Quantum Gate sold over 100,000 units (a commercial benchmark achieved by few titles in 1993) and was regarded as a technical and artistic breakthrough in PC entertainment design.

The player takes on the role of Private Drew Griffin, an army medical student in the year 2057 who is recruited by the UN on a secret mission to an alien world where water is scarce.

AJ3905 is a world accessible only through an interplanetary device called the Quantum Gate and the mission involves a series of mining expeditions to extract the mineral and bring it back to Earth.

However, AJ3905's hellish atmosphere consists of a poisonous, caustic gas that promises an agonising death for unprotected humans which requires the wearing of a protective suit (known as a 'Tophat').

Further enhanced when Griffin's apparently paranoid army buddy, Private Michaels, starts telling tales of great conspiracy to hide the true agenda of the Eden Initiative.

The extreme interpretation is that the Earth is doomed no matter what and instead of protecting peaceful miners from a hostile alien race, the army is involved in the genocide of a native species prior to human colonisation.

Between these sequences and the occasional training mission or visit to the planet, a series of flashbacks and electronic messages from home reveal a dark backstory about Private Griffin.

The gameplay itself is extremely linear in nature, as is normally exhibited by interactive movies and the player's input is limited to conversing with other characters (through a choice of pre-existing phrases) and some involvement during missions.

"[5] Greg Roach wrote and designed the title which follows the story of Drew Griffin, a military recruit in a base on a far off planet, preparing for a war with an alien species.