Quake II will get a remaster for PC and consoles—and it’s precisely what it must be

In a shock announcement at QuakeCon, writer Bethesda Softworks introduced the instant availability of a lightweight remaster of the basic first-person shooter Quake II, just like the one for the primary Quake that was launched not that way back.

It is obtainable now on Home windows, Xbox One, Xbox Sequence X|S, Nintendo Change, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.

As Bethesda is now a subsidiary of Microsoft, the remastered model of Quake II is a part of Microsoft’s Recreation Move subscription service on Xbox and PC. Additional, those that already owned the earlier model of Quake II on Steam, GOG, or Microsoft’s retailer will get the brand new model as a free replace.

The sport sells for $9.99 on every platform in case you’re not a Recreation Move subscriber or have not purchased it earlier than. This marks the primary time it has been obtainable in any respect on any of the console platforms.

You get numerous content material for 10 bucks; the package deal consists of the sport’s unique marketing campaign, each beforehand launched expansions, Quake 64, and a brand new marketing campaign referred to as Name of the Machine with 28 ranges developed by Machine Video games (the group behind the current Wolfenstein video games).

There’s additionally split-screen native multiplayer (as much as 4 gamers), in addition to LAN and on-line multiplayer.

There are a number of further tweaks and enhancements, however it’s not a complete overhaul or a ground-up remake by any stretch. A lot of the property are the identical, however the recreation now helps 4K, cloud saves, and cross-platform play, amongst different fashionable requirements.

An RTX model of Quake II was launched on Steam a few years in the past, however I attempted it, and it doesn’t appear to work with this new enhanced version, which is a little bit of a bummer.

First impressions

I took it for a spin this afternoon, taking part in the primary few marketing campaign missions and a few on-line deathmatches on PC.

It adhered tightly to 60 fps at max settings and 4K on my PC gaming rig (AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080, 32GB of RAM). Since my desktop displays are solely 60 Hz, I briefly performed it on the identical system related to my LG C1 TV and located that it did not have any drawback sustaining 120 fps at that decision both. It seems to be nice in 4K, though the property are clearly from one other period.

Bethesda included some additional bells and whistles, like an non-compulsory CRT filter. Whereas I often like utilizing a CRT filter with retro video games on an OLED, I turned this one off shortly because it was far too aggressive; it appeared to be nearly like an over-the-top parody of a CRT filter slightly than one thing trying to precisely characterize that late Nineties look.

The sport clearly performs nicely on the keyboard and mouse, however I attempted it with an Xbox Sequence controller and located the gamepad management scheme well-thought-out with good execution.

As for gameplay, I am going to admit that I did not play Quake 2 a lot again within the day, so I will not have the ability to give the superfan’s perspective; I did not purchase it till a yr or two after it got here out, and by that point I had turn into extra of an Unreal man. However I performed sufficient each then and now to know nothing in any respect has modified on the gameplay entrance, and that is a very good factor as a result of it is a very tight first-person shooter.

I had just a little bother discovering lag-free on-line multiplayer matches; some have been unplayable, though the ping within the server record was fantastic. Others labored completely, although. It was hit-or-miss, however then once more, it was the identical scenario again within the outdated days.

There are some extras like achievements, idea artwork, and so forth, however there is not any large development system metagame to tie all of your multiplayer matches collectively such as you see in fashionable on-line shooters. That is in all probability for the very best, for my part—I performed shooters for years with out that form of factor and loved them simply fantastic, so I have been largely baffled by the hostile responses in recent times to video games like Halo Infinite over comparatively slim options on that entrance—however youthful gamers would possibly really feel one thing is lacking.

All instructed, it looks like a strong remaster that does simply sufficient to make the sport accessible on fashionable machines, however it would not attempt to make it into a contemporary AAA recreation. If Bethesda had charged extra, that may have appeared just like the naked minimal, however for $9.99 (or free for Recreation Move subscribers or individuals who beforehand purchased the sport), it is laborious to complain. I want the ray-tracing options from the RTX launch had made it to this model, although.

Itemizing picture by Samuel Axon