The Spiritworld is a singleplayer & co-op episode inspired by the fourth episode (the Elder World).
It has 7 mainline maps, 3 secret maps, a start map and an end map with a new boss.
All maps by Newhouse & zigi.
It also comes with a new soundtrack featuring tracks by Immorpher, BouncyTEM and dumptruck.
sw_poster.png
Submitted by
zigi
Downloads
1,699
Views
5,492
Release date
Apr 6, 2023
First uploaded
Last update
Rating
4.35 star(s) 20 ratings

Latest updates

  1. Update 1.1

    Minor things that we noticed during playthroughs: - Fixed an overlapping door - Changed a...

Latest reviews

Some maps made me feel lost for a long time, while others were intuitive enough to play without any problems. Overall it's a good pack.
Skill
Nightmare
Fantastic level set that really brings out the creepy nightmarish side of Quake. Lots of fantastic traps and interesting layouts and mechanics. Each map felt very distinct and was a blast to play. The musicians also hit it out of the park, they really upped the spooky factor when playing through the maps. Great job all around.
I don't have much spare time for playing nowadays but was intrigued by this, played it over the last couple of nights whilst under the weather.

Elders1/Elders2

These were neat and fun to play. A bit offputtingly similar to E4M1/E4M2 in places though; I expected the odd E4 homage but it felt like entire sections were lifted for these two.

Elders3

This was great. It felt more like an original map inspired by the general E4 vibe rather than a straight copy. Yes, one room was obviously taken from Azure Agony but there was enough of a twist on it to make it its own, particularly the
upside down bit
, which I loved. Very innovative use of water for progression. I died in a crusher trap once but was OK with that

Elders4/Elders5

These felt like a big flip stylewise, they reminded me more of E4 themed amateur maps from cdrom.com in the 90s given the cramped, cubic and occasionally cluttered design. That's not to say they are amateurish; it felt like a conscious style choice and quite well designed overall, but it occasionally led to frustrating gameplay when I'd get stuck on things or set rockets off in my face. The ending of elders5 was especially cool

Elders6

This was insane, totally unlike anything else I've ever played. There was an incredible atmosphere and sense of mystery, very easy to get lost but I didn't mind that. Given the large monstercount it felt sparsely populated, which not only says a lot about the scale, but the quiet parts played a huge part in setting the mood and adding to the tension. I only actually managed about 60% of the kills and I think one secret in the end, so there was obviously tons more of the level to explore even though I'd killed everything in sight.

Elders7

It was only after finishing I realised this level borrows much of the layout from The Palace of Hate; as with Elders3 though it felt very much like its own thing with its own style, so this wasn't an issue. The lightning traps were cool; I was not a huge fan of the turret use in the episode in general but these ones worked because (a) they gave an audiovisual warning before firing and (b) they could be disabled. Really neat idea for the end battle

Boss map
This was OK but I wouldn't say it went down as one of the best boss fights ever. I didn't take much damage from the king at all as the map was big enough that I could always keep far enough away. Maybe it would have been better spawning him early and having him fight alongside the other monsters (with infighting disabled)

Pleased on the whole, definitely a worthwhile couple of hours. Thanks for sharing guys!
I didn't have as much fun as I thought I would. But I think that's just because I'm not a big fan of Episode 4 style. I got lost quite often and was quite annoyed by some instant death traps here and there. Still, I don't think anything less than 5 stars would be justified. Thank you very much.
Great episode! Loved the scope of the maps and the puzzles.
Also loved the powerup selection before the ending.

One minor nitpick: the red "water" was very confusing to me and I was avoiding it for some time thinking it was lava, until I accidentally fell in it 🙃
Just wow, Some of the best Quake I've played and definitely one of my favorite episodes released to date. This here's some serious Quakin'.
I really want to leave a 4.5 here, so I rounded up to 5 stars this time.

Whilst I think you can see the thematic similarities to E4 from Quake's original campaign (not just the love of spawns...), this is definitely a much more enjoyable experience.
On balance, I think I enjoyed zigi's maps a little more than Newhouse's - but that's partly because Newhouse handled the much more expansive central levels where the main issue I had was getting lost and turned around. (Both "Path of the Woodwose" and "The Family Tree" had me stumbling around in circles for quite a bit of my time in them, until I finally spotted what was supposed to happen - and I'm still not *entirely* sure how the former map actually works).
By way of rebalance, I really liked the ambition of Diyu, and I did hang around to do several more "puzzles" after I completed the minimum needed to progress. And, in general, the feel of all the maps - zigi and Newhouse's is spot on, there's some very impressive setpieces and setting pieces (
the invisible bridge, for example, in Diyu
, which is easy to do mapping-wise, but is used nicely for the effect).

Of the secret maps - all of which I found during play (ironically, I found less than a third of the secrets in each map... except that I always found the secret map entrances / unlocks) - I felt they were all pretty enjoyable (although Arcana has a *very* rough start if you're not confident with jumping like me - I had to retry that opening bit about 20 times before surviving) - and Arcana repays that rough start with some very impressive later sections. I'm not totally sold on Chthon's Boiler Boogie... but I do approve of more low-gravity maps in principle.

The final boss was... a little bit of a mixed bag for me. The
moving teleport bug thing made me think that this was going to be a trick boss like Shub... but as far as I could tell, after the "initial setup fights", the King is a bullet-sponge with hard-hitting attacks instead
. (At least, if there's another trick to it, I didn't see it.) I also took a bit to twig that you have to use the keys to move things on, they're not just optional items!

Still, on skill 0 this was about right for me - I was feeling the first two levels that I might have been able to play this on normal, but my plentiful deaths on the second half of the episode confirm that skill 0 was the right choice.
(I'm sort of interested to see what the success rate is for people using the
different paths at the end of Tower of Destiny
is - I couldn't get anywhere with anything other than the
Ring of Shadows
.)
I hate episode 4 and I love this episode