Quake

Should this be Doom? That would unquestionably be the more iconic name to drop. But when it comes to going back to and playing again today in 2023, it surely has to be Quake. Or both. I’m not stopping you. I can’t stop you. But while Doom took what had been tested and proved by Wolfenstein 3D and rendered it in grisly brown, it was Quake that put the whole thing on wheels.

Released ahead of the technological arms race that would develop between id and Unreal developers Epic, Quake was, on some level, John Carmack showing off what he could code. On another, it was John Romero, American McGee, Sandy Petersen and Tim Willits showing off what they could design. It was, alongside the same year’s Tomb Raider, the explosion of 3D into gaming—OpenGL transforming our games into spaces. Stellar level design, combined with ridiculous speed, and some of the most satisfying weapons to have graced the genre, mean Quake is still a game against which fast-paced shooters are measured.

It definitely helps that an official remaster of the original game was released in 2021 across all formats, ensuring it runs on all modern consoles and PCs.