During the full Xbox Developer Direct, we saw glimpses of the offices of developer MachineGames. As spotted by eagle-eyed viewers, there was a shot of a whiteboard at one point that appeared to have a Quake logo drawn on it underneath writing that seems to say “Quake 6.”
You can see the moment, spotted by folks on ResetEra, in the archived stream around the 44m 45s mark.
To be more precise, the writing we can see says “AKE 6”, with the presumed “QU” cut off on the left-hand side of the screen. The rest of the board seems to show doodles of what are probably Indiana Jones puzzle designs, given the whiteboard appears during a segment discussing The Great Circle’s puzzles.
To be clear, this is nothing even close to confirmation of an in-development Quake sequel. (Bethesda are handing out ‘no comments’ to those who ask.) It’s also clearly not an accident, either. I’ve visited enough video game studios to know that they’re all covered in whiteboards and they all either place drapes over those whiteboards when journalists visit or rub them out and write tantalising jokes in their place.
This could be one such tantalising joke, or it could be a tease for something genuine. Who knows.
I’ll be honest, when I saw it my first thought was: when was there a Quake 5? Quake 4 was the last numbered sequel in the series, with subsequent games going by Quake Live (an updated, free-to-play Quake 3) and Quake Champions (also a free-to-play arena shooter). Quake Champions is considered the fifth mainline entry in the series, so I suppose any subsequent game could be called Quake 6? Who knows! Who knows.
Given the good job they did with the modern Wolfensteins and their more recent work producing expanded remasters of Quake and Quake 2, MachineGames would certainly be a good studio to tackle any future battle with the Strogg. I wouldn’t say no.
