Quake (1996)
Quake is a 1996 shooter video game made by id Software and MacSoft Games.
A soldier slips through a portal into a world of medieval stone corridors, shambling undead, and things that throw lightning. Quake arrived in 1996 as id Software's full leap into true 3D, replacing Doom's sprite-based enemies with polygonal models and building labyrinthine levels across four interconnected episodes. Trent Reznor composed the soundtrack, a constant low industrial drone that made the environments feel genuinely threatening. The engine it ran on became the foundation of competitive PC gaming for a decade.
Quick answers
What is Quake about?
A soldier slips through a portal into a world of medieval stone corridors, shambling undead, and things that throw lightning. Quake arrived in 1996 as id Software's full leap into true 3D, replacing Doom's sprite-based enemies with polygonal models and building labyrinthine levels across four interconnected episodes. Trent Reznor composed the soundtrack, a constant low industrial drone that made the environments feel genuinely threatening. The engine it ran on became the foundation of competitive PC gaming for a decade.
When was Quake released?
Quake was released on 22 June 1996.
Who made Quake?
Quake was made by id Software, MacSoft Games and Sega.
Similar games
Explore Quake guides
Quake in our writing
- Companion guide: First-Person Shooters: The Complete Guide to Gaming Down the Barrel
- Companion guide: id Software: Doom, Quake and the Birth of the Shooter
A few thoughts on Quake
Quake is the Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails score released as its own album, and it functions as dark ambient music entirely apart from the game. DOOM: Original Game Soundtrack covers the earlier id Software companion piece if the industrial metal sound of first-person shooters at their peak appeals.
The heavy, industrial sound that makes Quake's dungeons feel dangerous
Trent Reznor built Quake's score out of low drones and metallic dread instead of melody, and it still makes the game's stone corridors feel genuinely dangerous. That same heaviness runs through Doom's thrash-adjacent score, the Prodigy's breakbeat aggression, and Death's foundational death metal record, three records built for a fight that never really lets up.
Manga about losing your humanity in exchange for survival
The things chasing you through Quake's stone corridors were people once, hollowed out by whatever came through that portal alongside you. Tomie's endlessly regenerating horror, Fullmetal Alchemist's soul bound to a suit of armor, Galaxy Express 999's chase after a mechanical body, and Phoenix's characters trapped in cycles of death and rebirth all sit with that same dread.
Games where you're hunting monsters through a world that wants you dead
Quake never explains its shambling undead, it just puts a shotgun in your hand and a labyrinth in front of you. Half-Life 2's occupied City 17, The Witcher 3's monster-plagued Velen, God of War's brutal Norse mythology, and Skyrim's dragon-haunted north all ask the same thing: keep moving, keep fighting, and figure out the story later.
Portals and undead armies: fantasy horror where the monsters were once people
Quake's soldier falls through a rift and lands in the middle of someone else's war against the walking dead, no explanation offered. Game of Thrones' army of the dead north of the Wall, Supernatural's demon-hunting road trip, The Mummy's ancient curse unleashed, and Mortal Kombat's literal portal to Outworld all build on that same collision of realms.