The Genius of Quake's E1M5 First encounter (and subencounter) designs

 Despite how annoyed I was about taking an HOUR to beat E1M5 in Quake, I have enough respect for the genius of it's level design. 

As the player starts the level, they encounter a big arch and are pointed forward towards a door, given an objective to charge forward. The game throws a few Knights at the player, a semi-durable melee enemy, to warm up the player for the first "intended" big encounter of the level. 

The big room (Right image) Gives the player a fairly simple encounter. 2 Knights and an Ogre, and the level shows the player a rocket launcher as a new shiny toy. The Knights become the top priority for the player as they attempt to swarm them. This comes increasingly easier for them to do if the player falls for the "trap" of immediately sprinting for the rocket launcher. The ogre on the top platform throws grenades at the player hoping to snag a hit, but because it is on a secondary level, it can be dealt with later if the player chooses as it is a minor annoyance and it's throws are not totally accurate. This main room is visited multiple times, and has one more secret on the bottom level, devils. If the player panics by the sudden movement of the knights, future surprise encounters in the room, or accidentally falls through the gaping holes on the second level because they are not looking, they will be attacked by 2 devils, which as a surprise encounter for an unwary player, is fatal. Even if the player grabs the rocket launcher, it is possible that they are cornered, making them take damage from the devils and the rocket launcher's recoil. The encounter as a whole is not deadly on it's own, but careless or mentally tilted players will learn to be careful through trial and error as they die to the devils over and over.

In addition, players can choose to face this encounter in a different way. There is a side entrance on the right (Left image) that the player can venture through instead. After killing the 2 knights in the staring platform and one in the right corridor, they will encounter there are 2 ogres in another room (Right picture). The player will need to kill the ogres to advance to the room with the devils, unless they want to deal with all of the enemies at the same time in one room under constant attack. After that, the player can grab ammo and armor to gear themselves up and advance to the room with the devils. Now that the player is mentally and physically prepared to fight them on somewhat equal ground, the encounter becomes easier. By eliminating the Devils, the player does not have to worry about falling through the floor as the devils will not attack them anymore. This makes the encounter on the second level of the room significantly easier as they do not need to be afraid of dropping down and can even snipe the Knights from afar by dropping down to the first floor. There the knights are visible, but cannot damage the player as their AI cannot have them walk off ledges.

In my opinion, this is a genius encounter, as it allows players to tackle the same enemies in different ways and allows them to prioritize them in any way they want. If players feel confident, they can kill the knights in the main room first and then save the ogre and devils for later. If they feel less confident, they can take a contingency plan to take the enemies in the side room down first and then the devils to make the encounter in the main room less stressful.

And that's not all. There are even more ways to explore this dungeon to grab specific weapons and gear in differing orders, depending on what part of E1M5 you struggle the most with... but I'm only going to talk about this encounter currently.

If you want to talk about this level or something else related, leave a comment below!