Quake came out in 1996, and the home computer immediately had a new way to look at its owner with contempt.
On the box it looked almost decent: Pentium 75, eight megabytes of memory for DOS, sixteen for Windows 95, VGA, some disk space, Sound Blaster, CD-ROM not from a museum. This is a normal list. It doesn’t seem like a requirement, but a questionnaire at the clinic.
Quake didn't run on a computer at first. Quake ran on your self-esteem.
But in life everything was different. You thought you had a car. The game answered: we'll see.
Before this, there was already Doom: corridors, a shotgun, speed and a great feeling that the monitor will now become part of your nervous system. But Quake didn't come as a sequel. It arrived like a cold entrance after renovation: the wall seemed to be in place, the light bulb seemed to be on, but for some reason it was already unpleasant to enter.
The main thing was not that it became darker. And not even that it has become more voluminous. The main thing was that space ceased to represent space. It began to be.
You didn't pass the level. You went inside. And no one was waiting for you inside.
Disk, iron and alien air
The old Russian game writer knew one important thing, which was later almost lost: he wrote about the game as if the reader would now actually go to launch it. Not “within the genre,” not “against the backdrop of industry development,” but normally: I installed it, loaded it, went into the settings and realized that the computer was looking at you like a cashier at the end of a shift.
Quake was just such a game. He demanded not only attention, but also respect for the hardware. The game could be a revelation, or it could become a slideshow in brown hell. This was also part of the magic. They didn't just sell you the world. They sold you a reason to find out what your box under the table is capable of.
id Software didn't make just another shooter. She made a machine that everyone then got into: from online maniacs to people who suddenly needed to build their cards at three in the morning. But then it was not called beautiful. Back then it was called: “Starting? Wow.”
Plot as a respectful formality
The plot of Quake can be retold quickly. The base is under attack. The operation failed. Slipgate is open somewhere in the wrong direction. There is an alien dimension ahead and a very bad boss of this whole party.
But Quake wasn't a game that put a literary face on it. He didn’t sit you down in a chair, open your lore folder, and say, “Now we’ll explain the motivation behind the portal.” He spoke more simply: here are the weapons, here is the door, it’s bad there.
Quake doesn't pretend to be a novel. It works by temperature.
The stone is wet. The metal is cold. The elevator is noisy. The light is lying. Something is breathing somewhere nearby, but there is no need to pretend that you know each other.
Music that settled in the walls
The soundtrack was created by Trent Reznor and Chris Vrenna of Nine Inch Nails. And this is not a case where a famous name was glued to the box to sell better.
Quake's music doesn't sound like music at all in the traditional gaming sense. She's not encouraging. Doesn't lead. Doesn't say that there will be a "dynamic fragment" now. She just took up residence in the walls.
Noise. Hum. Iron. Air that has not been ventilated for a long time. The electricity is somewhere behind the panel. It’s as if it’s not the soundtrack playing, but the level itself that is quietly deteriorating from the inside.
In old magazines they liked to write that a good game has “atmosphere”. This usually meant that the author liked the fog. In Quake, the atmosphere was not foggy. She was the neighbor behind the wall who moves furniture at four in the morning, although you know for sure that the apartment is empty.
Music doesn't lead you by the hand. She stands nearby and pretends that it’s not her steps you hear behind you.
And here you go. You listen to the door. Listening to the elevator. Listen to your weapon. Then you hear it.
Shambler
The Shambler appears without ceremony.
Not like a boss who was given a separate scene. Not as a “dear player, an important creature is about to come” attraction. He just is. A large white carcass without eyes. Mouth. Claws. The gait of a creature that is in no hurry because it already knows the outcome.
At first he's even a little funny. Somewhere between Bigfoot, the meat locker and a bad costume for a children's party in hell. Then he raises his paws. And everything becomes adult.
Shambler is not scary because of his appearance. Shambler has terrible behavior.
He doesn't fuss. He doesn't ask you to participate in a beautiful scene. He closes the distance. It hits with electricity. It breaks your confidence that you already understand the rules.
He doesn't have the eyes to reason with him. He just knows where you are.
Play without a care
A modern game often approaches the player like the administrator of a good hotel. Here's a hint for you. There's a marker here. Here's a plot line. Here we will gently scare you, but first we will make sure that you are looking in the right direction.
Quake wasn't like that. Quake said: the door is there. Next on my own.
This was his philosophy. Not to explain the world, but to launch it. Not to tell you how to be afraid, but to give bad light and a place where a mistake becomes your personal biography.
You backed away. Missed. He was clinging to the step. I was looking for a first aid kit. I remembered that there was no first aid kit. Shot with the wrong thing. Dying. Loading. He went there again, this time with the air of a man who understood everything and now again cannot do anything.
This is the real school. No textbook. With Shambler instead of the head teacher.
Why is it still alive
Quake never ages like a neat classic under glass. It ages like something you found in a garage, wiped it with a rag and turned it on. It suddenly became louder than expected.
Yes, today you can see the seams. You can see the corners. You can see how the game is assembled from the technologies of its time. But that is precisely why it does not look like a museum exhibit. It looks like a working tool. A drill that can be used to open a portal.
Quake has no desire to be liked. He does not pat the player on the head. Doesn't apologize for the darkness. He doesn’t put up a sign saying “caution, there’s going to be an atmosphere.” He just opens the door.
And behind the door there is a level. And somewhere in the level there is a Shambler.
Narva morality, of course
There is something understandable about this.
Sometimes the city also works like Quake. First they give you a corridor. Then the button. Then the door. Then it turns out that the door was in the wrong direction, the elevator left without you, and around the corner there is a Shambler in the form of an account or a person with the phrase “well, you understand.”
And you understand. You take the shotgun. You move on.