Why it matters: Quake turned 30 this year, and QuakeCon, the LAN party that grew up alongside it, reached the same milestone. Normally, anniversaries like these bring little more than a storefront sale and a nostalgic look back. But over the past day, Quake fans got much more than that. Two separate troves of new Quake content surfaced: one released by id Software itself – a welcome surprise. The other was even more unexpected, arriving through a far stranger route involving a secondhand computer.
During QuakeCon's opening ceremony, id Software and MachineGames released Dawn of the Machine, a free expansion for the original 1996 Quake. MachineGames, the Swedish studio behind the modern Wolfenstein games and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, has previously developed two Quake episodes.
Dawn of the Machine features 19 new maps woven into a single, continuous campaign. It also includes a new soundtrack composed by one of MachineGames' level designers, along with a new deathmatch map and a gallery of unused development assets from Quake's earliest days.
Those 19 maps aren't a straight run from start to finish, however. You once again play as Ranger, the original game's silent marine, who is trapped in an illusory dimension where time continually folds back on itself. As a result, the campaign is built around looping runs. Runes collected during each run unlock paths that were sealed off on previous attempts, while health and ammo upgrades carry over between loops. To escape, players must track down and destroy an entity known as the Nightmare Machine.
Familiar Quake monsters have been reworked to keep those repeat visits interesting. The Rocket Ogre, Demo Dog, and Blood Shambler all behave differently from what you might remember. On your side are weapon variants pulled from older Quake expansions. The Super Axe unleashes lightning after repeated hits, while the Laser Cannon fires shots that ricochet off walls.
Everyone who owns Quake gets the expansion for free on Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, Game Pass, and Switch. GOG and Epic Games Store owners are sitting this one out for now.
The other Quake release of the week isn't on a storefront at all. It concerns Quake 4, Raven Software's 2005 sequel, which put players in the role of Marine Corporal Matthew Kane during the war against the Strogg, the cyborg aliens introduced in Quake II. An expansion called The Awakening was planned for the game but was ultimately dropped after Quake 4 sold below expectations.
An unfinished alpha build of The Awakening is now available on GitHub. Justin Marshall, a 16-year game industry veteran, says he found it on the hard drive of a vintage PC he purchased on Amazon. Footage he shared earlier this year showed two new weapons and two new Strogg enemies.
Discoveries like this are often the only reason canceled games survive at all. That's also the point the Video Game History Foundation was making when its founder argued that piracy remains the only viable means of preserving large portions of gaming history.
Just keep in mind that you'll need a retail copy of Quake 4 to run the alpha build.