For the past several months, Nvidia has been adding a fresh coat of ray-traced paint to Quake 2, which originally released way back in 1997. It is now available to download and play for free, in part or in whole, depending on whether you already own the original game or not.

Anyone who already owns Quake 2 can play the ray-traced remaster in its entirety at no cost. For everyone else, the first three levels are free. If you want to keep playing, you'll have to shell out a modest $4.99 to buy the original game, which then unlocks the complete RTX version.

Even though Quake 2 is more than two decades old, the official ray-traced version is taxing on graphics hardware. The RTX version uses path tracing to render almost everything on the screen, giving it "the highest workload of any ray-traced game released to date."

That means you can't play it with a GTX card, even though Nvidia adding ray tracing support to Turing and Pascal-based GTX variants. To play it, you will need a GeForce RTX 2060 or higher RTX graphics card, along with an Intel Core i3-3220 or AMD equivalent processor, 8GB of RAM, and 2GB of storage space.

Obviously a 22-year-old game with prettier visuals is the not the promised land for ray tracing, and for most people it's not reason alone to consider an RTX card. However, it's at least a nice bonus while we wait for more ray-traced games to appear. As it pertains to Quake 2 RTX, it's been upgraded with realistic reflections, refraction, shadows, and global illumination.

If you have the requisite hardware and want to check it out, you can grab Quake 2 RTX from Steam or download it directly from Nvidia.

Nvidia first showed off its remaster of Quake 2 at this year’s GDC, and you’ll be able to play it yourself June 6—provided your hardware is up to the task.

The announcement video above shows off the rocket jump forward ray tracing represents. Working with modder and Ph. D student Christoph Shied, Nvidia has replaced all the original effects in Quake 2 to create Quake 2 RTX, and it looks absolutely lovely.

Using real-time ray tracing for global illumination has meant that they’ve been able to add several new options, including the ability to select the time of day in a level. The team has also updated all of Quake 2s textures, some from the Q2XP mod pack and others they’ve enhanced themselves. 

Better yet, Nvidia will be posting the source code for Quake 2 RTX on GitHub to make it easy for modders to use this as a starting point either to enhance Quake 2 further or to use it in mods.

Nvidia says this version of Quake 2 uses path tracing to render just about everything you see on screen, which gives it “the highest workloads of any ray-traced game released to date.” Thus, the recommended system requirements are on the steep side: Nvidia recommends at least an RTX 2060 for this version of Quake 2.

Starting June 6, anyone will be able to download the first three levels of Quake 2 RTX, the same way id released the shareware version back in 1997. If you own the original Quake 2, you’ll be able to point Quake 2 RTX to your install folder and then play the full game with all the new ray-traced bells and whistles enabled.

This year's QuakeCon will go heavy on the Doom, the famed FPS that preceded the big bring-your-own-computer show's namesake. The reason is that 2019 is, somewhat loosely, the 25th anniversary of the original Doom—it was released in December 1993—and Bethesda isn't going let the "Year of Doom" go uncelebrated.

QuakeCon 2019 "will include all-new Doom-inspired activities, events, exclusives, developer panels, hands-on demos, new information about Doom Eternal, and a few surprises we aren’t quite ready to talk about," Bethesda said. "All while continuing to feature everything you already love about QuakeCon." 

The centerpiece will once again be the huge BYOC LAN party, but registration is being handled slightly differently this year: Instead of picking a seat when you sign up, BYOC seat selection will take place at a later, unannounced date. As always, the show will also include panels, hands-on with various Bethesda games—maybe Wolfenstein: Youngblood will make an appearance?—redonkulous case mods, swag, and other stuff.

QuakeCon 2019 will run July 25-28 in Dallas, Texas. Registration for the BYOC action or the new "QuakeCon Done Quick" pass with priority entry to all Main Stage events and early access to the exhibit hall on Saturday, will open at 10 am ET on April 11, while general admission entry is free.

Great moments in PC gaming are short, bite-sized celebrations of some of our favorite gaming memories.  

The first-person shooters of the 1990s were fast-paced, but Quake seemed faster than anything before it. Truly 3D levels, mouselook, a bouncy regular jump even if you weren't abusing rocket-jumps—it added up to a zippiness that felt powerful and new. 

Clever level design solved the Sonic problem of having areas full of secrets but a character who only feels good at top speed. There's often one particular key or something you need but there's also a convenient loop back through a section of the level so you can barrel around looking for things you missed, shooting suspicious patches of wall texture or swimming under bridges, during which you naturally find a secret or two before discovering that gold key or whatever.

When you hit a boss fight it still doesn't slow down. Chthon emerges from the lava and instead of standing in one spot shooting away at his health bar you keep moving, racing his fireballs to flip switches just like you do when looping through an ordinary level, only now you're lowering pylons into position then electrocuting the big jerkbag of an elder god.

There are plenty of other things about Quake to celebrate, like the soundtrack and the multiplayer and the mods, but let's not forget Chthon. Fighting him sets you up for the finale, which is another puzzle boss who can't be shot, and it's also a great capstone for the playstyle it's taught you.

And then at the end of the level when it's tallying your score and number of secrets you get to see Chthon's gibs squirting all over the screen. Quake knew what we wanted and it delivered. 

When it released in January, Q2VKPT offered a real-time ray traced version of Quake 2, demonstrating how a broad range of associated techniques could improve a 22-year-old game. Created by Christoph Schied, it used an RTX technique known as Path Tracing in order to create more lifelike lighting effects, and the results are impressive (there's a video at the bottom of the page).

Nvidia has been paying close attention, announcing today a collaboration with Schied (himself a former Nvidia intern) on Quake 2 RTX—a "purely ray-traced game". In other words, it rips out all traditional effects and replaces them with ray-traced lighting, reflections, shadows and VFX. 

According to Nvidia, that means "real-time, controllable time of day lighting, with accurate sunlight and indirect illumination; refraction on water and glass; emissive, reflective and transparent surfaces; normal and roughness maps for added surface detail; particle and laser effects for weapons; procedural environment maps featuring mountains, sky and clouds, which are updated when the time of day is changed; a flare gun for illuminating dark corners where enemies lurk; an improved denoiser; SLI support (hands-up if you rolled with Voodoo 2 SLI back in the day); Quake 2 XP high-detail weapons, models and textures; optional NVIDIA Flow fire, smoke and particle effects, and much more!"

The full run-down, including before-and-after shots, is on the Nvidia site, and a video will follow eventually. More than likely after the associated GDC 2019 panel on March 21. In the meantime, here's the original Q2VKPT in action:

3D Realms, best known as the last company able to do something good with Duke Nukem, currently has a Build engine-powered shooter called Ion Maiden on Steam Early Access. By all reports it's really good—user reviews on Steam are "overwhelmingly positive"—but what makes it interesting is the use of the Build engine, which is true retro-tech: It was used for Duke Nukem 3D and the original Shadow Warrior way back in the mid-90s, and Ion Maiden is the first game to make use of it in nearly two decades. 

3D Realms is also working on a new game based on the Quake engine in partnership with 1C Company, and yes, that would be the original Quake from 1996—a Build engine contemporary. That little factoid was revealed last fall, along with absolutely no other information: No name, no release target, no platform information, no nothing. But that will soon change. 

Is that logo ringing any bells? That's not a hint that I know what's up, by the way: I think it looks very vaguely Quake-like but I can't see Bethesda green-lighting a remake by anyone but id Software. But games like Ion Maiden and Dusk have proven that shooters don't need to be built on bleeding-edge tech to be great, and I'm excited to finally find out what 3DR has cooking. We'll let you know when we know.

This article was originally published in issue 184 of Retro Gamer. Subscribe here for more features like this every month.

Few western developers had higher profiles during the '90s than id Software cofounder John Romero, and fewer still had a rockstar image to go with their fame. But after helping id to make the FPS mainstream with instant classics such as Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake, John parted ways with the small firm, and its remaining developers made the decision to take their next project in a new direction, as Quake II level designer Tim Willits remembers.

“Romero was let go, and we took a different approach to the next Quake game,” he tells us. “Kevin Cloud stepped up to lead the project and refocus us on something that was more story-based and set in a different universe. Kevin had this great idea where he said: ‘Guns Of Navarone.’ That was the inspiration for Quake II, and it made sense because in the movie the Allies had to knock out the big guns that the Germans had before they could assault. So in Quake II, your job would be to knock out the big guns before the big dropships could come in. That’s why you were by yourself, because the human forces had sent individual pods out since everything else was too big and would get hit by the big guns.”

Of course, since id’s latest project was taking its lead from the Guns Of Navarone it would need an army as dark as the movie’s Nazi antagonists, which Quake II artist Kevin Cloud delivered in the form of a race of macabre aliens called the Strogg. “With the Strogg, Kevin wanted to create an enemy force that was unified but terrifying,” Tim explains. “So the Strogg were part-alien, part-vampire; they weren’t like vampires, but they were vampiric. Like the Borg [in Star Trek], their plan was that they would take over planets, and then use body parts—living tissue and organs—in reconstructing themselves and keeping themselves alive. Because they attacked different planets with different creatures, each Strogg was different, but the Strogg were also very unified because they were all part of a Strogg collective.”

But as horrific as Kevin’s vision for the Strogg was, the nightmarish aliens’ sci-fi backstory was clearly at odds with the Gothic horror narrative of id’s previous Quake title, which as Tim points out makes sense since Quake’s follow-up almost became a standalone project that would likely have kickstarted an entirely new id franchise. “We wanted to do something different with the next game, and we did consider not calling it Quake II,” Tim muses. “One of the names Paul Steed came up with, which I always really liked, was ‘Wor,’ but it was hard coming up with a name that everyone liked, so we just stuck a ‘II’ on the end of Quake. But it did hold true to that Quake DNA, where it was hardcore: there were big beefy weapons, there was over-the-top action and you were the hero saving the world.”

But while id strived to instil Quake II with the key tenants of Quake’s core gameplay, rather than reworking the sequel as a dark fantasy it decided to retain the project’s decidedly sci-fi -themed narrative. “We were a bunch of sci-fi nuts!” Tim reasons. “And it was refreshing for us to do something new but kind of familiar. With a sci-fi universe there was the opportunity to have super-cool weapons and we could have new types of creatures, so it really gave a nice palette to create a wonderful game.”

As well as favouring an alternate genre, Quake II would also differ from its predecessor by having a cohesive backstory, which instructed and informed the design of the project’s full-motion video introduction and the look and animation of its biomechanical alien opponents. “Quake was kind of a mess,” Tim concedes, “although it was awesome. But the Quake II team rallied behind one art style, one art direction and story. We had better design, and we were focused. Paul Steed came up with our cinematic intro, which was really cool. He had worked on the Wing Commander series, and so he brought experience of story-based sci-fi action games. Adrian Carmack did amazing concept work on the Strogg creatures, and then Paul added personality to the animations.”

The follow-up to Quake was further differentiated from the original game thanks to enhancements that id’s lead coder John Carmack made to his Quake engine that allowed it to render brighter and far more colourful-looking levels. “We had a supercomputer that was literally the size of a refrigerator to process the lighting for the maps—it was so cool!“ Tim enthuses. “No game had had coloured lighting before Quake II. So we were like kids with new toys; we went all crazy. I know there are some levels that look a little oddly-coloured, but it did give it a more colourful look. At the time it was like: ‘This is awesome! Green and blue lights!’ We also had light bouncing—simulated radiosity—so every corner of the world had some lighting.”

Beyond aesthetics, the stages in Quake II also stood out from their Quake equivalents thanks to their more wide open and less linear nature, which Tim puts down to accumulated knowledge, a story-led approach to level design and the knowledge that PC gamers were continually upgrading their PCs with the latest tech. “We had more experience making levels, and we were trying to tell more of a story. Like there was the jail, there was the hanger and the processing facility, so we tried to give more identifiable locations to the areas. Plus computers were running faster. It was just a combination of all that, really.”

Additionally, Quake II’s levels would be mission-based, and unlike Quake its sequel would require players to make use of innovative ‘hub’ areas to jump from one stage to another and back again. “I can’t remember if it was something that we had consciously planned for or if it just evolved,” Tim ponders, “but you had these missions, and you would get radio alerts, because we just wanted to tell a better story and give a better experience, and the hubs were a byproduct of that. The hubs made the environments richer, so the world felt like a real place that you were infiltrating. They gave us the freedom to reuse areas and make players feel like they were in real space.”

One innovation that proved a step too far, however, was the option of rescuing traumatised marines being loaded into meat processing machines in one of Quake II’s more gruesome missions, the processing plant. “We had that one mission with the processing plant,” Tim recalls, “and you could just turn off the machines. I think it was the limits of the gameplay scripting, where what do you do with the marines when they’re out? We didn’t have AI, so they wouldn’t follow you around. Plus those poor souls, they were already damaged beyond repair from the Strogg experiments.”

Aside from making decisions on level design mechanics, new weapons were being designed for Quake II, although these were complemented by a selection of existing designs made popular by earlier id FPS. “There were some tried-and-true weapons—the lightning gun and the rocket launcher were from Quake,” Tim acknowledges, “plus we had machine guns and the BFG from Doom, but Quake II was sci-fi, so we also had hyper blasters. We tried to make the new Quake II weapons exciting and interesting, but yet remember that they always fulfilled a purpose in a situation. At id, we’ve always believed in situational weapons. So if a guy is close-up you use a shotgun, if a guy’s far away you use your machine gun. You’ve got projectiles, explosives to get that instant hit. Each of these weapons actually fits a purpose of the gameplay. So we would find a situation that we wanted to engage an additional weapon for and then come up with a weapon.”

Arguably the most memorable of the weapons to make its debut in Quake II was the now-legendary railgun, which Tim credits to company research on arguably the most memorable big-screen action hero of the '90s. “The railgun in Quake II was inspired by Eraser—the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie,” Tim reveals. “I went to see it with the guys, and the next day I went to John Cash. I told John: ‘It’s like a rocket, but it’s an instant hit—it’s called a railgun!’”

Perhaps reasonably, given the destructive power of Quake II’s railgun—not to mention its other deadly armaments—the game’s sole animator Paul Steed decided that the focus of these lethal weapons, the Strogg, should be dangerous even in their death throes. “Paul wanted to bring more personality to the creatures,” Tim recollects, “so the marines could shoot their heads off, but they could still shoot back before they died. He thought it added more meat to the gameplay, so he drove that thought and inspired us to do that. Paul was our only animator, and he did model, too, so you could see his personality in some of the characters in Quake II.”

But far from merely injecting their personalities into Quake II, those working on the title put everything they had into its development. Tim believes that youthful exuberance ultimately got the game over the finishing line, but he admits to cutting things a bit fine when it came to putting together the last remaining stage. “We put some crazy hours in, but we were all young. We made the hangar mission—which is not the greatest mission in the world—in the weeks before we shipped. It definitely came in hot!”

As well as a major shareholder in id Software, Activision was also Quake II’s publisher, and although the firm trusted id to deliver on time, it did have issues with the fact that the game required a fast PC that was preferably equipped with top-end graphics hardware. “Activision was concerned that you needed to have a graphics card,” Tim accepts, “that it was required for Quake II. But you know what? By the time Quake II came out everyone was pretty hot for the new graphics cards and CPUs. It was kind of the norm. Quake II was not the only game that you needed to buy the new cards for. The Epic guys were making great stuff, and there were lots of games companies who were making cutting-edge games, so it wasn’t really that big of a deal.”

On Quake II’s release, it became clear that Tim’s assessment of the wider gaming market had been correct and that Activision’s anxieties had been unfounded. The game sold nearly a quarter of a million copies in its first few months on sale alone and garnered unanimous praise from the press, praise that still endures to this day, although Tim’s memories of the critical and commercial response to Quake II have faded over time. “I don’t remember. Did Quake II get good reviews?” Tim asks us. “I always tried to focus on the game. I really loved working on Quake II, and I felt personally that I had grown a lot as a designer. We had such fun making that game, and there was so much talent. We were more focused, we were more design-driven and we all liked each other. So it really showed in the product, you know. Quake II was a labour of love that I was very proud of.”

In the years that followed, id licensed the engine that had powered Quake II for use in a number of popular third-party titles, each of which Tim viewed with pride. “They were all great,” Tim exclaims. “I loved all of the Quake II engine games. We were blessed to work with teams like Raven, Ritual and Activision that took the Quake II engine and did amazing things with it. And look at Half-Life, which changed the industry, I mean, it was awesome. They felt like id games. I always brag about the origins of those games and how they were based on id Software technology. We were always a small company, so we had a small foot. But we had a giant footprint, and that was the software—that was always a point of pride.”

When looking back at Quake II, Tim offers an equally enthusiastic appraisal, with his one caveat being his conviction that the much-loved id FPS should’ve had a different name and should’ve been the first chapter in a new franchise. “Well it’s still fun,” Tim notes, “there’s still a ton of people that really love it. We made the rockets slower than Quake, and some people are sad about that. Some people love Quake II’s speed, some people prefer Quake’s speed; it just depends on which Quake you played first. Quake II should have been called something different in my personal opinion—I will say that. But you know what? We did a lot of fun things, and it was a good time to be in the industry; it was a good time for id Software. And then, of course, the greatest gun ever was the railgun. Quake II was the culmination of the people that worked on it, because everyone was pretty unique and different in the team, and we really tried to be pretty flat in our design structure. So it was fun to work on the game.”

How Quake II compares on other systems

Mac3D graphics cards for Macs didn’t become common until the late-Nineties, so it’s unsurprising that the Mac Quake II arrived two years after the PC release. The wait was worth it, though, as the Mac version is all but identical to the original. So much so that Mac and PC Quake II owners can face off in online deathmatches.

N64Essentially a reworking of the PC original designed to better suit the N64’s reliance on cartridge-based storage, Quake II on Nintendo’s system features stripped-back levels coupled with simplified systems. N64 Quake II does feel like the original, however, as it shares its aesthetics and game design.

PlayStationSlightly less impressive than the N64 version in terms of speed and visuals, the PlayStation Quake II does convert levels from the Nintendo iteration nicely. Like the N64 port, the PlayStation Quake II has splitscreen multiplayer, it also adapts stages from the original game and boasts two exclusive Strogg opponents.

AmigaBy 2002, the five-year-old Quake II was looking a little long in the tooth compared to cutting-edge FPS titles, but id’s release of its source code the year prior convinced Hyperion Entertainment to release an Amiga version. The end result is close to the original, but it requires a fast CPU and accelerated graphics card.

Quake II's best stages

Processing PlantBuilt to render down captured marines into a disgusting slime that the Strogg feed on, the processing plant houses seven macabre machines sited on a circular route. Besides one tank commander, your mission to disable the machines is met with low-level opposition, although surprise attacks are common, so stealth tactics are advised.

Big GunThe big gun mission’s solid middle section pales in comparison to the epic boss fight at its start and the heart-stopping race to safety at its finale. The mission’s airborne boss—the Hornet—requires you to pepper it with heavy gunfire followed by taking cover when it returns fire, while the mission’s end-of-level escape leaves no margin for error.

Inner HangarThe objective of storming the inner hangar is to close its doors and ground the Stroggs’ spacecrafts. As the hanger is heavily guarded a slow, steady approach is recommended, particularly when negotiating its floating blocks and giant cogs. The Hornet guarding the hanger entrance is best tackled from a high vantage point.

OutlandsBar for a gun emplacement near its start, whose operator can be taken out with a ranged weapon, the outlands mission is a high-tempo test of marksmanship. Following a hill pass, you cut across bridges and through caves while avoiding barracudas. Finally, you activate the air strike marker, take cover and then make your way to the exit.

Outer CourtsDeep within the outer courts there’s a data spinner that’s required to shut down a Strogg communication system. The route to your target begins with a dangerous, stomach churning cliff-edge walk, after which the going gets tough, so have your biggest guns ready. The spinner itself is located after a disorienting underwater section.

1996: the year of both classic FPS Quake and of the famous viral video of a dancing virtual baby, which spawned an equally famous GIF that was emailed across offices around the world. Joshua Skelton, lead artist on first-person rogue-like Delver, has now combined the two, as you can see above.

As he says in the tweet, it's not all about getting the babies into the game: he's creating a tool to convert GIFs into in-game sprites. It's apparently quite simple to pull off. "I just renamed baby.spr to soldier.mdl! The Quake engine treats 2D sprites and 3D meshes (and 3D maps!) generically as models and they can (mostly) be used interchangeably," he says.

Another Twitter user replied with an important question: what if you shoot your grenade launcher at the babies? Thankfully nothing, Skelton says: they just keep on dancing.

My money is on a smiling Robert Redford making it into the game next.

QuakeCon is coming back in August for the 23rd time, and will be free to attend unless you want to take part in the traditional BYOC—Bring Your Own Computer—tournament. In that case you'll need to sign up for one of three entrance packages, ranging in price from $75 to $400. Also up for grabs is a QuakeCon 2018 Swag Pack, which includes the ultimate must-have accessory for the discriminating Quake fan: An inflatable rocket launcher. 

The Swag Pack is $150, which is an awful lot for an inflatable toy. But it also comes with a "premium roll-over backpack," three pins, a stainless steel water bottle, a QuakeCon air freshener (we're not sure what it smells like—my guess is a sultry blend of three-day-old socks and anger, but it could also be Spring Lavender), a mouse pad, and a luggage tag. I won't say that justifies the price, because that's really a personal decision that only you can make, but I will say that an inflatable rocket launcher would look awfully sweet on the wall above the mantle. 

The slight bit of bad news here is that tickets aren't actually on sale yet: Bethesda said it's in the process of putting together "a better, smoother process for registration," perhaps to accommodate the double-sized BYOC rumble, and it's taking a little longer than expected to pull everything together. Details on the when-and-how of the registration process will be revealed soon, and for now you can ponder the pricing below. 

It looks like Quake has just got its own version of Brutal Doom, the ultra-violent (and ultra popular) fan-made mod for id Software's 1993 FPS behemoth. Qore adds heaps of guts and gore to Quake, and it looks bloody brilliant.

You can dismember enemies, decapitate them, and generally smash their bodies into hundreds of red, squishy pieces. If you use the lightning gun you can actually electrify bits of innards, and if an enemy dies from an explosion there's a chance that their severed limbs will flame as they fly through the air. Flesh wounds will show up more than ever, too: basically, your screen will be plastered with red.

Qore adds a scary chainsaw that pins enemies in place if they have low health, cutting through them until they go splat. You can saw dead enemies to dig out extra bits of health and ammo as well. Nice.

You can grab Qore here, where you can also watch the mod in action. Creator DaisyFlower says they will continue to work on the mod, adding new enemy attacks among other things.

Technically, Qore is actually a mod for DarkPlaces, another fan project that improves the original Quake in pretty much every area. You'll need to download DarkPlaces here to run Qore.

Hat tip, DSOGaming.