well, the issue is the massive change in tone and pacing. quake 1and 2 you are fast and agile, while in 4 you are significantly limited. it isn't a bad game, but it IS a bad quake game. doom 3... for the same reasons. you went from a fast amd mobile nigh unstoppable juggernaut of death to being slow, plodding, and stuck in the dark via poor game design. Again, it wasn't a bad game, per se... but it was't a good doom game. also, people REALLY didn't like the end boss fight just being a series of quick time events. in a game where you get to triumph over ancient evils on your own... taking control away from the player just felt bad.
This might also shed some light on the origin of the Strogg. The whole tale is something like this: 1) An advanced ancient civilization discovers the Dreamlands and realizes the peril coming therefrom. 2) The main threat in the Dreamlands are various eldritch entities, including the Valkyrine (which has large-scale mind-control powers). 3) They create or transform themselves into the (proto)-Strogg, an army that defeats the invasion from the Dreamlands. 4) The leader of the invasion, the Valkyrine, is sealed somewhere on Stroggos. And the general plot conjecture: 1) SMC push the Strogg back, maybe saving Bitterman (if he was to be featured). Strogg have the aesthetic of the 'saner' Tank concepts - incomplete, somewhat improvised, but not really different from the Quake IV ones. Meanwhile Kane suffers from hallucinations of the Macron's voice ('I hear their voices when I sleep...') as a result of the latent Strogg code in his neurocyte. 2) Kane leads an attack on a Strogg fortification against one of the last warlords (maybe similar to the Quake II Macron). However, with its death, the final remnant of the Strogg hive mind is crushed. 3) Valkyrine awakens due to the disappearance of all restraint on Strogg minds, the remaining Strogg regain cohesion as processing plants reactivate to churn out the new 'abnormal' Strogg (Valkyrine tries to recreate the monsters of her/its invasion force?). 4) Eldritch forces reinvade Stroggos as SMC wages a campaign against Valkyrine. Maybe the return of the Ranger, further Quake I references. 5) Kane confronts the Valkyrine, defeats her and uses the Strogg code in his neurocyte to connect to the Strogg control network and release a 'kill program' that would lead to the destruction of the Strogg and (maybe, for added drama) Kane himself.
I so love that the enemy concepts convey that after the destruction of the Nexus the intelligence that guided Strogg production essentially had a psychotic breakdown with generating creatures that were far more horrific and abstract, whereas with the Strogg seen in both games had clear and intentional design - The Tank here seeming to be embodying the last vestiges of stability within production. I also love that it appears that the effort to bridge the Lovecraftian elements and the Strogg storyline may very well have been present over a decade ago! With all that we have seen and what was present in the Quake II Remaster, my personal hope is that we will indeed see a continuation of the Strogg story line, but perhaps at the end of the next entry that is where the Valkaryne will be revealed, causing a perfect and natural bridge between the Strogg timeline and continuation and expansion of the original Lovecraftian nature of Quake I. The more abstract and horrific nature of the unused Strogg designs as well I feel would perfectly bridge the aesthetics of body horror and nameless cosmic horror with them then able to be continuously intertwined.
Should id Software decide on a new Quake game, I'd hope for a combination of both Lovecraftian and sci-fi elements. Maybe even an encounter between the Ranger and someone of the Quake II/IV characters. By the way, a very fun theory.
They should have looked at the Quake 1 enemy roster and then made versions implying what we see in Q1, is that AI eventually becoming manifest and molding flesh without machinery at all. But doing the roster to be beat for beat the same in terms of dlc additions, except with the additional smart behaviours some enemies have in Q4, and having them connect the two aesthetics could've been and still could be something quite special to help make cohesive this weird, disparate brand.
I like that because it explains why some of the stroggs in this specific expansion pack have that more fleshy, misshapen look like that grotesquely defies the human anatomy as was demonstrated with that enemy Lechumqc calls "The Abomination".
This just reinforces my belief that at one point... The Strogg had expeditions into the Dreamlands and most likely came into conflict with Shub-Niggurath.
4:10 I need one of those head canisters, except with Morphine concentrate instead of stroyent, to survive the pain of there being no Quake 5 anywhere in sight.
Tbh I think "Awakening" refers to the strogg becoming free of Nexus' influence. They awake from their sleep, gain free will again, and from that emerge new factions, new leaders, and the Valkyrine is only one of many new warlords.
My theory is that the "Nexus" is actually the brain of Shub-Niggurath. And the strogg "leaders" used it for information. Sourcing Shub-Niggurath's knowledge for their own gain. That is how they came to know about stroyent and how to obtain it. It would incorporate the "valkaryne" nicely into the story. And could've been that it was a direct opposer to Shub-Niggurath for the throne. Imagine a scenario where the Valkaryne was the one to grab the brain of Shub-Niggurath after Ranger defeated it. Since Shub-Niggurath telefragged. And it was the one that brought it to another planet. To use Shub-Niggurath's brain for it's own gain. But somehow the original stroggs found this planet by accident since they are invading planets. They stumbled upon the brain of Shub-Niggurath. And made use of it. Obtaining valuable information about power and technology. That is how the Strogg as we know them came to be. But since their military power was rapidly growing. The Valkaryne couldn't retaliate. So it had to wait for an opportunity to be able to reclaim what was it's before. This way the story of both Quake 1 and Quake 4 ties together really well. Quake 1 is in the past. We see all of the events from what happened before Quake 2 and 4 and what lead up to it. Quake 4 is the events that unfolded before the climax of the Valkaryne. And this expansion would either be the kickstart to a much greater story or the end of the Strogg saga. Another theory can be that the original strogg where part of Shub-Niggurath's army. Way before they stroggified. And they eventually found Shub-Niggurath's brain that Valkaryne stole. And so they reclaimed it. Only to be used by the Valkaryne.
@15:25 - the idea of Bitterman returning as the Awakening main chharacter made me think further of the connection to the Dreamlands. We all know from Q3A's manual that Bitterman was "experimented on" by the Strogg before being taken to the Arena Eternal. Awakening could have been focused on telling that story, which would follow the biggest plot point of Quake 4 itself - Matthew Kane becoming stroggified. This leads me to wonder if Awakening was to show Bitterman being experimented on and being given that weird psuedo-stroggified look we see in Quake 3. As to the Valkaryne "mech suit" with the holo face - it's possible that the idea presented is reversed. Similar to the original Black Widow Guardian, the humanoid form could be encountered first, and the spider form second. In this idea, the hologram face would be that of the spider-form's body. This could have resulted in a Harbinger from ME2 situation, where we fight the bipedal mech leading forces multiple times throughout the story, as a repeatable mini-boss, before encountering the true Valkaryne at the end. Also considering that Doom 3 also ended on a cliffhanger satisfied by an expansion like Quake 4, it's very likely that Awakening would continue story plot points from the main game itself. The main one not answered, imo, is the dialogue of the Strogg's origin and the purpose for their creation - there's dialogue hinting at it with marines theorizing their origin. And the name "Awakening" can be referring to this - the first awakening of the strogg in distant past, the origin of the strogg and, perhaps, the very first Strogg. Under this idea, that could be Valkaryne's true identity - and would explain why she is mostly machine. Even with strogg technology, their ability to preserve flesh could only go so far, and so Valkaryne would need to be more machine than the rest of standard strogg if she was the first (or among the first) cyborgs of Stroggos. Hopefully this video and the recent surge of Quake interest following the remasters will prompt a few more leaks about Awakening's development. The absolute best leak would be storyboards, naturally.
This is interesting. I agree it would have been nice to see how Bitterman became what he is in Arena. I like the reverse Valkyrie presentation. It's unclear if the static and mobile states shown in the concept art would have been used in-game. Maybe it was just an idea, and the version we would have gotten was the large Makron-like entity. But yeah, I would LOVE to get the storyboards, or just a 'story overview' document, anything really. ^^
An expansion with Bitterman would be a great idea. Also, having Kane as a side character would be nice as well. Seeing how you battled back in the day but in 3rd person as a non professional marine but becoming as good is an amazing mechanic idea for Quake 6.
I kind of wonder if the more flesh-monster-y Strogg were the emergent thing. Like all those nanites going wild and making something new in the absence of the Nexus. 'Emergent behavior' is a term that gets a lot of use in AI and cellular automata settings where something built gets complicated enough it starts behaving in unexpected ways. Think the zeroth law of robotics. Maybe there's a new group intelligence built from all the pained, stroggified people.
In the Lovecraft Cthulu mythos, there was a story where explorers found ancient monsters frozen in ice located in the harshest part of the artic, where no other team of people had ever ventured to before. If the evil layer was encased in ice and Lovecraft mythos was a priority, it's possible then that the home of the Makron or whatever monster was inspired by that particular story. If it was the Makron's layer, perhaps that's the reason why his skin is a blue/purple color. (Just for fun I like to think that after Kane killed the Makron at the end of Quake 4, the Valkaryne would have been the Makron's wife who got furious when she learned of his death. She would claim the throne as the next in highest command, which would also make sense considering there's a Strogg palace in Quake 2. The ice chamber would have been their personal secret layer or something). I do think Raven made it a priority to tie Quake 2 and 4's with Quake 1. The nailgun and lightning gun both originated from Quake 1, there's a deathmatch map copied over from Quake 1, as well as a new deathmatch map meant to look like a level from Quake 1 (like E3M2 or something) complete with slipgates and crosses. The new unnamed marine does have a very close resemblance to Bitterman as he appeared in Quake 2, and we never saw what happened to Bitterman following after. His last appearance was in Quake 3 as a playable character where he was trapped in the dreamlands and had a new look, so perhaps Quake 4 would have followed Bitterman between the events of Quake 2 and 3. Also worth mentioning is Ritual Entertainment's previous involvement with the series prior to Quake 4. Ritual had already made the first expansion pack for Quake 1 called Scourge of Armagon back when they were still Hipnotic Interactive, so they were already familiar with the Lovecraft side of the series. In addition, Scourge of Armagon introduced new things that would continue on in Quake 2 and 4. The centroid scorpions and Armagon himself are crude cyborg war machines not too dissimilar to what the Strogg are, and they introduced the laser cannon which is an automatic energy weapon that fires out projectile laser beams similar to the hyperblaster. I wonder if the expansion pack's concept art being revealed in 2018 had any influence on Id Software during the development of Doom Eternal. The wretch has a similar appearance to the carcass in Doom Eternal, both are overweight humans who have undergone numerous grotesque surgeries and maneuver on a set of robotic spider legs, and Doom Eternal released in 2020 after the leak in 2018.
Seeing there different designs between the 3 inspired some ideas id like to see in a final Quake game that connects the disperate aspects of certain other quake games. Like perhaps after kane destroyed the Makron and the Nexus, despite of one their most unifying factors no longer connecting them still managed to create order among the strogg When the 3 most powerful remaining Strogg form the "Trimakronate". The Wretch being responsible for the creation of new and terrible strogg forms, The Tank forming the new leader of their military forces and the Valkaryne being a sort of enigmatic being pulling everyone strings. Although with the destruction of the nexus should have sent the Strogg into disarray, they instead retreated and started to act more carfully and strike tactically ccausing the IMC to have to change tact in turn. Long story short you'd play as the unnamed Ranger from the original quake game whos come through to stroggos searching for the Valkaryne whos actually a being from another Dimension whos actually behind the initial creation of the strogg and corruption of what ever they were originally. Through the campaign youd fight not only new and terrible strogg forms but the Valkaryne knows your on Stroggos and sends other lovecraftian mostrosity after you like the Shamblers and such. During the Campaign you come across Matthew Kane still fighting the good fight, leading the remaining IMC forces on Stroggos whos trying to become the new Makron so he can assume control of the strogg and finally end this war, the Valkaryne trying to stop this from happening because the Strogg fuel her design, whatever that might be.
The Wretch is so like Doom Eternal's Carcass. I wonder if there was any connection between the design teams. And the 5:02 'Abomination' looks like a melee-focused Mancubus to me.
Amazing video, really grateful for this detailed inspenction and theories, i always loved quake 4 since it came out when i was a kid, i always come back to replenish those memories, seeing this made my heart warm, thanks!
What a shame. I love Quake 4. Finished it in two sittings back in 2005 in my attic dorm room in the middle of Spring, stripped to my boxers, drenched in sweat. Had never played anything like it up to that point (fighting side by side with NPCs) and the art direction is just stellar. Raven truly was the master of their craft. Good times.
Designers: so we wanted to give almost EVERYTHING moobs heheheh No... I'm thankfull this never saaw the light of day lol They look more clive barker than technolgical horror.
I can't help but to be confident that this expansion-pack: Quake 4 Awakening will eventually be released to the public eventually as I think Id Software and it's parent company, Bethesda will think this expansion pack would be too cool to pass up for release. Why do I believe this you guys ask? Because my trust is in the Lord, not in man!
@@bigboyman5743after the release of ancient gods quake fans would favor the strogg storyline I think. Doom eternal dlcs already dealt with the eldritch. Strogg were so unique
Look at big ol' cannonface Wonder what his story woulda been :) Anyone else think the tripod model for that Wretch enemy looks a whole lot like Doom Eternal's Carcass?
Throwing my two cents in, as well as some ideas: There isn't one Valkaryne but several, activated (or awakened) as a contingency if the nexus was destroyed. Acting as generals, ordering and guiding different portions of the Strogg with each Valkaryne designed differently to reflect on what aspect of the Strogg forces they control: manufacturing, strategy, military, research, etc. The Valkaryne themselves seem to have more of a personality as when the player (and Kane) encounters them, instead of being silent or constantly taunting, they talk as if they're self-aware. And with Kane specifically, seem to take pity on him for his Stroggified form. As the player progresses, the designs of the Strogg progressively get less and less biopunk and become cleaner more ornate where the difference between flesh and metal become blurred.
It's about time for id software to take over and create this unreleased expansion, and then make a Quake 4 remastered version like they did with Doom 3 BFG Edition, and release it as a part of that remastered version. It would be great to see Quake 4 back from the dead.
It's good to see another quake 4 video from you. I know I said before I wanted to make fanart again because of you, and share with you and the community here. However, it's going to have to wait a little longer. The copy of Photoshop I have no longer works, and I have to wait to purchase a less expensive art program when I get paid before I can start drawing again (it should only be 2 more days). Thanks for making the Quake 4 videos!
Absolute banger of a video mate. Gets me even more hyped for the potential of a new Quake game. There's so much potential with this franchise if id software do it right and get their shit together. Your attention to detail and effort put into researching this stuff is clear. Awesome stuff!
I know you've largely covered topics related to id software so far, but you have to do an analysis of the long cancelled x-com alliance. There has been a great deal of information revealed online in the early 2010's due to the release of design documents along with an mid development build by developers who worked on the project . Yet there really has been no attention given to it online. In fact there's been quite a bit of misinformation about it online. Especially in regards to it's cancellation. Yes it was cancelled due to the project being trapped in development hell, but it's a bit more complicated then that. After microprose was bought out by hasbro. The team got swapped out for a separate one. Instead of finishing up the work of the first team which were nearly finished with the game. They decided to nearly start the project from scratch, and went overambitious. The first iteration of alliance was simply x-com if you were in the commanders shoes. The new team were trying to do things such as attempting to make "life like" soldier behavior. It's not much of an stretch to say the two iterations of alliance were two separate game's. The released build-documents were from the first iteration by the way. Which is not a huge loss considering that iteration's more interesting to begin with. Since development for it was actually going somewhere, and the game would have been released if the buyout never happened. Here's the link to download it all if your convinced in covering it. archive.thedatadungeon.com/xcom_alliance_cancelled.html
Ah yes, finally, thats what I like, theories and speculations,m about something that didnt happened but there are enough material to speculate. As Dr. Magnusson from half life would say "mmmmmhhhh magnificent microwave" Nice video, I like this kind of vids about retro games, the betas or the things that got canceled. Isnt romentic or idk, nostalgic when we speculate or theorize about old games with its cancelled dlcs, beta stuff or just removed content? But only games like half life, halo, blood, postal, quake, doom, games like that. Ps: huh after seeing this vid, and seeing the bodies attached to stuff, like units and warlords like makron. What if the Strogg aceneded themselfs to a super IA that uses bodies or as they see, biomaterial, to walk among the living once again, like using strong living things as base of operations and improve from it, like better limbs, more limbs, armored bodie, weapons, stuff like that, you follow me? Like they storage the minds or esscence of "high political or militarist" people from the Strogg society to then copy and transfer them into living things like the makron, blackwidow, guardian, etc.
It's a very sad thing that this game doesn't get the attention it deserves. Even the mod community seems to do not care for it so much. It has some visual point downs but the vibe and ambientation is awesome!
Man I remember when quake 4 came out, PC gamer had pre-authorized four whole pages for it, didn't quite do the math of the reality of the last time consoles had started pushing their way into the space, but probably should have seen it coming and probably should have seen it coming after that because they would all go that way. But man, if anything it gives a special light to how how tight a rope Doom 3 walked.. like you fundamentally have to be firing on every single level in order to maintain and and gain tangible benefits in terms of the level design and the progression, cuz if if it comes down just to the gameplay and you haven't really done much with it? It's just not.. lol it's just not.. and quake-4 was a step back significantly on both ends.. And Raven had done bad games before or at least mediocre ones.. But you know they they would always come in clutch with their big projects, and occasionally with the passion project.. had a real monolith thing going on and and lol I think they kind of went the same way in the end although monolith truly went insane it seemed.. where is Raven got stuck in a puzzle basement for 10 years for sinning against kotic. We would see a fairly similar but different outcome, with a different audience more importantly sadly again.. where you had system shock 2, which almost more than half life was the game that Doom 3 was trying to get the vibe of.. and then out of nowhere irrational comes out with SWAT 4, pulling directions and thick rich tangibility out of a genre that was always highly mechanical and almost hands off in terms of thematics. Well still excelling on those deeper systems and incorporation of the things you could do with modern tech and how it could affect the experience.. And then Bioshock came out... Honestly Doom 3 had more system shock in it then BioShock ever did... And that's just by virtue of not holistically retconning it's reason for existence in the name of going deep back into the full motion video experience. And to be fair it had narrative qualities that were genuinely above the average, even if they weren't close to what was at the top at the time because bloodlines have already come out.. something no one would know existed for years and I'm very happy that they do now, if ever there was a cult to deserve a classic or a classic deserve a cult, it's bloodlines. But I've never been so disappointed after such a monumental and broad level of success at just game as concept from the irrational team over the years, and the looking Glass team that theypiggied off. And I still don't understand why people call it an immersive sim. There's no SIM part.. mechanically it's beyond neutered to its predecessors, system shock two is neutered compared to system shock 1 ne mechanically, But it made up for it in spades with other things.. and still have the core of what that meant. Bioshock played out like half life, with more trapped in a room watching a set piece moments... And for all its narrative qualities and and it's writing and dialogue which were genuinely things that didn't happen often lol.. you were still on a rail in that story for the most part.. and no efficacy on the gameplay world whatsoever.. which would have been the next step for a system shock game. The Bioshock games are about as far from immersive same as you get, there's definitely some immersion going on, but for people like me that is cut brutally at the knees by lacking all of the other qualities that were immersive and unique, I'll be it for time we're starting to spread to the wider industry, and then never again! And now we're we're even worse off than we were in the late '90s lol mechanically anyways. I'm hoping that things twist back around with the barrier for entry so low, but I feel like the mindset that led to the things that we had ENPC gaming, doesn't exist anymore and I think it's I don't know It might get better.. But I think it might just be dead forever, we'll see what squadron 42 does but I doubt it's going to inspire anybody because what's what are you going to inspire even if it is on the same level as like the descent four was promised before volition switched to other things that were more realistically attainable at the time lol. The gaming community, despite The barrier for entry having gone all the way back it seems to a slightly different version of the older days where a lot of these folk made their bones in teams of two or three or five or 10, the technical skills to get there don't exist anymore, but theoretically that's less of a problem now and then that's why the barrier for entry is often lower. But the entire generation and the previous generation for most of it, they don't look at gaming as a thing that is to evolve they look at gaming as a thing that's supposed to stay exactly the same, or get prettier, or get stupider and simpler and more like a gambling loop.. Even if you're not even gambling there are so many different interpretations of that kind of mental manipulation in in just how games even on the best of the Indy and totally legitimately crafted with love kind of games. It's a thought I've been mulling around, as to why things are so utterly different between myself and some of my peers in terms with of how we look at games and what we're willing to put up with, and what we look for in and and wish for and in a lot of cases are just going through the motions in some cases. And I never am the person that goes through the motions.. That's not why I wanted to play games, I genuinely get no satisfaction from that and I have other avenues for my OCD like UA-cam comments. I'm not looking at a game as a game necessarily, and thus when it becomes gamified to its core, and stripped back all the other elements that I was looking for, that I'm kind of left with nothing... And I know what you're saying, well what about the most dangerous game.. well.. I haven't lived up north in a long time, but I did get trapped in a church parking lot at 2:00 in the morning when I ran out of gas, and I'm pretty sure I still only reason I got out of Medina.. if ever there was a place that ate the poor for sport it's Bellevue.. sometimes it can be more than a game. But that's legitimately real life and death lol.. That's not slot machines or pinball... And if those had those elements it would be a much better game and I might be into it.
Bro single-handedly restored the lost content from an unreleased Q4 expansion and elaborated on possible scenarios for future games in the series. Do we really need a whole ID sponger department after that?
If a video has already been released about the canceled expansion for quake 4, will there be a video about the Orignal story Doom 2016 and Doom 4 1.0?.
Imagine this: Microsoft bought both Bethesda (Zenimax/ID Games) and Activision/Raven Software... that late 90's early 2000's ying/yang back in action developing single player story driven games ala Quake4/Doom3/Singularity... ngl but I'm getting erect just thinking about this.
Gotta say after the Night Dive remaster I overwhelmingly prefer Quake 2 to 4. 4 has such bad writing and voice acting and it's so generic the first half could have been a reskinned mid 2000 star wars game. The second half got better with body horror and increased movement speed but overall a very okay experience. Quake 2 Ground Zero, and Call of the machine were peak Quake.
The Narrator for this video is awful. Only got 2 minutes into the video before i had to stop listening. Sound like an early 2008 attempt at text to voice.
Honored to be a part of this video, Mate.
Much love and I would absolutely love being in more of these.
Well done brother.
@@THExRISER I love you, mate.
a splendid job my friend
Such a underrated game. No clue why the Quake and Doom communities love to hate on Quake4 and DOOM3
well, the issue is the massive change in tone and pacing. quake 1and 2 you are fast and agile, while in 4 you are significantly limited. it isn't a bad game, but it IS a bad quake game.
doom 3... for the same reasons. you went from a fast amd mobile nigh unstoppable juggernaut of death to being slow, plodding, and stuck in the dark via poor game design. Again, it wasn't a bad game, per se... but it was't a good doom game. also, people REALLY didn't like the end boss fight just being a series of quick time events. in a game where you get to triumph over ancient evils on your own... taking control away from the player just felt bad.
This might also shed some light on the origin of the Strogg. The whole tale is something like this:
1) An advanced ancient civilization discovers the Dreamlands and realizes the peril coming therefrom.
2) The main threat in the Dreamlands are various eldritch entities, including the Valkyrine (which has large-scale mind-control powers).
3) They create or transform themselves into the (proto)-Strogg, an army that defeats the invasion from the Dreamlands.
4) The leader of the invasion, the Valkyrine, is sealed somewhere on Stroggos.
And the general plot conjecture:
1) SMC push the Strogg back, maybe saving Bitterman (if he was to be featured). Strogg have the aesthetic of the 'saner' Tank concepts - incomplete, somewhat improvised, but not really different from the Quake IV ones. Meanwhile Kane suffers from hallucinations of the Macron's voice ('I hear their voices when I sleep...') as a result of the latent Strogg code in his neurocyte.
2) Kane leads an attack on a Strogg fortification against one of the last warlords (maybe similar to the Quake II Macron). However, with its death, the final remnant of the Strogg hive mind is crushed.
3) Valkyrine awakens due to the disappearance of all restraint on Strogg minds, the remaining Strogg regain cohesion as processing plants reactivate to churn out the new 'abnormal' Strogg (Valkyrine tries to recreate the monsters of her/its invasion force?).
4) Eldritch forces reinvade Stroggos as SMC wages a campaign against Valkyrine. Maybe the return of the Ranger, further Quake I references.
5) Kane confronts the Valkyrine, defeats her and uses the Strogg code in his neurocyte to connect to the Strogg control network and release a 'kill program' that would lead to the destruction of the Strogg and (maybe, for added drama) Kane himself.
If this expansion ever released. Then, it will be even greatest addon pack for the game.
The only expansion….
This is a legitimate documentary worthy of a million views, I hope it gets the attention it deserves.
stop getting in the way of my damn shots riser im going to find you someday
@@soretex Stop shooting where I am walking.
Fans need to make this expansion. Like a black mesa
quake 4 left with such a cliffhanger, i want to see the continuation of matthew kane's story, wondering what his path as a strogg would be
I so love that the enemy concepts convey that after the destruction of the Nexus the intelligence that guided Strogg production essentially had a psychotic breakdown with generating creatures that were far more horrific and abstract, whereas with the Strogg seen in both games had clear and intentional design - The Tank here seeming to be embodying the last vestiges of stability within production. I also love that it appears that the effort to bridge the Lovecraftian elements and the Strogg storyline may very well have been present over a decade ago! With all that we have seen and what was present in the Quake II Remaster, my personal hope is that we will indeed see a continuation of the Strogg story line, but perhaps at the end of the next entry that is where the Valkaryne will be revealed, causing a perfect and natural bridge between the Strogg timeline and continuation and expansion of the original Lovecraftian nature of Quake I. The more abstract and horrific nature of the unused Strogg designs as well I feel would perfectly bridge the aesthetics of body horror and nameless cosmic horror with them then able to be continuously intertwined.
Should id Software decide on a new Quake game, I'd hope for a combination of both Lovecraftian and sci-fi elements. Maybe even an encounter between the Ranger and someone of the Quake II/IV characters.
By the way, a very fun theory.
They should have looked at the Quake 1 enemy roster and then made versions implying what we see in Q1, is that AI eventually becoming manifest and molding flesh without machinery at all.
But doing the roster to be beat for beat the same in terms of dlc additions, except with the additional smart behaviours some enemies have in Q4, and having them connect the two aesthetics could've been and still could be something quite special to help make cohesive this weird, disparate brand.
I like that because it explains why some of the stroggs in this specific expansion pack have that more fleshy, misshapen look like that grotesquely defies the human anatomy as was demonstrated with that enemy Lechumqc calls "The Abomination".
This just reinforces my belief that at one point...
The Strogg had expeditions into the Dreamlands and most likely came into conflict with Shub-Niggurath.
4:10 I need one of those head canisters, except with Morphine concentrate instead of stroyent, to survive the pain of there being no Quake 5 anywhere in sight.
Tbh I think "Awakening" refers to the strogg becoming free of Nexus' influence. They awake from their sleep, gain free will again, and from that emerge new factions, new leaders, and the Valkyrine is only one of many new warlords.
My theory is that the "Nexus" is actually the brain of Shub-Niggurath. And the strogg "leaders" used it for information. Sourcing Shub-Niggurath's knowledge for their own gain. That is how they came to know about stroyent and how to obtain it. It would incorporate the "valkaryne" nicely into the story. And could've been that it was a direct opposer to Shub-Niggurath for the throne. Imagine a scenario where the Valkaryne was the one to grab the brain of Shub-Niggurath after Ranger defeated it. Since Shub-Niggurath telefragged. And it was the one that brought it to another planet. To use Shub-Niggurath's brain for it's own gain. But somehow the original stroggs found this planet by accident since they are invading planets. They stumbled upon the brain of Shub-Niggurath. And made use of it. Obtaining valuable information about power and technology. That is how the Strogg as we know them came to be. But since their military power was rapidly growing. The Valkaryne couldn't retaliate. So it had to wait for an opportunity to be able to reclaim what was it's before.
This way the story of both Quake 1 and Quake 4 ties together really well.
Quake 1 is in the past. We see all of the events from what happened before Quake 2 and 4 and what lead up to it. Quake 4 is the events that unfolded before the climax of the Valkaryne. And this expansion would either be the kickstart to a much greater story or the end of the Strogg saga.
Another theory can be that the original strogg where part of Shub-Niggurath's army. Way before they stroggified. And they eventually found Shub-Niggurath's brain that Valkaryne stole. And so they reclaimed it. Only to be used by the Valkaryne.
I think we found Bitterman.
@15:25 - the idea of Bitterman returning as the Awakening main chharacter made me think further of the connection to the Dreamlands. We all know from Q3A's manual that Bitterman was "experimented on" by the Strogg before being taken to the Arena Eternal. Awakening could have been focused on telling that story, which would follow the biggest plot point of Quake 4 itself - Matthew Kane becoming stroggified. This leads me to wonder if Awakening was to show Bitterman being experimented on and being given that weird psuedo-stroggified look we see in Quake 3.
As to the Valkaryne "mech suit" with the holo face - it's possible that the idea presented is reversed. Similar to the original Black Widow Guardian, the humanoid form could be encountered first, and the spider form second. In this idea, the hologram face would be that of the spider-form's body. This could have resulted in a Harbinger from ME2 situation, where we fight the bipedal mech leading forces multiple times throughout the story, as a repeatable mini-boss, before encountering the true Valkaryne at the end.
Also considering that Doom 3 also ended on a cliffhanger satisfied by an expansion like Quake 4, it's very likely that Awakening would continue story plot points from the main game itself. The main one not answered, imo, is the dialogue of the Strogg's origin and the purpose for their creation - there's dialogue hinting at it with marines theorizing their origin. And the name "Awakening" can be referring to this - the first awakening of the strogg in distant past, the origin of the strogg and, perhaps, the very first Strogg. Under this idea, that could be Valkaryne's true identity - and would explain why she is mostly machine. Even with strogg technology, their ability to preserve flesh could only go so far, and so Valkaryne would need to be more machine than the rest of standard strogg if she was the first (or among the first) cyborgs of Stroggos.
Hopefully this video and the recent surge of Quake interest following the remasters will prompt a few more leaks about Awakening's development. The absolute best leak would be storyboards, naturally.
This is interesting. I agree it would have been nice to see how Bitterman became what he is in Arena. I like the reverse Valkyrie presentation. It's unclear if the static and mobile states shown in the concept art would have been used in-game. Maybe it was just an idea, and the version we would have gotten was the large Makron-like entity. But yeah, I would LOVE to get the storyboards, or just a 'story overview' document, anything really. ^^
An expansion with Bitterman would be a great idea. Also, having Kane as a side character would be nice as well. Seeing how you battled back in the day but in 3rd person as a non professional marine but becoming as good is an amazing mechanic idea for Quake 6.
any technology sufficiently advanced will always seem like magic to those who do not know it
Smart man that George Washington.
Bruh I think they know it’s more advanced technology and not magic
@@austinwhite3132
"....seem..."
@@lucascoval828”they know it’s not magic so they know it’s not so it’s regardless of the “seem”
I kind of wonder if the more flesh-monster-y Strogg were the emergent thing. Like all those nanites going wild and making something new in the absence of the Nexus. 'Emergent behavior' is a term that gets a lot of use in AI and cellular automata settings where something built gets complicated enough it starts behaving in unexpected ways. Think the zeroth law of robotics. Maybe there's a new group intelligence built from all the pained, stroggified people.
Ritual certainly took liking to Emergence sub title as that's how they titled the one and only Sin 2 episode.
In the Lovecraft Cthulu mythos, there was a story where explorers found ancient monsters frozen in ice located in the harshest part of the artic, where no other team of people had ever ventured to before. If the evil layer was encased in ice and Lovecraft mythos was a priority, it's possible then that the home of the Makron or whatever monster was inspired by that particular story. If it was the Makron's layer, perhaps that's the reason why his skin is a blue/purple color. (Just for fun I like to think that after Kane killed the Makron at the end of Quake 4, the Valkaryne would have been the Makron's wife who got furious when she learned of his death. She would claim the throne as the next in highest command, which would also make sense considering there's a Strogg palace in Quake 2. The ice chamber would have been their personal secret layer or something).
I do think Raven made it a priority to tie Quake 2 and 4's with Quake 1. The nailgun and lightning gun both originated from Quake 1, there's a deathmatch map copied over from Quake 1, as well as a new deathmatch map meant to look like a level from Quake 1 (like E3M2 or something) complete with slipgates and crosses. The new unnamed marine does have a very close resemblance to Bitterman as he appeared in Quake 2, and we never saw what happened to Bitterman following after. His last appearance was in Quake 3 as a playable character where he was trapped in the dreamlands and had a new look, so perhaps Quake 4 would have followed Bitterman between the events of Quake 2 and 3. Also worth mentioning is Ritual Entertainment's previous involvement with the series prior to Quake 4. Ritual had already made the first expansion pack for Quake 1 called Scourge of Armagon back when they were still Hipnotic Interactive, so they were already familiar with the Lovecraft side of the series. In addition, Scourge of Armagon introduced new things that would continue on in Quake 2 and 4. The centroid scorpions and Armagon himself are crude cyborg war machines not too dissimilar to what the Strogg are, and they introduced the laser cannon which is an automatic energy weapon that fires out projectile laser beams similar to the hyperblaster.
I wonder if the expansion pack's concept art being revealed in 2018 had any influence on Id Software during the development of Doom Eternal. The wretch has a similar appearance to the carcass in Doom Eternal, both are overweight humans who have undergone numerous grotesque surgeries and maneuver on a set of robotic spider legs, and Doom Eternal released in 2020 after the leak in 2018.
Seeing there different designs between the 3 inspired some ideas id like to see in a final Quake game that connects the disperate aspects of certain other quake games.
Like perhaps after kane destroyed the Makron and the Nexus, despite of one their most unifying factors no longer connecting them still managed to create order among the strogg When the 3 most powerful remaining Strogg form the "Trimakronate". The Wretch being responsible for the creation of new and terrible strogg forms, The Tank forming the new leader of their military forces and the Valkaryne being a sort of enigmatic being pulling everyone strings.
Although with the destruction of the nexus should have sent the Strogg into disarray, they instead retreated and started to act more carfully and strike tactically ccausing the IMC to have to change tact in turn.
Long story short you'd play as the unnamed Ranger from the original quake game whos come through to stroggos searching for the Valkaryne whos actually a being from another Dimension whos actually behind the initial creation of the strogg and corruption of what ever they were originally.
Through the campaign youd fight not only new and terrible strogg forms but the Valkaryne knows your on Stroggos and sends other lovecraftian mostrosity after you like the Shamblers and such.
During the Campaign you come across Matthew Kane still fighting the good fight, leading the remaining IMC forces on Stroggos whos trying to become the new Makron so he can assume control of the strogg and finally end this war, the Valkaryne trying to stop this from happening because the Strogg fuel her design, whatever that might be.
Broo that sounds like a freaking amazing storyline! they should hire you,i love how kanes end would be to be the good macron and ally with humans.
The Wretch is so like Doom Eternal's Carcass. I wonder if there was any connection between the design teams.
And the 5:02 'Abomination' looks like a melee-focused Mancubus to me.
Amazing video, really grateful for this detailed inspenction and theories, i always loved quake 4 since it came out when i was a kid, i always come back to replenish those memories, seeing this made my heart warm, thanks!
I hope one day Nightdive studios remasters Quake 4 with this unreleased expansion.
What a shame. I love Quake 4. Finished it in two sittings back in 2005 in my attic dorm room in the middle of Spring, stripped to my boxers, drenched in sweat. Had never played anything like it up to that point (fighting side by side with NPCs) and the art direction is just stellar. Raven truly was the master of their craft. Good times.
Designers: so we wanted to give almost EVERYTHING moobs heheheh
No... I'm thankfull this never saaw the light of day lol They look more clive barker than technolgical horror.
I can't help but to be confident that this expansion-pack: Quake 4 Awakening will eventually be released to the public eventually as I think Id Software and it's parent company, Bethesda will think this expansion pack would be too cool to pass up for release.
Why do I believe this you guys ask? Because my trust is in the Lord, not in man!
i doubt it, quake with strogg themes is unpopular with quake fans, who prefer a pure eldtrich setting
@@bigboyman5743after the release of ancient gods quake fans would favor the strogg storyline I think. Doom eternal dlcs already dealt with the eldritch. Strogg were so unique
You clearly don't know Bethesda
As they buried Doom 4 as much as they could and never talk about it
I never knew that a cut quake 4 expansion existed, I feel like this would have tied in Quake 1 and Doom, A Lovecraftian sci-fi body horror hybrid
The Wretch looks like that Corpse or whatever it's called with three robotic legs enemy, from DOOM Eternal
Carcass
Aquakening.
This is amazing. Thanks for the video.
Look at big ol' cannonface
Wonder what his story woulda been :)
Anyone else think the tripod model for that Wretch enemy looks a whole lot like Doom Eternal's Carcass?
Exactly
Yes. That was the first throught that came to me' head too!
@@sebs-shenanigans A great creative process never wastes a good idea :D
Indeed.
Throwing my two cents in, as well as some ideas: There isn't one Valkaryne but several, activated (or awakened) as a contingency if the nexus was destroyed. Acting as generals, ordering and guiding different portions of the Strogg with each Valkaryne designed differently to reflect on what aspect of the Strogg forces they control: manufacturing, strategy, military, research, etc.
The Valkaryne themselves seem to have more of a personality as when the player (and Kane) encounters them, instead of being silent or constantly taunting, they talk as if they're self-aware. And with Kane specifically, seem to take pity on him for his Stroggified form.
As the player progresses, the designs of the Strogg progressively get less and less biopunk and become cleaner more ornate where the difference between flesh and metal become blurred.
what an absolute shame that all that effort just.. lost.. could have been incredible! amazing video as per usual!
It's about time for id software to take over and create this unreleased expansion, and then make a Quake 4 remastered version like they did with Doom 3 BFG Edition, and release it as a part of that remastered version. It would be great to see Quake 4 back from the dead.
The idea of a new enemy, either in the form of a new sub faction of Stroggs or something else entirely, is really fascinating.
It's good to see another quake 4 video from you. I know I said before I wanted to make fanart again because of you, and share with you and the community here. However, it's going to have to wait a little longer. The copy of Photoshop I have no longer works, and I have to wait to purchase a less expensive art program when I get paid before I can start drawing again (it should only be 2 more days). Thanks for making the Quake 4 videos!
Quake 4 is the game of my childhood. I want Quake 5 so bad
This new voice actor is solid!
Frakin hell the whole video is solid!
Huh, didn’t expect to see you here.
4:48 painlord is actully name of this creature.
Absolute banger of a video mate. Gets me even more hyped for the potential of a new Quake game. There's so much potential with this franchise if id software do it right and get their shit together. Your attention to detail and effort put into researching this stuff is clear. Awesome stuff!
Its probably shub, who cannot move from her realm, projecting herself somehow thru the valkyrene
Another small correction: wretch is actually retch according to Naymushin's artstation.
Awesome as always 💪🏻 Rip and Tear 🤘🏻
I know you've largely covered topics related to id software so far, but you have to do an analysis of the long cancelled x-com alliance. There has been a great deal of information revealed online in the early 2010's due to the release of design documents along with an mid development build by developers who worked on the project .
Yet there really has been no attention given to it online. In fact there's been quite a bit of misinformation about it online. Especially in regards to it's cancellation.
Yes it was cancelled due to the project being trapped in development hell, but it's a bit more complicated then that. After microprose was bought out by hasbro.
The team got swapped out for a separate one. Instead of finishing up the work of the first team which were nearly finished with the game.
They decided to nearly start the project from scratch, and went overambitious. The first iteration of alliance was simply x-com if you were in the commanders shoes.
The new team were trying to do things such as attempting to make "life like" soldier behavior. It's not much of an stretch to say the two iterations of alliance were two separate game's.
The released build-documents were from the first iteration by the way. Which is not a huge loss considering that iteration's more interesting to begin with.
Since development for it was actually going somewhere, and the game would have been released if the buyout never happened. Here's the link to download it all if your convinced in covering it.
archive.thedatadungeon.com/xcom_alliance_cancelled.html
Ah yes, finally, thats what I like, theories and speculations,m about something that didnt happened but there are enough material to speculate.
As Dr. Magnusson from half life would say "mmmmmhhhh magnificent microwave"
Nice video, I like this kind of vids about retro games, the betas or the things that got canceled. Isnt romentic or idk, nostalgic when we speculate or theorize about old games with its cancelled dlcs, beta stuff or just removed content? But only games like half life, halo, blood, postal, quake, doom, games like that.
Ps: huh after seeing this vid, and seeing the bodies attached to stuff, like units and warlords like makron. What if the Strogg aceneded themselfs to a super IA that uses bodies or as they see, biomaterial, to walk among the living once again, like using strong living things as base of operations and improve from it, like better limbs, more limbs, armored bodie, weapons, stuff like that, you follow me? Like they storage the minds or esscence of "high political or militarist" people from the Strogg society to then copy and transfer them into living things like the makron, blackwidow, guardian, etc.
Thank you for featuring my comment! Never would've expected my observation to make it into one of your videos, I'm honored ❤
It was a very good observation :)
The valkarie reminds me allot of the Black Widow guardian
Hey man. I made mini dev docs and BTS content for major game studios and your content is right up there with the best of them. Well done mate
Thank you so much! :)
Awesome video! I wish we got this...
Okay, who want's this? Because I want this expansion.
yes please ^^
It's a very sad thing that this game doesn't get the attention it deserves. Even the mod community seems to do not care for it so much. It has some visual point downs but the vibe and ambientation is awesome!
Episodes 1:emergence is the game that related to ritual entertainment's another game series called sin, not to this expansion.
Man I remember when quake 4 came out, PC gamer had pre-authorized four whole pages for it, didn't quite do the math of the reality of the last time consoles had started pushing their way into the space, but probably should have seen it coming and probably should have seen it coming after that because they would all go that way.
But man, if anything it gives a special light to how how tight a rope Doom 3 walked.. like you fundamentally have to be firing on every single level in order to maintain and and gain tangible benefits in terms of the level design and the progression, cuz if if it comes down just to the gameplay and you haven't really done much with it? It's just not.. lol it's just not.. and quake-4 was a step back significantly on both ends..
And Raven had done bad games before or at least mediocre ones.. But you know they they would always come in clutch with their big projects, and occasionally with the passion project.. had a real monolith thing going on and and lol I think they kind of went the same way in the end although monolith truly went insane it seemed.. where is Raven got stuck in a puzzle basement for 10 years for sinning against kotic.
We would see a fairly similar but different outcome, with a different audience more importantly sadly again.. where you had system shock 2, which almost more than half life was the game that Doom 3 was trying to get the vibe of.. and then out of nowhere irrational comes out with SWAT 4, pulling directions and thick rich tangibility out of a genre that was always highly mechanical and almost hands off in terms of thematics. Well still excelling on those deeper systems and incorporation of the things you could do with modern tech and how it could affect the experience..
And then Bioshock came out... Honestly Doom 3 had more system shock in it then BioShock ever did... And that's just by virtue of not holistically retconning it's reason for existence in the name of going deep back into the full motion video experience. And to be fair it had narrative qualities that were genuinely above the average, even if they weren't close to what was at the top at the time because bloodlines have already come out.. something no one would know existed for years and I'm very happy that they do now, if ever there was a cult to deserve a classic or a classic deserve a cult, it's bloodlines.
But I've never been so disappointed after such a monumental and broad level of success at just game as concept from the irrational team over the years, and the looking Glass team that theypiggied off. And I still don't understand why people call it an immersive sim. There's no SIM part.. mechanically it's beyond neutered to its predecessors, system shock two is neutered compared to system shock 1 ne mechanically, But it made up for it in spades with other things.. and still have the core of what that meant. Bioshock played out like half life, with more trapped in a room watching a set piece moments... And for all its narrative qualities and and it's writing and dialogue which were genuinely things that didn't happen often lol.. you were still on a rail in that story for the most part.. and no efficacy on the gameplay world whatsoever.. which would have been the next step for a system shock game.
The Bioshock games are about as far from immersive same as you get, there's definitely some immersion going on, but for people like me that is cut brutally at the knees by lacking all of the other qualities that were immersive and unique, I'll be it for time we're starting to spread to the wider industry, and then never again! And now we're we're even worse off than we were in the late '90s lol mechanically anyways.
I'm hoping that things twist back around with the barrier for entry so low, but I feel like the mindset that led to the things that we had ENPC gaming, doesn't exist anymore and I think it's I don't know It might get better.. But I think it might just be dead forever, we'll see what squadron 42 does but I doubt it's going to inspire anybody because what's what are you going to inspire even if it is on the same level as like the descent four was promised before volition switched to other things that were more realistically attainable at the time lol.
The gaming community, despite The barrier for entry having gone all the way back it seems to a slightly different version of the older days where a lot of these folk made their bones in teams of two or three or five or 10, the technical skills to get there don't exist anymore, but theoretically that's less of a problem now and then that's why the barrier for entry is often lower.
But the entire generation and the previous generation for most of it, they don't look at gaming as a thing that is to evolve they look at gaming as a thing that's supposed to stay exactly the same, or get prettier, or get stupider and simpler and more like a gambling loop.. Even if you're not even gambling there are so many different interpretations of that kind of mental manipulation in in just how games even on the best of the Indy and totally legitimately crafted with love kind of games.
It's a thought I've been mulling around, as to why things are so utterly different between myself and some of my peers in terms with of how we look at games and what we're willing to put up with, and what we look for in and and wish for and in a lot of cases are just going through the motions in some cases. And I never am the person that goes through the motions.. That's not why I wanted to play games, I genuinely get no satisfaction from that and I have other avenues for my OCD like UA-cam comments.
I'm not looking at a game as a game necessarily, and thus when it becomes gamified to its core, and stripped back all the other elements that I was looking for, that I'm kind of left with nothing... And I know what you're saying, well what about the most dangerous game.. well.. I haven't lived up north in a long time, but I did get trapped in a church parking lot at 2:00 in the morning when I ran out of gas, and I'm pretty sure I still only reason I got out of Medina.. if ever there was a place that ate the poor for sport it's Bellevue.. sometimes it can be more than a game. But that's legitimately real life and death lol.. That's not slot machines or pinball... And if those had those elements it would be a much better game and I might be into it.
it's kind of a continuation of the game that they haven't seen, but somehow the edge is still clean
half-bite, well, the next continuation of the story, I liked it very much, not only the story, but the tachnik and the monsters
Want it, need it.
wow shame we never got it
Bro single-handedly restored the lost content from an unreleased Q4 expansion and elaborated on possible scenarios for future games in the series. Do we really need a whole ID sponger department after that?
quake 6 = quake champions
If a video has already been released about the canceled expansion for quake 4, will there be a video about the Orignal story Doom 2016 and Doom 4 1.0?.
In 16:17, Who is the strogg picture in Quake 2? Makron?
I like to think, thats what the Makron originally looked like before going full on strogg
Imagine this: Microsoft bought both Bethesda (Zenimax/ID Games) and Activision/Raven Software... that late 90's early 2000's ying/yang back in action developing single player story driven games ala Quake4/Doom3/Singularity... ngl but I'm getting erect just thinking about this.
Gotta say after the Night Dive remaster I overwhelmingly prefer Quake 2 to 4. 4 has such bad writing and voice acting and it's so generic the first half could have been a reskinned mid 2000 star wars game. The second half got better with body horror and increased movement speed but overall a very okay experience. Quake 2 Ground Zero, and Call of the machine were peak Quake.
Is it just me or does the image on 16:17 look similar to Baal from the Diablo 2 Lord of Destruction cover?
It kind of do yeah :O
Who is this monster?
@@clausburgos771 Probably a member of the Warlord Council (strong leadership) or one of the first Makrons
@@jet2135 would be in the game, this guy is sinister!
they teased Quake 6?
what? What was 5? Enemy Territory??
@@spartan117ak Quake Champions perhaps?
when is this coming out
Doom had its sequels but why can't Quake do it too?
Quake six? What happened to quake V?
Could be Quake Champion
@@lechumqc7910 kinda what I thought, but I don’t think the community generally considers champions to be quake V
Machinegames where are you?
Any plans on continuing Blood?
Yes :)
Quebecois? ))
The Narrator for this video is awful. Only got 2 minutes into the video before i had to stop listening. Sound like an early 2008 attempt at text to voice.
Please let us know what you would change in the narration.
@@lechumqc7910 the voice. It’s painful to listen too
these AI voices are so distracting
these videos are so amazing you are so awesome tyy so much omg i love watching quake stuff hhh you are the best
🥰
Whats "febuary"? Mush mouth ai bot.