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I always thought the first Quake had it right: doors slide open automatically upon the approach of the player character, and are always fully open by the time you reach them, so the player is never blocked (as long as they have the key). But obviously that would not work for a game set in a realistic setting.

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You don't usually realize this when playing but the scale in Quake is weird. Everything is big and bulky. There's just no budget for a lot of triangles. That makes navigating it a lot easier. It's closer to a driving game in some sense.

Stylistically it works when in a fantasy setting, or in some science fiction "tech base". But it wouldn't, if you had ordinary everyday objects like doors, beds or kitchens around.

If you've made Quake maps, you also notice that to make it playable, you should avoid things like protruding door frames, or the player easily and annoyingly gets stuck on the wrong side of it. The mapper must place clip brushes so the player smoothly flows over these obstacles. The player never notices these "nudges".

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