​

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

 

[bonkmaykr]

For the record, KEX isn't really an engine. It's more of a framework with useful utilities to help streamline actual engine development. So you still need to implement the actual engine code (in this case Quake) yourself. So this is still the Quake engine, it's just using the KEX framework.

So this is just idtech2 with a new cross-platform framework? I suppose that makes some sense. It still doesn't explain the physics differences and the incompatibility with other idtech source ports, however.

 

[Wavy]

So this is just idtech2 with a new cross-platform framework? I suppose that makes some sense. It still doesn't explain the physics differences and the incompatibility with other idtech source ports, however.

For the most part, yes. I can't really explain the physics nor the weirdness with other source-ports though

 

[Purple_Shyguy]

So this is just idtech2 with a new cross-platform framework? I suppose that makes some sense. It still doesn't explain the physics differences and the incompatibility with other idtech source ports, however.

The physics differences are from them capping the physics engine to 60fps where the original was 72fps. I think theyre going to patch this.
What other difference are you seeing?
The enhanced models wont work in other source ports as the new models use proper skeletel animations rather than standard vertex animation in quake. Thats exclusive to this port and not supported by other ports. Also the new episode not displaying text correctly on sourceports is because the text in the episode is linked to the new ports localisations language files for english/french/italian/spanish instead of just outputting a normal string like usual. Among other things.

 

[bonkmaykr]

The physics differences are from them capping the physics engine to 60fps where the original was 72fps. I think theyre going to patch this.
What other difference are you seeing?
The enhanced models wont work in other source ports as the new models use proper skeletel animations rather than standard vertex animation in quake. Thats exclusive to this port and not supported by other ports. Also the new episode not displaying text correctly on sourceports is because the text in the episode is linked to the new ports localisations language files for english/french/italian/spanish instead of just outputting a normal string like usual. Among other things.

Thank you for this useful technical insight.

So it's using old mixed with new. Therefore, it should be semi-compatible with prettymuch any mod for the original game, right? And the new assets are mostly compatible, it's just the few updated ones for menus and interpolated models that cause problems? That's what I'm understanding.

 

[realtimesave]

I got quake 2 rtx today and ran it on my 2080ti. I really like quake 2 still and the update made it pretty convenient to install though right now I’m just running shareware. It has no drm so I suppose it might work with my old copy.

I would be amazed if there hadn’t been a quake 1 home brew port on switch already. Though I know there was one on Wii and it was nice.

 

[ShadowOne333]

I got quake 2 rtx today and ran it on my 2080ti. I really like quake 2 still and the update made it pretty convenient to install though right now I’m just running shareware. It has no drm so I suppose it might work with my old copy.

I would be amazed if there hadn’t been a quake 1 home brew port on switch already. Though I know there was one on Wii and it was nice.

Quake has its fair share of Switch homebrew ports already.
There's at least 2 (I think?) currently available:

• TyrQuake (as a core through RetroArch)
• QuakespasmNX