The Immortal Lock

Visuals and narrative 10 out of 10.

But balancing is what ruins it for me - I understand it's meant to be difficult and the author didn't wanna cheapen the experience by making it too easy.
Problem is, it's so impossibly hard for me, I had to resort to cheats to finish it, which pretty much killed it.

I propose balancing the Easy difficulty to be beatable by casual players like me, without cheating. State it clearly at the difficulty selection section, so the god-tier players don't feel slighted.

That would make it 5/5 for me.

Oh and optimize the final fight. There doesn't have to be all 3000 monsters on screen at the same time, come on. It's just needless discrimination against anyone who doesn't have a supercomputer.

Wow, just impressive. I don't even know where to begin with as I have not fully digested it yet. Like with all massive map and mod projects it can be very difficult to be consistent with quality and themes, but The Immortal Lock nails it.

Played all the way through on hard with IronWail sourceport. It wasn't all smooth sailing because of massive frame drops in huge fights. Partially that is the fault of the sourceport. I'm sure it would've worked better with vkQuake so I'm not gonna deduct points for playing it in the "wrong way".

Themes, style, story and attention to details through the journey was very well done. The mood you have from both aesthetics and oppressive gameplay is hitting real good. Ambient music on background contributes to this feeling, great choice of a long track.

Gameplay is where things are both awesome and rough due to the sheer size of it all. Massive slaughtermap sections are amazing when they feel like you are doing meaningful decisions in the fight. There are moments where these are not perfectly tuned arenas for gameplay, but mostly it works. To the point where frame drops become an issue, you are just fighting a horde of enemies that can't really do anything to you and if the expense is the framerate it is not worth it.

Smaller combat sections and set pieces in the map are really really good. Jumping puzzles are some of the most fun breaks from constant fighting. Pacing feels really nice where the whole 7 hour playthrough didn't feel like 7 hours at all. Almost wishing for more, almost haha.

Since a lot of inspiration is drawn from my own level design style I naturally like the map more than others for sure. It is not everyones cup of tea. Appreciate references in both lore and gameplay.

Shoutout to VuRkka for providing some great voice lines. Through the playthrough those moments kept my spirits up.

So yeah, map is amazing. Good job Comfy! Thanks for giving us this insane but fantastic experience! Wish I could extract more thoughts from my mind to this review, but I think I've said enough to get the point across that I loved despite some problems.

This looked promising.
Then I had to use god mode to get through the "I will digest you" room on skill 1. I hated the platforming combat puzzle in that room. Then I escape that room getting back to the mouth entrance and could not find a way to get back to the bridge. Then in frustration, after trying various things and reloading, I stopped playing. If it is tedious 30 min into the map with less than 100 monster killed, I cannot imagine how it is going to bet later on. I have no doubt this map is mind blowing, a technical achievement etc, but will never get to see it.

Had a blast in the begining, but my mashine couldn't handle massivness of enemies and locations. Even though i finished it in one sitting with 3fps because it was that good! Colossal work!

9/10 Would quake again!

Let's face it, this deserves a 5 stars. And should receive some sort of position in a Quake hall of fame, even if the difficulty on easy is going to be too much for a lot of folks, myself included. But despite that, I want to be as objective as possible.

The obvious out of the way, the map's themes are spot on. The fleshy map design is insanely detailed and disgusting. Comfy must have sacrificed something to John Carmack to get all this level of detail in Quake.

The ambience nails that Lovecraftian horror vibe, with giant hands, bony pillars, and fleshy tendrils.

Couple this with some great gothic architecture. I love the chandelier design in general. The church area really feels like a perversion of our own real life churches: concrete, dark, cold, and with a tentacle monster as the preacher, while the congregation tries to kill you for interrupting their service.


The sound design is awesome. And the game even tries to describe it in the various logs you can find in the map.

Which leads me to the story. I think it is a bit confusing, but mostly because you get the story through logs and the occasional pop in text from the "entities(?)" that are speaking to you. You may find the dialogue funny or horrifying depending on the kind of person you are.

The gameplay I think will be a hit or miss for folks, depending on what you like. It reminds me a lot of Sunlust from Doom.



A lot of these sections will be very hard, even on normal. I played this on Nightmare first and gave up at the telefrag part and switched to Easy.

These gimmick sections are what gives this map a tonne of memorability, and I am all for it. Some sections actually require different strategies depending on the difficulty.


And let's mention the secrets, which require extensive rocket jumping, and knowledge of Quake's inner workings if you want them.

Did I mention that some level geometry is changed or removed on higher difficulties? You don't even see that in most video games. I love it, it totally messes with you on repeat playthroughs.

I think however the biggest dealbreaker for a lot of folks in completing this legitimately is the 2 slaughtermap sections. Yes these are hard, yes these will require constant saving, and yes this will tank your framerate. But I love them, maybe because I like Sunlust. I beat it legit on easy mode though.


That's about all I have to say for this review. Play it, but manage your expectations and be patient. And keep that quicksave key handy. I'm already itching to go back and play it on higher difficulties legit.

Great Work

A map of tremendous scope and beautifully executed thematically, albeit a bit undermined by its size.

Not sure if it would've worked better as a mini episode, but a natural by-product of being this large is that you inevitably get utterly lost .

The platforming is plenty challenging (loved the slope surfing sequence), but slaughter encounters are not my thing (I had to use god mode on Easy). Maybe in the future include like a secret difficulty "Tourist mode" for people who love exploring more than anything? I know it sounds like I'm missing the point, just throwing it out there.

Some of the sections reminded me of the Xen chapters from Half-Life, which is fine by me, but I can see how it can irk some people, although the author graciously does the void teleport thingy.

Outside of some odd clipping issues on geometry (hard to polish such a monster map to perfection), some progression speed bumps and some fights dipping the framerate on my modest PC, I have no complaints.

Well worth the time playing it and it's even more entertaining to watch other (better) players go at it.

Thank you again for your passionate work, ComfyByTheFire!

This is awesome. From the first scene outside the window of a spaceship, a marine and his pooch standing guard, you know you're in for a great time.

10/10 work and the love of Quake really shows here.

The Immortal Lock is definitely a masterpiece - it maintains its core thematics, tone and storytelling consistently throughout what is a genuinely huge level. (And that tone manages the cosmic - and organic - horror elements better than 90% of the rest of media, even with huger budgets.)
There's some nice little references to other media, some horror-themed jokes, and some *beautiful* writing as well.

This review is based on v 1.1 of the map, since I already had a bunch of time and progress in saves before 1.2 and 1.3 came out (and saves usually aren't portable between versions).

Downsides, I think mostly stem from what zenialynn describes as the "like being at a very nice buffet" effect - the very fact that The Immortal Lock is so huge means that you both want to sample lots of it, but can also easily either experience a surfeit of experiences or get terribly lost.

Also, even on Easy, the final sequences (most minor of spoilers for those who don't know what Comfy likes in her ending setpieces) are very horde-mappy, and I am not sure how I would have managed them without resorting to god mode. (I did give them 10 or so goes each, but having godmoded through them, I think my best attempt was still less than halfway, and they escalate over time.)

Similarly, there's a few very difficult traversal puzzles that I just resorted to noclipping to deal with after giving them a handful of attempts and not really getting any better.


Into spoilers:


Endgame spoilers:

Sparks a real old school sense of joy and wonder albeit with some ludicrous and sometimes downright mean combat & platforming scenarios. It's very pretty, the organic architecture while sometimes fiddly to walk on is to praise, and it's super atmospheric. Considering how large this is, getting lost is generally not a thing, there are a lot of landmarks that stand out and all zones are unique. It took me about 8h30 for one playthrough with about 35(?) secrets while locking myself out of the
(mostly due to being tired). I liken this map to going to very nice buffet and you are really uncertain of what you want so you grab as many plates as possible, this ended up in me sometimes possibly having less ammo and hp/armor than I would have liked but it was still a great joy to persevere.

These aforementioned scenarios are mostly optional which is great, but I would say it's not obvious
where half of the required keys & runes are, exploration is so fun however that I can hardly fault that. Only main concern is that some places, if you so happen to backtrack, either on purpose or not, may be hard to get back out of, making some spelunking possibly reach softlock territory without the use of noclip but it looks like this is again possibly a one off.

Definitely a map that deserves multiple playthroughs and most importantly, sittings! And until source ports can handle this map better, kill the animals, save the frames.

Fantastic episode length map loaded tons of secrets, monsters and lore. Really enjoyed my time with it, which took about 4ish hours. The different endings make it well worth your time if you plan on replaying. I managed to get the True Ending on my first run which included some really brutal fights (even on normal) especially towards the end. Found 68 of the 100+ secrets. A good portion of those were really tough to get to as alot of the secrets involve some sort of puzzle or platforming. As for the monsters I missed around 600, so I'm sure there's areas I somehow managed to miss. The story/lore was engaging and interesting enough to keep me wanting to hunt down PDAs. The meat and cosmic horror theme go hand in hand with the excellent world building.

All in all, I'd totally recommend to anyone especially if they are looking for a detailed horror themed map/campaign.

I just love this gory mess!
Will definitely play again, as im sure no plays will be exactly alike due to all interlocked chambers, one will not take the same path twice.

And i only found 25 of all 108 secrets. So that will be an hunt for another day. (was not exactly looking for them in my first run)