Wirehead Studios

Coming out of nowhere, the madlads at Nightdive Studios have released a remastered version of Quake 2, available on all current consoles and PC (via Steam and Xbox Gamepass). Steam users who already own Quake 2 get the remaster as a free update.

This release includes:

-The Reckoning
-Ground Zero
-Call of the Machine, a new 28-map expansion by Machine Games
-The Nintendo 64 version of Quake II, a 19-map unique-ish campaign on PC for the first time
-Local and online multiplayer, including co-op, with crossplay
-Various modern enhancements, as you'd expect

Release trailer here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyxBE163n20). Price is US$9.99 on all platforms.

Update: Limited Run Games will be doing a physical release of all versions (store page here (https://limitedrungames.com/collections/quake-ii?view=boost-pfs-original)). Prices start at US$34.99 and rise depending on how much Stuff you want in addition to the game. Their PC release has no base version and contains a Steam code instead of a disc, which is disappointing but expected at this point.

Update 2: They've made the source for the remaster and the reverse-engineered code for the N64 port available on Github (here (https://github.com/id-Software/quake2-rerelease-dll)).

It's pretty cool the included the N64 levels. Those slipped through the cracks for most quakers but from what i understand they were actually pretty decent. It was a good idea to do their own thing around the abilities of the platform rather than try to make a gimped port of the PC version.

It's a shame that fewer "the console port is similar, but very much its own thing" examples existed. Most, potentially all, of the one before the PS2/Dreamcast era of systems would have benefited from not being attempts to directly shove the PC games onto much, much less capable hardware.

Also, here's a shocker: They just put the source for the remaster and the reverse-engineered port of the N64 version on Github. Holy SHIT.

Downloading now.


This is more than what I had hoped for.  I was afraid since Bethesda bought Id that source releases might be a thing of the past, but this is beautiful.  Modders can still mod.

I'm curious to see how compatible existing Q2 mods are with the remaster, I haven't seen a note on that yet. I know most of the major Q1 mods worked with that remaster out of the box, it would be nice to see the same here.

At least the tools are available to fix potential issues, should they crop up and someone feel so inclined.

This is absolutely banging.

The presence of the N64 campaign and the extra enemies from the Playstation conversion shows just how far above and beyond the Nightdive boys have gone in bringing this oft-maligned game bang up to date.

Also the weapon scroll ISN'T crap anymore :slippy_thumb:

Night dive is really doing god's work as far as bringing classic shooters to modern platforms.

I've seen some posts that existing gamex86.dll's aren't compatible with the new engine.  Since the source was released, as long as someone has the original mod source I'm sure there's a way to port existing mods to work with the new engine.

I do have some nitpicks.  I like playing with the improved enemy AI, however I do think a vanilla option should have been in place to turn off some of the enhancements if someone wants.  Biggest gripe I have is pretty much the same one everyone has had so far.  I get that the Berserker needed some love to make him more dangerous, but that leap attack is just absurd.  His jump speed would make a Quake Fiend jealous, and he can leap pretty much across a map to knock you flying.  It needs some tweaking I think.  It's nothing game-breaking, just a petty nitpick.

There's a lot good though.  The gibs.  Oh the gibs are just glorious.  Every enemy has its own gibs now.  What they did for exploding Fliers and Icarus is just fantastic.

And can we just take credit here for the Adrenaline becoming a holdable item?  Just a little?  We did that first.  :doom_thumb:

If anyone at Nightdive happens to have gotten that bit directly from Generations, still takes a peek here now and again, and wants to admit to where this came from, please let us know. Just for fun. ;)

I'm currently  halfway through Ground Zero, and looking forward to seeing the brand new episode soon! I've played a lot more Q1 than Q2, so it's been fun to go back through it start-to-finish. I still think that Q2 probably has the most fun movement physics of the series! And those weapon designs? Perfection!

There are some things that feel off to me though. Without loading up an old copy of the game, I'm going to chalk them up to a faulty memory, but though I'd put it out there anyway. The aforementioned Berserker jump is obviously new, as is the way a lot of enemies react. But beyond that, it feels like some weapons have been nerfed — especially in regards to the railgun's damage output and the way grenades interact with the environment. While others were made "simpler" to use, by making the chaingun spin-up and down quicker, or removing the machinegun's climb. It also seems like exploding barrels have a delay, which often makes them kind of pointless in setups.

I also have to ask... did the stealth mechanic exist before, or is it a wholly new invention? I like it, especially when paired with the previously underwhelming silencer item, but it doesn't feel as though many levels are set up to really make use of it beyond one or two enemies. And speaking of the silencer — adding power-ups to the inventory is neat, but being able to spawn invulnerability and quad damage whenever I want (and at the same time) has made a lot of areas completely trivial, while also removing the fun of areas designed around quad runs.

The stealth mechanic has always been there.  Best place I can use as an example is there are two gunners on a ledge above you with the laser control switch in the Processing Plant level.  If you start up the stairs just enough you can rail them without them seeing you, and they would gib.  Well, they used to gib.  Now it just kills them.  The railgun damage in single player was reduced to 100 points.

Grenades are completely off now.  Since they upped the internal timer from 10Hz to 20Hz they now bounce like Q1 grenades.  I had to deal with this issue when coding the grenade physics in Gen.  The launch angles are wrong now as well.  If you look straight up and fire a grenade it should arc back behind you.  In the remaster it arcs forward no matter what.  I am not really happy about this change in particular.

In single player you've always been able to carry the powerups except for the adrenaline.  The original CD release of Quake 2 had the rather laughable ability to carry multiple copies of the same powerup.  The Makron had to deal with a completely invulnerable Quaded marine.  That was later patched to only allow you to carry only one at a time.  Multiplayer had them instant by default, and that's a good thing because playing with powerups anyone can activate at any time was not fun.

So yeah, they did make changes where I think changes should not have been made.

Some of these things seem like oversights (especially the grenade behavior) and if they're reported, there's a good chance that Nightdive will fix them; Doom 64 and Quake both received patches to fix things that weren't quite right with the engine changes they made, or at least they got "close enough."

Stuff like the chaingun windup/down, machinegun not pushing your aim upwards, and railgun damage were definitely intentional. I personally don't think the chaingun needed a buff, but I never understood the need for that bit on the machinegun. The railgun change seems like someone went "I don't understand why the damage values are different in multiplayer" and figured they were making enough other changes to single player things that they'd just wrap that in, as well; I wonder if that's a change Id intended to make at some point and just never did.

Intentional or not, I definitely echo Pho's want of a way to toggle things back to their original behaviors. Q2R is a large departure from how Nightdive handled D64 and Q1, and while there's clearly a lot of love for the game that went into it, the omission of a full "classic" gameplay option is definitely a thing to be addressed.

Either way, the reception to Quake 2 Remastered has been extremely positive, from what I've been seeing, and I think that's great. The game has been derided by a lot of the talking heads on the internet as slow and mediocre for much of the last 20 years, and it's nice that it's getting its day in the sun again.

Ah, okay! I feel kind of silly for having forgotten so much of the game. For as little as I played singleplayer, I spent months straight in multiplayer — especially the old Lithium mod. That might be why I remember the power-ups working as such.

Yes! The launch angle is what first tripped me up, and made me start to question the overall physics. The reason behind it is a fascinating, and I appreciate you explaining it. Maybe they should just pay you to polish up Generations Arena for the inevitable Q3A rerelease? ;)

While certainly not necessary, I always thought that the machinegun climb was a super neat feature for the time. I don't think that it existed in multiplayer anyway, which may be another instance of multiplayer balancing being retroactively applied game-wide?

That seems like a reasonable desire. I wouldn't think that a "legacy" togle would be too difficult to provide, but that's just my unprofessional opinion :P

That would certainly be nice!  :smirk:

Since Epic has pretty much abandoned the franchise i think it would be great to see night dive to a remaster of unreal

There was a tweet going around from someone a few days ago stating that multiple studios approached Epic about remastering Unreal back in 2017, and the response they all got was that they had no interest in re-releasing old games because nobody wants to play them. That tweet seems to have been deleted because I can't find it now, but whether or not anyone actually tried to do a remaster, it's currently impossible to purchase any part of the Unreal franchise anymore, so the "no interest in re-releasing old games" part certainly tracks.

I do agree, though, but given part of Nightdive's whole deal is a form of preservation by making these old games as widely available and easily playable as possible (because the average person doesn't want to deal with making source ports work, no matter how simple that process is, if they even know what a source port is in the first place), the inevitable demand of EGS exclusivity would likely be a dealbreaker for them.

Christ I'm good at writing long sentences that somehow aren't actually run-ons.

Considering the overall reception for the remasters, the Halo Master Chief Collection, etc, that tweet has aged like expired milk in the desert sun.  Epic just wants to sell their new engine everywhere and went out of their way to kill their old IP's, and throw more crap into Fortnight.  Unless they see enough $$$ from what Nightdive is doing I doubt they'll want to do it.  From their perspective I imagine they see the Q1 and Q2 remasters as just a marketing hype push for a future Quake game, since we're talking the narrow-mindedness of corporate suits here.  Hopefully I'll be proven wrong and they'll decide the old UT needs some love, but I'm not going to hold my breath for that to change any time soon.

To be clear, the tweet was claiming that Epic thinks nobody wants to play old games; that wasn't any more true coming from them in 2017 than it was it was when Sony said it in 2013 when people asked if the Playstation 4 would be able to play older Playstation systems' discs.

It is very likely a poorly thought out cover for only wanting the newest UE games to be on the market, though, you're correct about that. At this point I'd settle for a course change and them making the titles as-were available again, because while I'm an admitted supporter of various methods of circumventing a lack of availability 🏴‍☠️ especially when the corporate suits decide not to play ball 🏴‍☠️ that shouldn't be a thing people are required to engage in to play older games.

Oh, I agree there.  I feel the same way when it comes to paying for software and the whole "activation" and "license" stuff.  If someone pays money for software they shouldn't have to prove anything to be able to use it, and if it breaks, they should be able to do whatever the heck they want and need to make it work.  I've often wondered how many people have hoisted the Jolly Roger for an install of an operating system or other piece of software when they try to activate it and their license key is somehow blacklisted.  Is it their fault that happened?  But no, the customer is always guilty until proven innocent.  Ahh, I could rant about that and Right to Repair, but that would get too far

:offtopic:

*ahem*

So yes, I was referring to Epic having made that tweet, and yes, it's a case of "forget that, here's something shiny!"

I think if Epic thought they could make a few bucks they wouldn't oppose the unreal remaster, but honestly i think when it comes to the unreal IP itself i think the slight is deliberate. They couldn't have thought shutting down the unreal servers would be taken as anything but an insult to the fans. I can only guess but i think they probably have a lot of younger hiper people working there now who might see the unreal series as a symbol of "toxic gamer bro culture" because of the inherent competitive nature of arena shooters and were pleased to bite their thumbs at "boomers" like us.

That's one of the most baseless and insulting things I've read in a while, Woodsman, and I read YouTube comments for amusement.

well when i feel insulted i like to give some back personally

I'm really loving the call of the machine levels. I never really got into the quake 2 campaign back in the day but these levels beefed up the action a lot and they look great. Really brings out the toxic gamer bro in me. Makes me want to eat Doritos and drink mountain dew and make fun of feminists on the internet.

Well, I hope it was just a mistaken business move.  If it's what you mention above, they can kiss my finely feathered avian ass.  :evil:

well without a proper explanation I'm free to speculate and from any obligation to be charitable

A pretty decent number of the folks you decided to slag without reason are from the group that spent their younger years hurling racist and homophobic slurs at people while playing Call of Duty on Xbox Live.

I really doubt there's anything to what you've said, especially since they're not the ones who would ultimately rubber stamp such a decision.

Yeah i remember those people too, the inane chatter and gibberish made it impossible for me to enjoy call of duty online after the first release,i also remember when how they became sanctimonious twats when it became cool and hip to be "progressive". I know when those people came of age and got jobs in the gaming industry it became normal for game developers to look down on their customers. Maybe you haven't noticed, maybe you approve but i don't care to be lectured by game developers because they are over compensating for saying the word fag too much in the late 90s.

and if you think there is no reason to "slag" whatever that means, epic games you haven't been paying attention the last ten years 

There is plenty of reason to drag Epic Games, and any number of major corporations, though the mud. This ain't it.

Correlation is not causation.

well like i said, without a proper explanation which would have at least shown some respect for long time fans, I'm left to speculate and not inclined to be charitable in my speculation. A little transparency goes a long way.

You can lack charitability towards a corporate entity without resorting to dragging a group of people you disagree with -- a group of people which really has not impacted you, personally, in a negative way, unless you're a bigot and you dislike that it's not possible to be a bigot without being called out (which is good, btw) -- through the mud. That's just unnecessary.

I don't think we are referring to the same people. You think I'm talking about people genuinely concerned with real bigotry and I'm not . I'm referring to smug, malignant narcissists who make frivolous character attacks and false accusations of bigotry because they are drunk on an unearned sense of righteousness. I don't appreciate the stereotyping of gamers that way, i think it's mostly untrue and unfair i don't think the outrage from faux progressive game developers to be at all genuine, i think they are just lashing out at a consumer base that are rightfully disappointed by an increasingly disappointing product. You don't need to take it personally i didn't know you were on the cool kids when we started this.

You're both right to a degree.  It's not as simple as "All Zoomers are Twats" or "All Boomers Are Dull", as the malcontents of society would want people to think.  Nobody has to take a "side" on this.  There's plenty of toxicity in the gaming world without us turning on each other.  That's what the trolls would want us to do to "prove they're right".

well to clarify age wise i was thinking more of junior millennials than zoomers, people who started in working in earnest around 2008-2010 

I was kind of making fun of the absurdity of the labels.  Like the whole "Boomer" thing.  Baby boomers were born between 1946 and 1964.  Most people using the "Boomer" label as an age insult are aiming it at Gen X'ers.  They say "Boomer Shooter" for games like Doom and Quake.  Sorry kids, the only Boomer Shooters were Korea and Vietnam.

I never understood the whole "Boomer Shooter" phrase. It's not even intended as an insult, and covers everything from Wolfenstein 3D to Quake 2 and even beyond, depending on who you ask.

It makes no sense.

it just rhymes thats all

Did anyone else play through the N64 levels?

I did.  I had played an emulated version a while back, so this was my second time through.

I liked them. I honestly was never into the original quake 2 campaign to the point where i never actually finished it. It always felt a little sloggy because i had to go back in forth constantly in extremely samey environments, but the N64 maps were clean and to the point. Now i totally love the new levels, the ability to make larger maps with an appropriate amounts of enemies  totally changes the game for me. That was kind of my problem with Quake 1 too i didn't care for the "we can't have the same number of enemies with killing the users system so we're just going to make the enemies that are here really spongy" thing didn't work for me at all. But that's the benefit of having a game stay active for so long, the level design can evolve with the hardware.

The first patch is up:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/2320/announcements/detail/3748740708262999112

I love the Quake 1 and 2 remasters, they are excellent. :slippy_thumb:

I would like to see Heretic and Hexen getting the Nightdive treatment next time. :doom_thumb:

That would be cool

In the mean time, Heretic is getting voxelized:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi8PdpVUCDk

just in time for the baths