Id-Software
Quake

The '96 is a great year for FPS games.

Duke Nukem 3D has just been released, and the PC world nearly finds a mascot in this charismatic anti-hero, politically incorrect, vulgar, misogynistic, and ruthless. In short, a true icon, destined to remain in the spotlight until the end of the year, until a certain Lara Croft makes her appearance around Christmas (and the rest of the story you know). Amid such charismatic examples, Id was rather uncomfortable. Sure, it had laid the most important bricks of the genre and had brought attention to a world that most people previously knew nothing about. However, the fact remained that no protagonist of the most important games of the past five years would ever be remembered. This also meant that intellectual properties were lucrative only in terms of software; no merchandising was possible, and certainly, if Duke Nukem and the future Miss Croft could (and would, in the case of Lara) make the cover of TIME, the anonymous soldier from Doom and the little-known hero of Wolfenstein would never have the same privilege. Nonetheless, Id no longer cared so much about missing out on the exaggerated commercial aspect that so excited the competition. The passion was programming, and the only challenge worthy of the name was not accumulating money by speculating on the past, but surpassing themselves and the competition on a technological level, year after year.

Quake was born almost by accident. The graphics engine was ready, Carmack was confident that the first fully 3D polygonal engine would shine, the development tool was flexible and easy to use, and surely half the world would buy it (which indeed happened). However, the idea was missing; something more was needed than a technical demo; something was needed to make the whole world understand that the competition might be capable of producing more charismatic characters, but that Id's technical supremacy was (and would be) something the entire sector had to contend with. The team spent part of their free time playing Dungeons & Dragons, and there came the idea to mix RPG elements with the FPS structure and immerse it all in a Mayan/Aztec context, with a protagonist vaguely reminiscent of a Viking.

Less than a month passed, the project was shelved in favor of a return to pure FPS, and the setting shifted to fantasy medieval. However, Carmack was not satisfied with the look, and the team unanimously decided to push towards darker atmospheres heavily inspired by Lovecraft (for curiosity's sake, the final boss is a certain Shub-Niggurath). However, one person was not at all satisfied with this shift to the classic and this cautious game. Romero, who had been head designer since the days of Doom and had been the mind of the company up until then, announced he would leave at the end of the work. In reality, there were other reasons behind this decision, which was not well-received by the community, and the results were seen once the game was in hand. Development, which lasted a few weeks, had taken a strange turn: four settings were created for about thirty levels, but none of the working groups had the slightest idea of the direction the game was going. In the end, faced with what was essentially a collection of maps, the programmers could do nothing but write a story to justify it all.

The game was released at the beginning of the summer and was yet again a global success. Such architectures had never been seen before,nor 3D monsters of such size. To limit code impact on resources, Id opted for the OpenGL opensource libraries, despite Microsoft and its DirectX. However, those who wanted to enjoy the most advanced 3D game in history could not do without a 3Dfx graphics card. Also noteworthy was the sound department, with none other than Trent Reznor at the helm (memorable the nailgun ammo boxes marked by the NIN logo). The virtual community eagerly set to work on new mods, and with 56k modems finally available on the other side of the ocean (that is, in Europe, what did you think?)mass multiplayer took its first steps. Battles stopped being one-on-one duels; people started talking about teams and clans, and the concept of electronic competition was born with Quake's deathmatches. Sure, we were far from the modes and numbers that followed a few years later, but the leap forward from Doom was notable.

As announced, Romero left Id at the game's release and went his own way with a couple of projects in mind, soon founding Ion Storm, a company that for better or worse would have something to say. The role of head designer was taken over by his internal nemesis at Id, a certain American McGee, also destined to make much of a name for himself. Some time after Quake's release, Carmack admitted that the game was not what he had wanted, but he was very satisfied with how things had gone and the incredible impact the project had had. He wasn't wrong about the engine, and Tech1 became the base of countless games of various kinds, including Half-Life.

The game would have three sequels in the following decade, very different from each other in reception and market impact, from the good level of the second, to the global online triumph of the third, to the half-flop of the fourth (the latter developed by Raven, not Id). Quake remains a world apart, with a community more alive than ever, prolific, unconcerned with its surroundings and the time passed, and even if the name of the saga has now become synonymous more with the third chapter than the first, just take a trip on QuakeWorld to understand how the game is more alive than most of the products released now on the market. Which isn't bad, with thirteen years under its belt.