"WP: How much time went into the story development for Quake 4?

TW: Well the story of you, as a Marine being captured and turned into a Strogg, actually started right after Quake 2. We were building levels, maps and stuff…then John came up with the Quake 3 idea and we were like “hey that’s cool!” So we abandoned the Quake 2 continuation story for quite some time. The story for Quake 4 started in ’97, so it’s been in an “incubation period” for a long time. We essentially picked up where we left off, by picking up on the story that we had originally crafted long ago."

"The demo clearly demonstrated the "different kinds of things", but it also shows that Doom 3's corridor style of gameplay is still in effect. After getting out of your crashed drop ship, you fight through a dark base. Then you go through a system of trenches. Then you get in a tank which drives through a dark base, and then into what looks like a drainage ditch. Then you take a mech down the length of a canyon. It certainly looks great, but based on what Raven has to show so far, the price to be paid is usually some kind of wall to either side."

"As most of you already know, Quake 4 picks up right where Quake 2 left off. Your nameless counterpart from Q2 has just taken out the Big Gun, which defends Stroggos from orbital bombardment, and the menacing Strogg leader, The Macron. Now playing as Corporal Kane, you land on Stroggos under heavy bombardment. The Strogg, it would appear, are not as defenseless as you were first told. Yes, the Macron is dead. Yes the Big Gun is destroyed, but the Strogg still have soldiers and defenses aplenty. Not to mention, a centralized brain known as the “Nexus” running the show from an underground fortress…"

"GI: You obviously worked with the Madison, Wisconsin folks of Raven Software quite a bit in the past. What was it like to give them your baby with Quake 4?

TH: You have to have a lot of trust there. But we’ve worked with Raven long enough where that wasn’t really a concern, because we know the Raven guys and we know they’ve got the talent. Really it was, “Are they going to approach it with the same level of enthusiasm that we would?” They were completely gung-ho about the project. The thing is about the Raven guys is they’re a completely unique company. There’s not a huge development business up in Wisconsin.

They’re sort of out of the limelight, but that’s their approach – they’re very workman like. Cause those guys could work on their own property, obviously. They don’t have to take directions from us on Quake, but not only have they been willing to accept our input on Quake but they’ve eagerly solicited it. They really want to do a great job for us, and of course for the fans as well. And those guys check their ego at the door on stuff like this. The fact that they’ve been able to do the job that they’ve been able to do, and at no point has there been any friction or raised voices or anything like that, because you know you get passionate about this especially because you spend years of your life working on things like this.

I have an enormous amount of respect for everything they do, and I like Brian Raffel, who’s the head of the studio there, and I don’t think you’ll find a nicer guy in the videogame business."

"The opening cinematic, an epic space battle, is accompanied by lawyers munching popcorn in rapt attention. Ships explode. Bodies float past. The battle is chaos.
There is a crash landing. Gameplay begins. Space marines begin to rush through darkened corridors. The Strogg fight the marines. Increasing combat towards the surface."