Kotaku
Ever hear someone say "oh, man, that game's just like that other game, just with different multiplayer"? Course you have. Most games are just successors/homages/rip-offs of games that came before them. As it is with most creative mediums. And few games inspired so many of its competitors/descendants than Quake did. Here, then, is Quake's "family tree", an academic pursuit that's probably the only place on the internet you'll see Daikatana, American McGee's Alice, Hexen II and Half-Life 2 standing so close to one another without getting nervous.
The Quake Family Tree [Wikipedia, via Boing-Boing]
The Quake Family Tree
4:30 AM on Mon Apr 14 2008
By Luke Plunkett
6,564 views
89 comments
Comments
Where do you go about finding intricate information like this? And second how much of your life do you have to sacrafice to go about finding intricate information like this?
I may have missed it but... WHERE THE HECK IS UT?!?!
Quake is awesome.
@ryivanV2: UT didn't use a Quake engine.
You forgot Prey!
I'd like to see the Mario familiy tree! On second thoughts the internet is not big enough to host such a tree.
Interesting to see that the right side of the image contains al the commercially succesfull games and the left side contains mostly hacked/open source games.
I don't get
Quake 3 -> Doom 3 -> Quake 4
anyone care to elaborate?
No Warsow : (
HL is not based on modificated q2 engine? In the past I worked at level design for q3 engine games- mostly for Jedi Outcast/Academy.
Sometimes I miss Radiant-have no time for it :(
@mescalineeyes: All id games, Raven made Quake 4 but they used the Doom 3 engine. So thats the connection.
The Half Life connection is funny because Valve have said that they modified the engine heavily, leaving only about 10% of the id Engine. Does go to show how important id have been to FPS though doesn't it. Hopefully the new Tech 5 engine gets picked up by some companies too.
@el_rezzo:
yeah, the jump from q3 to doom3 is the one I dont get, but thanks... the id connection will do ;)
There's quite a few games missing from that list. Biggest omission I see is Call of Duty which used the id Tech 3 (Quake III) engine.
@mescalineeyes:
I guess they are saying that Doom 3 was the successor to Quake 3 (in that Quake 3 introduced the id Tech 3 engine, while Doom 3 introduced the id Tech 4 engine). Then Quake 4 used the "Doom 3" (id Tech 4) engine.
They really need to have different arrows for games that used another game's engine, and those that were successors to a previous game (but didn't necessarily use the same engine).
@K-Squad! (Badass Edition): I remember reading this on a website a few months ago, no idea where it was though. It may have been Game Developers or something, it was when I was reading up on Half Life's development process.
@ryivanV2: Epic have their own line of engines, called the Unreal Engines, the first UT used the first UE.UE3 is the engine that lots of X360 games are using and is the one causing legal troubles for Epic.
@MattB: Counter-Strike. You can't mention Half Life and then just not mention Counter-Strike, as much as I loathe that game, it deserves to be up there.
@mescalineeyes: Quake III is using the id Tech 3 engine. Doom 3 is using id Tech 4 engine. id Tech 4 did indeed begin life as an enhanced version of the id Tech 3 engine hench the chart.
@MattB: oooh, now it makes a lot more sense, thanks for that, I did not know that, and I used to play rocket arena 3 semi-professionally for 3 years of my life I'll NEVER get back haha
@mescalineeyes: True, although I don't think Counter-Strike actually had any engine modifications. It was essentially the Half-Life engine stock unless I'm mistaken. I make the distinction since that tree looks like it could be a list of actual distinct engines based from the original Quake engine.
you're making a perfectly valid point, MattB, if only action quake 2 wasn't on there...
@mescalineeyes: this isnt about your favorite game you think deserves mentioning. this is a tree to show the games which use quake engines. a bit outdated or maybe i missed warsow and quake wars.
@Crazy_Buffet_Happens: loathe means not like, silly ;)
@mescalineeyes: woops, true enough, sorry for that. nonetheless, half my point remains stable.
Hmm, didn't Gunman Chronicles use some engine alterations that the original Half-Life didn't have? Or was that just marketing misusing technical facts again (BLAST PROCESSING WOOOOOO)?
@Crazy_Buffet_Happens: in my opinion, it does not.
look how even the wolfenstein mods are in there?
now half life 1 uses a heavily modified quake 1 engine, and to be fair, counter-strike was huge, so why mention action quake 2, enemy territory RTCW but not counter-strike?
for the record, i wish i was in the quake family tree.
that's scary, john romero would probably make you his bitch somewhere along the way.
Dang this is good stuff for real. I love the Quake franchise. People forget the tru grandfather engine and it wasn't the unreal engine. Many years ago publishers and game designers alike were all about the Quake engine and even though I still see the Id is working on the next generation of the Quake engine I don't see them offering it up as much if at all to my knowlage like the Unreal Engine.
@mescalineeyes: i think the mods listed (even non commercial) are using the software tools for that era quake engine. counterstrike being a half life 1 mod is already disassociated by using half life's tools. since you mention counterstrike, dont you think team fortress would be better suited for a quake family tree mentioning? i think total conversion mods arent really counting here either and thats another point against counterstrike. enemy territory wasnt so much a wolfenstein tc mod but rather a ground up of sorts using quake 3 engine and wolfenstein's themes.
@JorgieX: dont worry, having played both quake wars and unreal 3 online (pc) i am happy to report that the intelligent minority are playing quake based games.
I remember them all! Man, im old...
Wow I haven't seen this image in years. Thanks Kotaku for smacking me in the face with nostalgia.
Team Fortress???
BTW Tei's a Quake enthusiast I'm pretty sure the idea was to show the evolution of quake(1) engine in both its homebrew and commercial applications, which is why the further away it gets from quake the less game titles there are
Hehehehehe...
Thanks Kotaku to post my Quake Family Tree.
- - -
Guys, submissions to add to this tree is still open.
I need that data:
- Engine name
- Engine derived from
This tree is ENGINEs tree, is not games tree.
But I can consider to include games, If seems the engine has been modified.
@Yami: Warsow use a heavily modified Quake2 engine. And yes.. sould be added here.
The origin of this image. A thread on QuakeSRC (the hub for quake engine coders).
[web.archive.org]
Does Zerstorer count for inclusion here? I can't remember if it itself was considered enough of a modification of the engine, or if it used a separate mod.
Maybe it should be included purely due to being awesome?
Kingpin should probably be added, too.
Sweet list.
Wowies. I still don't like Quake very much (never really understood why...), but when you put its influence in a chart like that it really deserves some respect.
@Gwog: Zestorer seems a map compilation(no engine), and the distribution don't include a engine, and seems engine neutral (other than the link to Tenebrae in downloads). I bet yoy can play that mappack with any engine, but a good one could be Darkplaces, or fritzquake, or maybe Telejano.
[shotgun1.shackspace.com]
@Tei: do you have a new list coming soon with quake wars? it should sprout from doom 3 or quake 4.
Nice chart, though I don't get how Jedi Knight II is descended from STV I and 2 when IIRC Jedi Knight 2 came out before or around the same time as both those games? Feel free to correct me, but yeah.
@DaiMacculate: ST:EF I mean ;)
HEEYYY... Where's the Open Arena????????????????????????
that's like the biggest(awesomeeeest)
quake 3 rip off ever!
Nightfire doesn't use the Quake 3 engine. It's built upon the GoldSource engine which should branch off of QuakeWorld/Quake 2. I didn't get Nightfire until after Counter-Strike: Condition Zero but I noticed instantly then how similar it "felt"
@foxhound009: open arena is merely a game from the q3 engine gone open source. no reason for it to be on the list.
@McKack: Ok, yea, I have confirmed it. Seems I have to fix that.
@foxhound009: OpenArena use a Quake3 engine (ioq3 maybe)
@DaiMacculate: Stuff could be wrong, as I never played these games, and all that data is from users, and a dev. Could have horrible errors on that part of the tree. sorry.
@Crazy_Buffet_Happens: I guest QuakeWars sould connect Enemy Territory. But.. I may need confirmation for this. Also, often there are more than one fater. As some engines use part of others..
@Crazy_Buffet_Happens: Ok, seems use "id Tech 4" that is Doom3. I add that.
@Tei: quake wars as stated by splash damage uses a modified quake4 engine. quake4 engine is a modified doom3 engine but both are knows as idtech4. it branches out in the tree because it uses modifications to incorporate megatexture. [en.wikipedia.org]
@Tei: heh woops YAY
One Quake to rule them all.
ahah xD
Gotta find that game and play some.
@Crazy_Buffet_Happens: Fixed. I will upload the new version... as soon I remenber the password for wikipedia..arrgh.
There are some unmentioned games that use a modification of the engine here:
[en.wikipedia.org]