Following in the footsteps of its older sibling, a remaster for seminal shooter sequel Quake 2 will reportedly get an official announcement at next week’s QuakeCon 2023, which is an in-person event for the first time since the pandemic era. Earlier in the year, Quake 2’s remaster accidentally poked its head out in a ratings board leak, but let’s all pretend to be surprised when Bethesda announces it next week, okay?
The new report comes from normally reliable leaker billbil-kun, who previously spilled information about Mortal Kombat 1’s almost unguessable name and DLC roster. According to the report, documents refer to the game with the subtitles of “Remastered” and “Enhanced,” so it’s unclear what the new edition is called for now. (Good spot, VGC).
Either way, publisher Bethesda had previously announced and released the first Quake game’s remaster at QuakeCon 2021. That edition had dedicated deathmatch servers, console ports, enhanced graphics, and a whole new expansion pack developed by Machine Games. We can guess that the possible Quake 2 remaster would have similar additions, although I’m hoping there’ll be a shadow drop situation here, too.
In the event that Quake 2’s remaster is real, it’ll have to compete with Nvidia’s ray traced touch-up for the classic id Software shooter that obviously had fancy new lighting, as well as new weapons models, sprites, textures, particle animations, and more.
We will or maybe won’t see Quake 2’s remaster at next week’s QuakeCon 2023 event, running from August 10th to August 13th. You can find out more about QuakeCon 2023 here.