Mythology Gag / Quake III: Arena

Doom and Doom II

• As the Player Character of Doom and Doom II, Doom has many chatlines referencing his original series:
  (When a match ends with him not being first or last) "Over? I haven't found the blue key card yet!"
  (When last in a match) "I was last once before, and a whole planet paid the price."
  (When dying for lava) "I've been to hell once ... kinda felt like this."^note Perhaps a reference to the infamous final level of Doom II?
  (When dying for slime) "Shouldn't this stuff be in barrels!?!"
  (When being killed by a BFG) "That toy ain't no BFG."
  (When killed with a Gauntlet) "Need... Berserk Pack... must... have... Berserk Pack!"
  "Where's the freakin' red key card?"
• The Icon of Sin is a wall decoration in several levels such as "Dueling Keeps".
• Anarki has the Lost Soul on his skateboard.
• The back of Biker's jacket has a demonic head in a pentagram.
• The Rocket Jumping tutorial map in Live has the Red Keycard as an Easter Egg.
• The UAC logo appears on the map forgotten ("The Forgotten Place" in III) in Live.
• The BFG functions as it was originally intended in Doom, except that version wreaked havoc on the hardware, slowing the framerate to an absolute crawl and making the screen look like Christmas.

Quake

• The rocket jumping training tutorial in Live is shaped after the "Introduction" difficulty selection map.
• The Grenade Launcher's appearance is the same as the one the Ogres carried.
• The first level from Tier 2 is called "The Place of Many Deaths", as a nod to the map "The Place of Two Deaths".

Quake II

• As the Player Character of II, Bitterman makes some references to his adventures in that game:
  • When he ends last in the ranking:
  "Don't push me, <player>. I've been to hell and back, and back I'll be!"
  "I've seen tougher, killed 'em too."
• Also coming from II, Grunt does a few callbacks to his original series, like Bitterman:
  (When fragging someone with the Railgun) "'Old Betsy' still works like a charm."
  (When fragging someone with a Gauntlet) "Beats a hand blaster any day."^note The hand blaster is the starting infinite weapon in Quake II
• Hossman has the Strogg insignia as tattoos.
• Tank Jr. is the offspring of a Tank and an Iron Maiden, referencing the Easter Egg at the final level of II.
• "The Nameless Place", first map of the fourth tier, uses the skyboxes of the space-themed levels from the game.
• There's a "Double Damage" item in Revolution, which just doubles the damage output, similar to the namesake item from Quake II: Ground Zero.

Other/Multiple

• Fritzkrieg is Id Software's apology letter for not including B.J. Blazkowicz in the game. A mistake which was finally rectified a decade and a half later, in another game.
• The second level from the fourth tier, "Deva Station", has a gutted Dopefish in a secret area.
  • As part of the bowdlerization, Live replaces this Dopefish with the Turkey from Super Turbo Turkey Puncher 3.
• The Crusaders from Team Arena are clearly inspired by the Heretic and Hexen games, particularly the Crusader class from Hexen II, which id Software published.
• The challenges "Military Mayhem" and especially "Generations" in Arena Arcade pits you against former main characters Doom, Ranger, Bitterman, Grunt and Stripe.
• Several of the map names for Arena Arcade are taken from Quake Live such as "Chemical Reaction"^note Q3A's "Deva Station", "Cobalt Station"^note Q3A's "The Bouncy Map", "Rebound"^note Q3TA's "Capture Chamber" and "Beyond Reality"^note Q3A's "The Very End Of You".

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