Quake, Shadow Warrior, Unreal, and Deadlock, is closing up shop, leaving the future of those projects up in the air. leading to MacSoft's involvement) in late August 1997. ClickBOOM announced a version for Amiga-computers in 1998. Finally in 1999, a retail version of the Linux port was distributed by Macmillan Digital Publishing USA in a bundle with the two existing add-ons as Quake: The Offering. Quake was also ported to home console systems. On the 2nd of December 1997, the game was released for the Sega Saturn. Initially GT Interactive was to publish this version itself, but it later cancelled the release and the Saturn rights were picked up by Sega. Sega took the project away from the original development team, who had been encountering difficulties getting the port to run at a decent frame rate, and assigned it to Lobotomy Software. The Saturn port was developed with Softimage 3D and uses Lobotomy Software's 3D engine, SlaveDriver (also used in PowerSlave and Duke Nukem 3D for the Saturn). It is the only version of Quake rated T for Teen instead of M for Mature. Quake was ported to the PlayStation by Lobotomy Software, but the company was not able to find a publisher for it. A port for the Atari Jaguar was reported as 30% complete in a May 1996 issue of Ultimate Future Games magazine, but it was never released. A port of Quake was planned for Panasonic M2 prior to cancellation of the system. On the 24th of March 1998, the game was released for the Nintendo 64 by Midway Games. This version was developed by the same programming team that worked on Doom 64, at id Software's request. The Nintendo 64 version was originally slated to be released in 1997, but Midway delayed it until March 1998 to give the team time to implement the deathmatch modes. Both console ports required compromises because of the limited CPU power and ROM storage space for levels. For example, the levels were rebuilt in the Saturn version in order to simplify the architecture, thereby reducing demands on the CPU. The Saturn version omits the four secret levels from the original PC version of the game, replacing them with four exclusive secret levels: Purgatorium, Hell's Aerie, The Coliseum, and Watery Grave. It also contains an exclusive unlockable, Dank & Scuz, which is a story set in the Quake milieu and presented in the form of a slide show with voice acting. There are no multiplayer modes in the Saturn version. The Nintendo 64 version includes 25 single-player levels from the PC version, though it is missing The Grisly Grotto, The Installation, The Ebon Fortress, The Wind Tunnels, The Sewage System, and Hell's Atrium. It also does not use the hub map where the player chooses a difficulty level and an episode; the difficulty level is chosen from a menu when starting the game, and all of the levels are played in sequential order. The Nintendo 64 version, while lacking the cooperative multiplayer mode, includes two player deathmatch. All six of the deathmatch maps from the PC version are in the Nintendo 64 port, as well as an exclusive deathmatch level, The Court of Death. In 1998, LBE Systems and Lazer-Tron released a prototype titled Quake: Arcade Tournament Edition in the arcades in limited quantities. R-Comp Interactive published the game for RISC OS as Quake Resurrection in 1999, including the total conversion Malice and expansion Q!ZONE, although community-made source ports such as ArcQuake were also available. An unreleased Game Boy Advance port of Quake was in development from Randy Linden in 2002, and was pitched to id Software in that year. The port was rejected by the company, and Linden's work would remain unused until prototypes of his work were dumped in June 2022. Two homebrew ports of Quake for the Nintendo DS exist, QuakeDS and CQuake. Both run well; however, multiplayer does not work on QuakeDS. Since the source code for Quake was released, a number of unofficial ports have been made available for PDAs and mobile phones, such as PocketQuake, as well as versions for the Symbian S60 series of mobile phones and Android mobile phones. The Rockbox project also distributes a version of Quake that runs on some MP3 players. In 2005, id Software signed a deal with publisher Pulse Interactive to release a version of Quake for mobile phones. The game was engineered by Californian company Bear Naked Productions. Initially due to be released on only two mobile phones, the Samsung Nexus (for which it was to be an embedded game) and the LG VX360. Quake Mobile was reviewed by GameSpot on the Samsung Nexus and they cited its US release as October 2005; they also gave it a Best Mobile Game in their E3 2005 Editor's Choice Awards. It is unclear as to whether the game actually did ship with the Samsung Nexus. The game is only available for the DELL x50v and x51v, both of which are PDAs, not mobile phones. Quake Mobile does not feature the Nine Inch Nails soundtrack due to space constraints. Quake Mobile runs the most recent version of GL Quake (Quake v.1.09 GL 1.00) at 800x600 resolution and 25 fps. The most recent version of Quake Mobile is v.1.20 which has stylus support. There was an earlier version v.1.19 which lacked stylus support. The two Quake expansion packs, Scourge of Armagon and Dissolution of Eternity, are also available for Quake Mobile. A Flash-based version of the game by Michael Rennie runs Quake at full speed in any Flash-enabled web browser. Based on the shareware version of the game, it includes only the first episode and is available for free on the web. At the launch of the 2021 QuakeCon@Home on the 19th of August 2021, Bethesda released an enhanced version of Quake for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S consoles, developed by Nightdive Studios. In addition to support for modern systems and improved rendering techniques, the enhanced version includes both mission packs, Scourge of Armagon and Dissolution of Eternity. It also includes two episodes created by MachineGames: the previously released Dimension of the Past and a new one called Dimension of the Machine. A port of Quake 64 was also included in its entirety via the newly implemented Add-On menu.
The Controversy That Defined A Generation
Unlike its predecessor Doom, which relied on sprite-based enemies, Quake employed a real-time 3D engine that rendered characters and environments as polygonal models. This technological shift contributed to what contemporary critics described as a greater sense of physicality and immediacy in its depictions of blood, combat effects, and creature dismemberment. The heightened realism was cited in academic work analyzing the evolution of violent imagery in video games, with researchers noting that Quake intensified public concerns about graphic content in digital entertainment. The game's aesthetic choices, such as its dim lighting, textured gore effects, and environmental storytelling influenced by horror fiction, were also described in media analyses as amplifying the psychological impact of violence. Upon release, Quake faced criticism from several family-oriented advocacy groups, which claimed that the game's violent content was too accessible due to id Software's shareware distribution model. Organizations such as Parents Against Violence in Entertainment (PAVE) publicly expressed concern that children could easily obtain the shareware version and become exposed to material they deemed inappropriate. Media coverage at the time highlighted how the game's free distribution complicated parental supervision efforts compared to traditional retail products. Major newspapers also addressed the controversy, noting that Quake appeared amid growing national debates about media violence. Articles in The Washington Post and other outlets stated that the game represented a continuation, and escalation, of the discussions sparked by earlier id Software games. Some religious organizations and commentators criticized Quake not only for its violence but also for its use of imagery that they interpreted as occult or demonic. Analyses in media and cultural commentary publications pointed out that elements such as altar-like structures, sacrificial motifs, and hybrid monster designs were perceived as contributing to a dark spiritual tone, prompting objections from Christian advocacy groups during the late 1990s. These objections paralleled broader moral debates surrounding violent entertainment media of the era, with critics arguing that the combination of explicit violence and supernatural horror made Quake unsuitable for younger players. The controversy surrounding Quake's violent content played a role in ongoing discussions about the regulation of video games. While the game was released after the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), commentators argued that the technology used in Quake pushed the boundaries of what existing ratings systems could effectively describe. Some education outlets reported that school districts began banning the game from computer labs, citing concerns over both its violent imagery and its addictive multiplayer gameplay. Retrospective analyses continue to reference Quake as a landmark example in the history of video game controversies, particularly in studies examining the cultural reception of digital violence and its aesthetic evolution. The game's impact on the cultural conversation about video games was significant, as it forced parents, educators, and policymakers to confront the reality of the medium's potential for both entertainment and harm. The controversy also highlighted the need for better regulation and oversight of video game content, leading to the development of more robust rating systems and guidelines for the industry. Despite the criticism, Quake remained a beloved and influential game, with many players and critics praising its innovative gameplay, stunning visuals, and memorable soundtrack. The game's legacy continues to this day, with new generations of players discovering its unique blend of action, horror, and multiplayer excitement.