Id had struck a home run and became the champions of PC gaming.

With nothing to play for - and everything to lose: it was time for their next game to

step up to the plate.

And, in spite of all the pressure - they still came out swinging.

Quake eclipsed the competition - and was the final nail in the coffin for the so-called

'Doom clones'.

No longer were such games mere imitators - but instead an entirely new genre.

The first person shooter was born.

So: how did rapidly changing technology - and the stresses of high expectations - affect

Quake's development?

What made its well-honed combat and intuitive level design perfect for competitive play?

And which of its achievements for PC gaming define its legacy?

Doom was a runaway success - and the start of a golden era of PC gaming.

Id had outdone themselves.

However, such a massive accomplishment casts a shadow - and now they had a new mountain

to climb.

PC hardware was evolving rapidly: every year machines had faster processors, bigger hard

drives and more RAM.

CD-ROM drives became the standard, and games were no longer constrained by the paltry storage

floppy disks afforded.

Another game-changing development was the advent of 3D acceleration: with dedicated

GPU assistance, polygonal graphics could finally shed their clunky reputation.

In order to take full advantage of these developments - and to remain ahead of the competition - Id

needed a new engine.

This time, everything would be 3D: polygons in place of sprites; fewer restrictions on

level architecture;

Fast enough to work on the most basic Pentium; sufficiently future-proof to excel with a

new wave of GPUs.

It wasn't going to be easy - but if anyone could do it, John Carmack could.

While the new tech was underway, the remainder of the Id team were left hamstrung.

Without a solid foundation to build on, all that remained were nebulous ideas.

Quake's concept pre-dates Doom, even Wolfenstein - it was originally teased in Commander Keen

as 'Quake: The Fight for Justice'.

Keen to keep the gameplay innovative, they hoped to shed Doom's straightforward shooting

action for a different blend of magic and melee.

'Quake' was supposed to be the name of the main character, a hammer-wielding hero taken

directly from Id's Dungeons and Dragons sessions.

Inspired by Thor, and drawn from Nordic legend: hammers, runes and tales of mighty mythological

heroes.

However - like Doom, Quake would be composed of a melange of themes.

With an increased focus on character and storytelling, Quake and his ground-shaking hammer were intended

to embark on a trans-dimensional RPG set across a variety of fantasy worlds.

Some elements would be retained from Doom: science fiction, fantasy, and satanic imagery

- but new, darker and grittier elements would be added into the mix.

Disparate themes married together with slipgates - teleporters that traverse space and time.

A convenient handwave that links levels without the need for explanation or interstitial narrative.

The injection of new blood at Id brought fresh ideas, and some relief from the stressful

pace of work.

Two key hires joined late during Doom development: American McGee, a young level designer filling

the role of a largely absent John Romero; and industry veteran Sandy Petersen.

Petersen's influence on Quake would be quite profound: as a massive fan of H.P. Lovecraft,

he was the driving force behind the most resonant theme of the game.

Lovecraft's work is romantic: penned in flowery, ornate prose - but the subjects of his affection

stand in stark juxtaposition.

Knowledge not supposed to be known:

Sights better left unseen.

The Cthulu mythos inspires a daunting sense of cosmic horror: an instinctual fear of something

lurking in grand darkness; an incomprehensible being from another existential plane.

Altogether, the perfect basis for horror.

These themes of foreboding are the glue which held Quake's story together: a journey across

dimensions in search of magical runes to banish an ancient evil.

Unlike Lovecraft, there are no spiralling words to tell this story: in typical Id fashion,

the gameplay and environment whisper the lore quietly.

The vaulted ceilings and twisted corridors of Quake are like dreams of a bygone time:

fantasy castles merged with dark factories, saturated with dread.

The level geometry is unfettered compared to Doom's two-and-a-half dimensional rooms

- with suspended elements and ornate filigree - but strict polygon limits give Quake's world

an abstract feel: a strange primitive dimension of wrought iron, wood and stone.

If Doom was Thrash Metal, Quake was somewhere between Grunge and Post-Industrial: gritty,

dark and dripping with atmosphere.

Nine Inch Nails' front-man Trent Reznor was a big fan of Doom, and he, along with his

band, were brought on to assist with the creation of sound assets.

Originally, there was no music planned: instead a reliance on environmental sound to set the

ambiance.

However, Trent insisted - resulting in Quake's distinctive soundtrack: brooding ambient sounds

overlaid with digitally distorted guitars, screams and amelodic noise.

A collaboration celebrated with the inclusion of a Nine Inch Nails logo on ammo pickups.

The aesthetic imparted by sound is mirrored by vision: Quake's levels are dismal places.

The textures are worn, corroded, dirty: unfriendly places that set the player ill at ease.

While they might draw from a wide range of themes: metallic sci-fi plates, gothic grotesques

and ancient stone, they mesh together with a common grit: helped by the unfiltered low-resolution

textures and relatively narrow range of colours.

Quake's palette is designed with its tone in mind: a range of dark shades in naturalistic

hues: muddy greens, blues, coppers - and brown.

While these shades were selected to make the most of a limited 256 colour palette, muted

'realistic' tones were a major trend in later FPS - even once colour depth restrictions

were no longer a factor.

Often a deliberate design decision, the careful use of colour can make for a more closely

composited scene: and can impart a unique feeling to a game's atmosphere.

Although often cited as the muddy origin of gaming's brown monotony, Quake's levels are

more diverse than they're given credit for.

A blend of old and new: like its music, the visual themes of Quake are equal parts harmony

and discord.

The same could be said for Id software themselves: while there's no doubt that Romero and Carmack

were capable of great things together, the cracks were beginning to show.

Design work wasted as technical goalposts shifted: an entire set of Aztec textures thrown

out - ironically enough for being too brown - and compromises began to creep in.

With time running out, the innovative take on magic and melee was starting to veer towards

the safe harbour of Doom's shooting action - much to Romero's chagrin.

With every year that passed, Doom's imitators were starting to innovate.

A technology demo for Quake emerged in February, 1996 - QTest, the first glimpse of the new

game - and a sample of its frantic multiplayer action.

Mere months left until release - a frantic rush to piece together a finished game: the

final push of a painful gestation.

The wolves were at the door: the prize? Id's crown.

Quake had better be good.

The opening chamber offers as warm a welcome as you should expect from Quake: its oppressive

walls split into three pathways, offering the player a simple choice:

How hard do you want it?

Sadly, the creatively-named difficulties of Doom are gone in favour of Easy; Normal and

Hard - although there is a secret entrance to the rather fiendish Nightmare difficulty.

In a similar fashion to Doom and Wolfenstein, Quake is split into four separate episodes:

sets of several levels thematically linked and culminating in the collection of a rune.

The magic of all four are required to face the final evil: but you are free to tackle

each in whatever order you choose.

The Dimension of the Doomed is intended as an introductory experience, containing a mixed

bag of levels and is the portion allotted for the shareware release of the game.

Things get more medieval in The Realm of Black Magic, as its sci-fi opener gives way to ancient

castles and waterlogged wizardly realms.

Darker still is The Netherworld, an abutment to Hell abundant with lava: its metal walls

warm to the touch, but the reception much cooler.

The Elder World is where Lovecraft's influence shines brightest: twisted palaces of pain,

punishing with their wicked traps and sprawling maze-like layout.

A deck of four suits stacked with misery - the way you deal with them is up to you.

The gameplay itself should be instantly familiar to anybody who's played Doom before: you spawn

gun in-hand, with a level chock full of bad guys before you:

Kill 'em all and get out alive. A simple plan, really.

They had perfected a formula - one that is repeated often today.

While Quake's failure to meet all its design goals is disappointing, the chance to build

on what made Doom great helped to refine the genre: providing a firm foundation for future

FPS.

Id were caught in the wake of their own creation - they didn't want to repeat the same beats

as Doom, but given its success - and the hype for a follow-up - defying expectations would

have been a dangerous move.

A fan favourite that saw a return from Doom was the shotgun, alongside the double-barreled

variant.

While an odd fit for medieval combat, Doom's former totems of power would be sorely missed

if absent - and so it transpires: a twin-barreled transplant across space and time.

The shotgun replaces the erstwhile pistol as the player's default weapon, and the double-barreled

variant provides more firepower once discovered.

Like with Doom, they are the workhorses of the game's combat - effective at close range,

with abundant ammunition - and relatively forgiving when it comes to aim.

One key difference is their power: Doom's shotgun - and particularly the super shotgun

- could tear through groups with ease, but the pace of combat in Quake is a little slower.

Enemies are tougher, with even common types able to weather a few shots: and as a result,

the shotguns aren't nearly as satisfying to use as their former incarnation.

Part of the reason for this is the shift from sprite-based enemies to fully polygonal ones:

while the jump to 3D was important from a technical perspective, it did impose some

harsher entity limits.

Doom often had you facing off against hordes of ten or more opponents - in Quake, it's

rare to see more than five.

With enemies taking more damage, the combat dynamic shifts: instead of focussing on dodging

projectiles while quickly eliminating close enemies, instead you must prioritise targets

and draw them into a favourable position: kiting the fastest, most dangerous enemies

away from others in order to safely eliminate them.

Controlling your distance from your opponent is the key to success - and failure to do

so properly leads to rapid punishment.

Most enemies are capable of powerful melee attacks, meaning that getting too close is

dangerous: getting trapped in a corner can mean being torn to shreds.

Whether it's a sword, chainsaw or sharpened claws: there is always a very strong incentive

to keep out of arm's reach.

The player's melee option is rather weak by comparison: the legendary earth-shaking hammer

from the design documents transformed into a gun-butt melee attack in early versions,