A Quake II remaster will be announced on 11 August, a report claims, likely as part of QuakeCon 2023.
Continuing the renaissance of what people are calling ‘boomer shooters’ for some reason, a remaster of Quake II is going to be announced on 11 August. That’s according to Dealabs Magazine’s billbil-kun (via Reddit) a French journalist who has a good track record when it comes to sneaking out industry gossip early. For reference, billbil-kun was the person who first brought word of the rebooted Mortal Kombat in May.
According to their sources, Quake II remastered will be revealed during QuakeCon 2023, which will run from 10 to 13 August in Texas. Billbil-kun’s post adds that much of the information comes from ESRB rating documents, which reveal that the game will be made public on 11 August.
Much like 2021’s Quake reissue, Quake II is being developed for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Switch. It’s also said that the remaster will be available on the day of release on Game Pass.
Talk of a Quake II remaster has been in circulation for a few weeks now, with Gematsu spotting a reference to it on a game rating site in South Korea in June. Since that listing, it seems that publisher Bethesda has opted to drop the word ‘Remastered’ from the title, and Billbil-kun’s report says it’s described as ‘Enhanced’ in ESRB literature.
Developed by Nightdive Studios, the 2021 Quake remaster featured improved lighting, character models and audio, as well as a full suite of its original expansions – including a new one, Dimension of the Machine, developed by Wolfenstein’s MachineGames.
It’s likely that Quake II will follow a similar pattern, given that it too got some expansion packs, including 1998’s The Reckoning and Ground Zero. It’ll be interesting to see whether the remastered Quake II will also get a new expansion created by a modern developer.
More news on all this as we get it.
