Revitalized Ancient - An overview and some clarifications about Nightdive's remastered Quake

Bethesda recently published a remaster for Quake by Nightdive Studios using their Kex engine. The Kex engine technology provides many features that have not been standard or just difficult to implement in most traditional sourceports for Quake. The main gimmick is that it updates Quake to modern standards such as providing matchmaking and also gives console players a proper taste of a classic that PC gamers have been enjoying for the past few decades; with the odd retro console enthusiasts encountering the old console ports here and there. One of the biggest features that excites me the most is splitscreen multiplayer which works right out of the box and only requires you to plug in extra controllers. If everyone happens to own the game on different compatible platforms though, PC and console players can play Quake together through crossplay matchmaking. At first, I was not a fan of the update until I realized it was mostly aimed at console players, but once I started playing the remaster exclusively with a controller I realized it was a totally acceptable experience. Since then, I have taken every opportunity to play Quake with my brother who owns the remaster on Switch.

I can rant and talk about all of the changes made to the vanilla Quake experience found in the remaster (hereinafter KexQuake), but if I am really that bothered by these changes then nothing is stopping me from using a traditional sourceport for the classic installation and playing that. Thankfully, Bethesda did not replace or touch the original Quake files so they are still accessible with the Steam release; maybe other PC releases too, they merely made KexQuake launch by default and is in it’s own self-contained folder negating the need to rely on the original files. Just imagine the massive backlash otherwise. While most standard sourceports used across the classic community have options for 32-bit and 64-bit binaries, KexQuake only comes in a 64-bit executable which will leave enthusiasts of legacy operating systems and hardware out of the experience. If you are understandably adamant about sticking to the original Quake, FTE QuakeWorld is the closest solution to being all-in-one providing many of the features found in KexQuake and then some; including splitscreen and built-in add-on manager among 32-bit support.

Quake saw a few rough ports to consoles in the 90’s (with a cancelled port or two) and has largely remained a PC oriented title ever since. Dedicated members of the homebrew community have unofficially ported Quake onto consoles like the Dramcast, PSP and PS Vita but with crude and limited controller support. KexQuake is just what console players have needed for a long time in order to properly enjoy Quake. The most important feature that modernizes Quake is matchmaking which streamlines your sessions to just a few clicks, no longer do you have to press tilde and type in or paste commands with potentially long hostname addresses. Native controller support also bridges a longtime wide open gap for players who just want to have fun, along with that is an option to matchmake or host matches that only allow controllers to be used. I’m a huge fucking fan of native controller support in PC games because it makes splitscreen sessions operate smoothly without my guests having to wait long minutes for me to figure out why they can’t move.

One can argue about not being able to freely mod your game on consoles, limiting the replayability Quake is known for on PC to just the base game and the provided mission packs. There is an effort made to allow KexQuake to be expanded with further content post-release via the add-on menu option; at the moment of writing, only Quake 64 is available. This opens up an immense opportunity for classic commercial mission packs to make a comeback such as Abyss of Pandemonium, Malice, Shrak for Quake, and even Dark Hour as an honorable mention. The Quake PC community has been hard at work since the original launch serving several large scale map packs and an overabundance of individual maps. Most of this community generated content, if not all, deserves to be experienced by the new players brought on by KexQuake. Being able to enjoy my personal favorites such as the Coagula series in co-op using splitscreen or crossplay is an experience I relish. One aspect I do find concerning is the lack of any indication of whether we may or may not be getting additional multiplayer maps.

To me, KexQuake started out as a very unfavorable update to a legendary game. Over the course of several days, it has slowly grown on me as I started to acknowledge what it is meant to stand for. Seeing new faces getting down in Quake has revitalized an essence in the community that might not be recapturable again. I urge everyone to check out the remaster at your earliest convenience, especially if it is your first exposure to Quake. It’s certainly more enjoyable with a controller than with mouse & keyboard.