Throughout the years there have been few large-scale attempts to overhaul Quake's core balance. The game's flow is quite odd given its focus on powerups, fast firing weapons, explosive spam, and spongy enemies. Some take a more simple approach, such as Copper and its focus on spiffying up vanilla mechanics without overstepping the bounds of Quake's original gameplay. Others discard the original gameplay entirely for something new, such as Quake 1.5 and its more ZDoom mod-like gameplay. If you're like me, however, sometimes you just want a middle ground. Something that feels comfortably Quake while still breathing some new life into the game.
This middle ground is where Quake Reignited fits in. While ditching many of the common tropes that Quake has built up over the past few decades, it also takes a focus on designer intent and tries to capture the spirit of what id was going for. New mechanics have been kept to a minimum with a larger focus being put on overhauling and improving what's there. It's not Vanilla+ but it's not Brutal Quake either.
The Arsenal
The player's arsenal has seen a major rebalance, one aimed at making every weapon more visceral and satisfying to use. Shotguns have been beefed up with more pellets and damage, but fire rate and ammo have been reduced. Combined with the improved accuracy and fast projectiles they now fire, more emphasis has been put on aiming them carefully. The nailguns have been differentiated with the Nailgun fire rate being increased and the Super Nailgun being given a wind up time, forcing more commitment from the weapon. Launcher ammo has been dialed back significantly with launchers still retaining most of their power, and the Thunderbolt has seen a total rework to make it more befitting of a BFG type weapon while still playing into its lightning theme.
The Items
Most items have been nerfed to compensate for the improved player weaponry. Armor has been reworked, putting more emphasis on amount rather than type. This helps alleviate the micromanagey nature of armor while also acting as a nerf given how strong Quake's originally was. Max health has been reduced to 200 to further help make the game more challenging. Quad Damage has been reduced to tri damage to prevent it from being too powerful when used with the improved weapons, and the Pentagram has seen a duration reduction to cut back on how game-changing it is. The ring has seen a complete overhaul and acts more like an improved Partial Invisibility from Doom. Enemies only randomly turn once at the start of their attack, giving the player ample time to react to what direction they're going to fire.
The Bestiary
Players aren't the only ones getting improvements. Flinching has been reworked to give monsters a fairer chance to react to the player while removing a layer of RNG from the gameplay. Monsters have also been made much more intelligent, giving them improved line-of-sight checks to help reduce infighting as well as the ability to fire around corners if their attack already started when their target leaves sight. Ogres can now aim their grenades making them a much more immediate threat. Nightmare has been made further difficult, fixing some of the common issues and bugs that made enemies less effective (Death Knights always charge attacking, Ogres grenade spamming) alongside the ability to lead shots in close range, forcing players to mix up their movement instead of purely circle strafing. Leaping enemies have been given targeted improvements, preventing them from being cheesed by stairs and peeking around corners. Last and most important, the Spawn has been nerfed.
The forces of Quake have never been so challenging. Do you have what it takes to defeat this Nightmare and the evil that lurks in its dark corners?
