"It broke us spiritually": Quake dev says id Software's greatest game destroyed the studio from within

Quake turned 30 this year. While the anniversary has brought plenty of well-deserved celebration, it also prompted one of the game's original designers to share a far less triumphant perspective on what making it actually cost the team.

Sandy Petersen, who worked on both Doom and Quake at id Software, posted a thread on X on June 24 arguing that Quake, for all its brilliance, effectively broke the studio from the inside. He described the development as a "grueling process" that came together well creatively, but left the team spiritually exhausted. The toll was visible in what followed: within a couple of years of Quake shipping, a remarkable number of key people had walked out the door. Petersen listed John Romero, Shawn Green, Dave Taylor, Mike Abrash, and American McGee among those who departed — and added that he himself was among them, some forced out, others leaving willingly.

Petersen also offered a pretty provocative take for the anniversary: that Doom, "technically inferior" to Quake, ultimately had a larger impact on gaming as a whole.

What made the thread particularly interesting was who responded. John Carmack replied publicly, and brought with him an unusually candid self-assessment. He said Quake was overly ambitious on a technical level, and that a more iterative approach building on Doom's engine could have served the team better. He also admitted he pushed people harder than he should have, and that he failed to recognize how sustained startup-level intensity eventually wears people down. Plus, he flagged the company's original stock arrangement as a structural mistake that created bad incentives.

He ended his reply with two words directed at Petersen: "Sorry, Sandy."

Considering it's a milestone anniversary, this was a surprisingly honest exchange between two of the people most responsible for shaping the modern first-person shooter.