Play the Arcane Dimensions mod for Quake first. It's free and made by the same developers.

Sounds good (I've finished first 3 Doom games quite recently and was very happy with the gameplay, Painkiller is also one of my favourite FPS), I'm starting to be convinced :) Will try, thanks. Didn't know that devs made earlier some mod to Quake.

Painkiller is beautiful.

You're one of first FPS fans that I've met which isn't delighted with Quake 1. :) Usually FPS fans love this game. I consider it to be a pure sample of the genre (something like the sample of kilogram which is stored in Sevres). Did you play vanilla Q1 or with some mods?

Anyway Wrath is something very similar, but I have to point out that I haven't played it yet personally. I only watched a bunch of videos. Maybe it's a good idea to watch some gameplays from the first level?

Wrath really needs story content to it. It currently has nice and expansive levels but it all feels a bit aimless and not unlike a big tech demo. What's there is totally playable though, but it just feels like it lacks a central focus. This was one of Quake's big shortcomings as well - grab rune, get text and then move on.

I can't tell I was disappointed, but it wasn't such spectacular and positive experience like I had with Doom 1 and 2, or Duke Nukem 3D. I've played in vanilla Q1.

I've already seen gameplay and it seems to be more appealing to me than first Quake (I sense a bit of Dusk vibe, but with more "heavy" looking guns and environment), but you know, it's just video. I was initially extremelly hyped for Ion Maiden/Ion Fury, but it turned out that while overall game is not bad, repetetiveness and irritating main character (I swear that since episode 4 I've got strong desire to play as dr Heskel and annihilate miss Harrison.) are becoming very noticeable. And I know, that repetetiveness can be sometimes a bit subjective, since many could say that Doom or Duke Nukem 3D can also show a lot of it, yet I didn't feel it in this way and highly enjoyed both. Sounds a bit concerning indeed. On the other hand - I remember that I could barely understand anything of the plot in the Dusk (it was introduced in very mumbling manner), yet had a lot of fun with it. Hmm, I admit I have some doubts here.

Finding a decent balance with this type of game is tough. It's also got the unenviable position of being tossed out amid the "retro FPS" boom, where things like story usually tend to take a backseat, if they even remembered to get in the car before it drove off.

I'm not looking for some 40+ hour long epic or anything super engaging, personally, but when I first checked out Wrath's trailer with the narration I immediately got hooked and have since expected some of that to be in the game but as of right now, it just... isn't. I feel like KillPixel intends for there to be something there though but I guess it's not going to be tossed out there until closer to final launch.

Unrelated to that, I hate that the game was changed due to gripes from the "hardcore" Quake crowd. Movement and momentum in the game was different until the complaints piled in and now suddenly you've got the Outlander running around like Ranger with the Ruination Blade and it just feels a bit like a "I've been here before" situation. It's still fun, but it feels a little less unique.

Also, just as an aside I feel like them raising the price of the game at final release is a bit excessive. Not to say they aren't working hard and otherwise deserve every cent but the game's price now is already pretty high. It's high compared to its competition even, factoring out "deluxe" editions and things of that nature.

A blue casually chatting on the forums?! Isn't that a breach of some internal GOG policy? Did you get PR department's approval?

Dusk is pretty good, but I liked Ion Fury a lot too. You could say both are among the few memorable hilight games of the past few years for me. At the same time, I share OP's lack of enthusiasm for Quake.. go figure. It's interesting how games in one genre can be so divisive, even if they seem similar at a surface level.

You should try to play Q1 with mods. Arcane Dimensions is one of them, but there's also Quake 1.5 for example, which modifies the gameplay in a significant way and Quake HD Pack which focuses mostly on improving graphics to more modern standards. I can recommend all three:

https://www.moddb.com/mods/arcane-dimensions,
https://www.moddb.com/mods/quake-15,
https://www.moddb.com/mods/quake-hd-pack-guide.

I am interested in this game myself. However, there was that one time when I backed up an early access game, and it was my last. I am talking about the terrible experience with the garbage known as Wolcen - Lords Of Mayhem. Because of Wolcen Studio, I do not buy games in early access.

Just wait till its released, which is what I am doing due to a similar experience, but I like what I hear about Wrath so far.

Of course I will wait until it gets released.