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Out of the blue, one of the games from the id's Holy Trinity of Classics, Quake, hits the Nintendo Switch, PS4/5, Xbox One/Series and PC on a rather quiet release, with the price of $9.99.

The original Quake released back in 1996 saw the main protagonist go against an ancient evil and its hordes of Lovecraftian creatures. This port is an enhanced version of the original, featuring widescreen and 1080p support, enhanced models, revamped lighting, and much more, including the original 2 Expansion packs and 2 new ones added in this exclusive release.

You can check out the full list of features that this port includes in the official Nintendo eShop page.

Developed by the award-winning id Software, Quake® is the ground-breaking, original dark fantasy first-person shooter that inspires today’s retro-style FPS games. Now, experience the authentic, updated, and visually enhanced version of the original.

Experience the Original Game, Enhanced
Enjoy the original, authentic version of Quake, now with up to 1080p* and widescreen resolution support, enhanced models, dynamic and colored lighting, anti-aliasing, depth of field, the original, atmospheric soundtrack and theme song by Trent Reznor, and more. There’s never been a better time to play Quake.

Play the Dark Fantasy Campaign
You are Ranger, a warrior armed with a powerful arsenal of weapons. Fight corrupted knights, deformed ogres and an army of twisted creatures across four dark dimensions of infested military bases, ancient medieval castles, lava-filled dungeons and gothic cathedrals in search of the four magic runes. Only after you have collected the runes will you hold the power to defeat the ancient evil that threatens all of humanity.

Get the Original & New Expansion Packs
Quake also comes with both original expansion packs: “The Scourge of Armagon” and “Dissolution of Eternity,” as well as two expansions developed by the award-winning team at MachineGames: “Dimension of the Past,” and the all-new “Dimension of the Machine.”

Discover the All-New “Dimension of the Machine” Expansion
In the deepest depths of the labyrinth lies the core of lava and steel known only as The Machine. Crusade across time and space against the forces of evil to bring together the lost runes, power the dormant machine, and open the portal hiding the greatest threat to all known worlds—destroy it...before it destroys us all.

Enjoy Online & Local Multiplayer and CO-OP
Fight through the dark fantasy base campaign and expansions in 4-player online or local split-screen co-op, and compete in pure, retro-style combat with support for 8-player (online) or 4-player (local split-screen) matches. Featuring dedicated server support for online matchmaking and peer-to-peer support for custom matches.

Download Additional, Free Mods & Missions
Expand your experience with free, curated, fan-made and official mods and missions such as Quake 64, which is available to download and play now. More fan-made and official mods and missions coming soon.

Play Together with Crossplay
Play the campaign and all expansion packs cooperatively or go toe-to-toe in multiplayer matches with your friends regardless of platform! Crossplay is supported among PC (controller-enabled), Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5 and Nintendo Switch.

Motion Aiming Ready
Improve your gunplay with an option that allows you to aim using gyro controls. The option can be used in conjunction with the control stick for the perfect blend of immersion and accuracy.

*Maximum display resolutions vary by platform.

Source

 

[DoctorEvil8]

Is it the same NIN soundtrack from the original?

 

[ut2k4master]

Is it the same NIN soundtrack from the original?

yes

 

[bonkmaykr]

MVG (Modern Vintage Gamer / Lantus / Dimitris Giannakis) was one of the developers, couldn't discuss it due to NDA

Mad respect for that man. He's got to be some kind of porting god.

MVG, if you're watching this, great videos and keep up the good work. Also, thanks for showing me the world of Wii hacking I wouldn't have been able to recover my old WiiWare library otherwise.

That all said, I don't think Nintendo would allow the port if they knew homebrew devs were involved. Nintendo doesn't exactly have a good track record when it comes to software freedom... ouch

 

[bonkmaykr]

So I read this, then thought to Google if it was on Game Pass and the audible gasp I did as I saw Quake 3 was added was fucking insane.

Then when I saw it was PC only, my heart sank.

Yeah unfortunately, Quake III has gotten the short end of the stick in terms of ports and mods, so I don't think there's alot of ways to run it on a console right now aside from the Dreamcast release.

 

[DJPlace]

nice i may get this on my switch since it's cross play but i need a 256GB card now... does anyone know if co-op has online?

 

[bonkmaykr]

Seems the filesize has increased alot... probably that new episode.

 

[Reploid]

It's not Nintendo Switch, PS4/5, Xbox One and Series plus PC. Its PC plus Nintendo Switch, PS4/5, Xbox One and Series

 

[bonkmaykr]

It's not Nintendo Switch, PS4/5, Xbox One and Series plus PC. Its PC plus Nintendo Switch, PS4/5, Xbox One and Series

 

[kevin corms]

To be more accurate, it was available on PC via Steam for years(as well as originally being on PC, duh). It just got a free update with all the remastered stuff and restored content.

Lets be clear, they updated the old game and ported it to current consoles. "remaster" is just a marketing term used for ports.

 

[bonkmaykr]

For anyone playing the Kex Engine port on Linux, you might need to add this to your launch options for it to work with Proton 6 GE:

+r_rhirenderfamily opengl

Seems like Vulkan has issues

 

[Jacobh]

I always thought the original software-only rendered Quake was ugly (even compared to the 2D sprite bases FPS of the time). When GLQuake came out with hardware rendering support that definitely wowed me at the time.

 

[M7L7NK7]

That all said, I don't think Nintendo would allow the port if they knew homebrew devs were involved. Nintendo doesn't exactly have a good track record when it comes to software freedom... ouch

They wouldn't care if he ports cannonball or chocolate doom or whatever as he isn't messing with their IPs, he's making them money by porting quake

 

[EvilJagaGenius]

Apparently this is a true Nightdive release, in that it does not actually run on the Quake engine but instead runs on the Kex engine. Which is likely the reason mod support is so limited, each mod they would release would need to be rebuilt from the ground up for a completely new engine. I've also heard the new episode can't run in actual Quake engines yet... don't know what it'll take to fix that.

I get that Nightdive does good work, making old FPSs playable by reworking them into their Kex engine... but this just was not the right way to do this for Quake. It feels like cramming Doom into the Unity engine. It's cute but it's not Doom anymore. And it's not like there's any shortage of Quake source code, id themselves maintains a Github repository for it.
I do realize I'm being overly negative here, it's great that Quake has a rerelease with all the multiplayer bits but this irritates me a lot more than it should.

I don't have Quake on Steam so I can't verify this, but I believe the old files are still buried somewhere in this new release. So you can take the original .paks, load them into a source port, and roll your own cross-platform Quake remaster with mod support. If I may make some suggestions...
- Darkplaces or Quakespasm-spiked engine for enhanced graphics, FTEQW for splitscreen
- Authentic Models to mimic Nightdive's model tweaks. There's an addon for angled weapons too
- Alternatively, if you prefer Q2's guns like me, try the Quake 1.5 Weapons, they're beautiful
- Episode 5: Dimensions of the Past by MachineGames
- This Steam guide should help you get the soundtrack playing
- If you're looking for some fun mods to try out, I like Zerstorer, and old-school mod with some new guns, it can be finicky to get running though. Nehahra is a cinematic mod with machinima cutscenes alongside new weapons and enemies. Quake 1.5 is my absolute favorite running on an included Darkplaces build... it's good stuff. Slayer's Testaments is a fantastic demake of Doom '16 and Eternal by the same author. Copper makes subtle polishes to the gameplay. Here's a port of the Sega Saturn secret levels. And finally there's Arcane Dimensions, one of the biggest and best mods.

EDIT: So due to this I've been playing some more Quake mods. Epochs of Enmity was created after Episode 5 as a sort of unofficial Episode 6, and it's pretty good. Not sure about the mod compatibility. The Demon King is really cool stuff - instead of being an episode of levels, one after the other, it's a small interconnected world. Monsters you kill stay dead for the most part, and it plays like an adventure game, you need to find keys and clues to figure out what happened to the village and its local wizard.

 

[Purple_Shyguy]

Apparently this is a true Nightdive release, in that it does not actually run on the Quake engine but instead runs on the Kex engine. Which is likely the reason mod support is so limited, each mod they would release would need to be rebuilt from the ground up for a completely new engine. I've also heard the new episode can't run in actual Quake engines yet... don't know what it'll take to fix that.

I get that Nightdive does good work, making old FPSs playable by reworking them into their Kex engine... but this just was not the right way to do this for Quake. It feels like cramming Doom into the Unity engine. It's cute but it's not Doom anymore. And it's not like there's any shortage of Quake source code, id themselves maintains a Github repository for it.
I do realize I'm being overly negative here, it's great that Quake has a rerelease with all the multiplayer bits but this irritates me a lot more than it should.

I don't have Quake on Steam so I can't verify this, but I believe the old files are still buried somewhere in this new release. So you can take the original .paks, load them into a source port, and roll your own cross-platform Quake remaster with mod support. If I may make some suggestions...
- Darkplaces or Quakespasm-spiked engine for enhanced graphics, FTEQW for splitscreen
- Authentic Models to mimic Nightdive's model tweaks. There's an addon for angled weapons too
- Alternatively, if you prefer Q2's guns like me, try the Quake 1.5 Weapons, they're beautiful
- Episode 5: Dimensions of the Past by MachineGames
- This Steam guide should help you get the soundtrack playing
- If you're looking for some fun mods to try out, I like Zerstorer, and old-school mod with some new guns, it can be finicky to get running though. Nehahra is a cinematic mod with machinima cutscenes alongside new weapons and enemies. Quake 1.5 is my absolute favorite running on an included Darkplaces build... it's good stuff. Slayer's Testaments is a fantastic demake of Doom '16 and Eternal by the same author. Copper makes subtle polishes to the gameplay. Here's a port of the Sega Saturn secret levels. And finally there's Arcane Dimensions, one of the biggest and best mods.

The only issues so far with episode 6 is text not appearing properly and crashes upon triggering secrets. It runs fine besides that. I imagine a few days and that will be fixed.

 

[bonkmaykr]

Apparently this is a true Nightdive release, in that it does not actually run on the Quake engine but instead runs on the Kex engine. Which is likely the reason mod support is so limited, each mod they would release would need to be rebuilt from the ground up for a completely new engine. I've also heard the new episode can't run in actual Quake engines yet... don't know what it'll take to fix that.

I suppose with this in mind, having Quakespasm or ezQuake replace the game files for "Quake (Original)" in Steam would be good for mods and community servers, while using Bethesda's Kex engine for the original game since its compatible with everything on that side and has some nice bonus features and prettymuch everything else you'd need. That's what I'm going to do, anyway.

EDIT: is it just me or are the physics a bit off?
e1m1's ramp with the 3 switches has you slide down slowly if you stand still on it. not sure that was in the original, can anyone confirm?

 

[Purple_Shyguy]

I suppose with this in mind, having Quakespasm or ezQuake replace the game files for "Quake (Original)" in Steam would be good for mods and community servers, while using Bethesda's Kex engine for the original game since its compatible with everything on that side and has some nice bonus features and prettymuch everything else you'd need. That's what I'm going to do, anyway.

EDIT: is it just me or are the physics a bit off?
e1m1's ramp with the 3 switches has you slide down slowly if you stand still on it. not sure that was in the original, can anyone confirm?

Going around.

"I can't remember the specifics, but because of rounding errors and physics being tied to framerate, the best framerate for quake 1 was 72 FPS. In the new engine, there's 2 FPS related commands. One is cl_enginefps, which regulates the RENDERING framerate, and the other is cl_enginehz, which regulates the game logic. This implies they separated the physics and rendering framerates. However cl_enginehz caps at 60, and lower values just have a timescale effect. I recorded a short clip in vanilla and remaster client that shows how different jumping and air acceleration is. I thought I had just gotten awful at strafing, however after hopping on joequake and hitting this strafe first try I realized it was the client lmfao. I should run some more tests in vanilla clients at different framerates too, I guess. cl_enginefps doesn't seem to have any effect on physics."

So yeah there are physics differences right now.

 

[pedro702]

Quakespasm was ported to Switch and is much better than this Nightdive port.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


I think its possibly a vsync issue? This port has tons of shaders and stuff which people on pc have said that those with vsync on has caused input lag and so most have been turning vsync off. We don't get that choice.

nightdive does amazing remakes with alot more stuff, calling it a port is kinda stupid.

 

[RedoLane]

Lets be clear, they updated the old game and ported it to current consoles. "remaster" is just a marketing term used for ports.

I guess? It really doesn't matter how it's called. you can even call it an enhanced port if it makes you feel better.

 

[bonkmaykr]

Going around.

"I can't remember the specifics, but because of rounding errors and physics being tied to framerate, the best framerate for quake 1 was 72 FPS. In the new engine, there's 2 FPS related commands. One is cl_enginefps, which regulates the RENDERING framerate, and the other is cl_enginehz, which regulates the game logic. This implies they separated the physics and rendering framerates. However cl_enginehz caps at 60, and lower values just have a timescale effect. I recorded a short clip in vanilla and remaster client that shows how different jumping and air acceleration is. I thought I had just gotten awful at strafing, however after hopping on joequake and hitting this strafe first try I realized it was the client lmfao. I should run some more tests in vanilla clients at different framerates too, I guess. cl_enginefps doesn't seem to have any effect on physics."

So yeah there are physics differences right now.

Well, that fucking sucks. I guess this port isn't valid for speedruns.

As far as I can tell though, movement exploits are still possible. I was able to bhop just fine, and by just fine, I mean as good as I'm able to on a craptop keyboard (not at home right now, please forgive me). So the casual experience definitely isn't compromised.

I guess since this port was mostly focused on consoles they weren't too concerned with movement techniques that were KB&M only

 

[SkittleDash]

I'm laughing my ass off at their recommended specs on Steam. Minimum being even more hilarious.