Have you played Quake? If you have you’ll, like me, probably have wondered why Episodes 2 and 3 don’t end with a boss fight. This week, former Id designer Sandy Petersen explained some of the hacks he and American McGee tried bashing together to fill those boss-shaped holes, from a tower-block sized rotter to a giant grotesque spiderthing wot would’ve chased you around the entire map.

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Quake

‘s a gritty fast-paced shooter where you dance around enemies and splatter them with beefy guns. Modder “Redfield” clearly thought, “But what if I inject some Bloodborne into it?”, and so Raven Keep was born. It’s a mod which throws players into a gothic castle where “Old Ones” (sound familiar?) have left some spooky chalices behind. To uncover their mystery, we’ll have to blast knights, ghosts, and even some bosses straight from Dark Souls and Bloodborne. Count me in.

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Microsoft are buying Bethesda

, or rather their parent company ZeniMax Media. Like a nesting doll, Bethesda themselves are the parents of yet other game studios that Microsoft will also own. What of, say, Id Software? One of Id’s co-founders John Carmack reckons that the Bethesda buyout is a good thing. He says that the new Microsoft ownership could allow him to “reengage” with his old work.

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Update: Microsoft say they’ll “keep the commitment” to bring Bethesda’s Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo to PS5 as timed exclusives. More below.>

Microsoft just announced they’ve bought ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda. The developers of games such as Skyrim, Fallout, Dishonored, Prey, Doom, Quake and all those classics are now technically Xbox Game Studios. Xbox boss Phil Spencer made a post welcoming the developers, in what he calls a “landmark step” for both Microsoft and Bethesda.

What a year.

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If you fancy rocking out to a little bit of Quake, the game’s original soundtrack by Nine Inch Nails is available to buy on vinyl now. It’s the hot record for 2020, featuring aptly named tracks like “Life”, “Damnation” and “Aftermath”. Oh and “Quake Theme”, I guess.

When the listing for the record went up yesterday, a cheeky note said that it was supposed to come with essays from former Id Software devs John Carmack and American McGee. Alas, an “unnamed video game publisher made it impossible to include this in the package”. I wonder who it could be?

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Have you played Quake? The eldritch lords at RPS HQ don’t let me write HYP posts, of course, but I thought I’d ask anyway. See, it’s QuakeCon At Home this weekend, and Bethesda are giving away a seminal piece of shooter history – and every character in its arena-blasting descendant Quake Champions – for free ’til the end of tomorrow.

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QuakeCon At Home is live this weekend on Twitch, though it really should be called BethFest when you look at the schedule. The event has moved wholly online thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, and the rescheduled celebration of id’s and Bethesda’s games has an intriguing schedule. Here are a few of the highlights.

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I love a spin-off. Angel? Great stuff! Count Duckula? The Better Call Saul of cartoons. Kourtney and Khlo Take Miami? Take me, I m yours! I could go on and on cutting-and-pasting from this Wikipedia page, but I ll get to the point. Games also have spin-offs. Often they ll be forgotten about. Sometimes they re even disowned. On a few occasions, they ll take on a life of their own and exist apart from the game that spawned them, never calling, never visiting, only sending a multipack Christmas card. Below are a few stories of surprising spin-offs. The 2D Half-Life 2, the Fortnite that failed, the single-player Counter-Strike that no-one asked for, and more.

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The best shooters endure. While other genres warp beyond recognition, there is something solid about the first-person shooter that makes it as dependable as a nice big AK-47. Maybe it s the gung-ho simplicity – look down a barrel and pull the trigger. It’s as fun to fire a double-barrelled shotgun from an early 90s FPS as the slick shotties of today. For that reason, this list runs the gamut from genre classics to those released in the last year. There’s bound to be something for you in this, our list of the best 50 FPS games on PC. Let s lock and/or load.

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One of the last of the Id Software old guard is parting company with the studio soon. Tim Willits wasn’t part of the original team of founders, but was there early enough to be credited as level designer on 1995’s Ultimate Doom and have a credit in almost everything since. After working as a designer and creative director on the likes of Quake, Doom 3 and Rage, and acting as studio director through the release of Rage 2, he’s left a mark on the FPS genre as we know it. After QuakeCon next week he’ll say his goodbyes and announce his plans for the future.

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