Quake II | Cheerful Ghost

Quake II Remastered: Of Course It's Incredible

Last year Will and I attended the Portland Retro Game Expo and went to the Night Dive Studios panel. During the Q&A at the panel I noted that the Quake remake might be the best video game remake of all time. I followed up that with a question about a Quake 2 remake. The CEO of Night Dive said he couldn't say about that but he did note that he just picked up a copy of Quake 2 at the Portland Retro Game Expo and was excited about playing it. Will and I took that as good news that we'd get a proper Night Dive port of Quake II and we were both happy to hear it recently released.

First off, if you had Quake II on Steam or GOG it will automagically upgrade to the new... Read All Last year Will and I attended the Portland Retro Game Expo and went to the Night Dive Studios panel. During the Q&A at the panel I noted that the Quake remake might be the best video game remake of all time. I followed up that with a question about a Quake 2 remake. The CEO of Night Dive said he couldn't say about that but he did note that he just picked up a copy of Quake 2 at the Portland Retro Game Expo and was excited about playing it. Will and I took that as good news that we'd get a proper Night Dive port of Quake II and we were both happy to hear it recently released.

First off, if you had Quake II on Steam or GOG it will automagically upgrade to the new Night Dive remaster. If you don't have it, you can get it on nearly every platform such as Switch, XBox, PC, Playstation and Gamespass. Like all past Night Dive remasters they add a ton of stuff into the mix making it an incredible prospect such as...

"Experience the Military Sci-fi FPS, Enhanced
Get the Original Mission Packs: The Reckoning and Ground Zero
Play the All-New Expansion “Call of the Machine”
Get Quake II 64 for Free
Enjoy Online & Local Multiplayer/CO-OP
Play Together with Crossplay "

The only suggestion I have is to play the game with texture smoothing off to see all the games gloriously jaggy pixels just like the Strogg intended. I've tried Quake 2 on PC and the Steam Deck and the game runs incredibly well on both.

As with all Night Dive releases you can get the physical version from Limited Run Games as well. https://limitedrungames.com/collections/quake-ii

With the incredible Quake and Quake II remakes I imagine folks are curious about Quake III. I've played Quake IV but it's not a game I plan to return to though a remake could bring it to a bigger audience. That said, I've hoped for some time that these Quake remakes would help iD get closer to announcing a proper single player Quake V. And now after the smash Success of Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal anything seems possible for iD and it's well time for us to hear what the studio is up to next.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 08/12/2023 at 03:48pm

These days, I think I'd play the RTX version if I were going to replay the game. I'm assuming compatibility. I think it is really interesting that happened. I remember playing the game when it was fresh.

jdodson Admin Post Author wrote on 08/12/2023 at 10:27pm

I have a card that supports RTX but haven’t gotten any RTX games to run. No idea what’s up.

Travis Admin wrote on 08/21/2023 at 05:20pm

The quake 2 rtx version is pretty nice but you can’t do mission packs and you have to put some work into getting the whole game to work rather than this having everything in a nice package.

I launched it and poked around but didn’t go far with it, just basically wanted to confirm it’s like the quake 1 remaster which was… masterful. And the new machine games developed mission pack was perhaps the best part.

Azurephile Super Member wrote on 08/21/2023 at 06:56pm

Thanks, Travis!

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The Future of Ray Tracing and Nvidia RTX In Quake 2

Nvidia focused heavily on its new ray tracing technology during its RTX showcase. When the technology is ubiquitous enough ray tracing will allow some incredibly impressive lighting that until now was limited to show floor demos and a render farm but recently someone modified Quake 2 to support ray tracing and the results are impressive and you can try right now(assuming you have an RTX video card). Since iD Software released the source for Quake, Quake 2, Quake 3, Doom, Doom 2, Doom 3, etc anyone can take that source and modify it and someone did to retrofit it to support Nvidia's new RTX tech. As always, Digital Foundry has an analysis video and if you are... Read All

Quake II Turns 15 Today!

This just in from the "I am getting old Department" it seems Quake II marks its 15th birthday today! Bethesda and iD Software rang in the occasion with some interesting tidbits from iD's Tim Willits.

Only three artists made all the 2D and 3D art for the entire game.

One of the original suggested names for QUAKE II was WOR, but the game’s fast-paced, tactile feel felt closer to a QUAKE game than a new franchise.

‘The Edge’ (Tim’s favorite deathmatch level in QUAKE II or any other game), has over 50 trick jumps possible in the map. Tim only designed two of them, and the rest were discovered by the QUAKE II community.

... Read All