Rumor mill: Bethesda revealed its schedule for QuakeCon 2021 yesterday, and fans immediately took notice of events which hint at a significant announcement regarding the Quake franchise. The page mentioning a "revitalized edition" was quickly altered to remove those words.
Bethesda's 2021 QuakeCon expo starts next Thursday, and the company plans to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the original Quake release. The schedule shows a "let's talk Quake" segment on Friday where Jerk Gustafsson from Machine Games will talk with Digital Foundry's John Linneman about the game's legacy.
As noticed by XboxEra, viewing the Friday schedule in the Wayback Machine reveals a line about what Machine Games is adding to a "revitalized edition." That line is gone in the current version of the schedule, which still says "Quake is back."
Gustaffson will also appear on Thursday to talk about the original Quake. The original Friday schedule text suggests he may make an announcement during the Thursday appearance.
Linneman, along with the rest of Digital Foundry, has become an authoritative voice on game tech analysis, with in-depth articles and videos including ones of retro games like Quake as well as modern ports of retro games like Quake II RTX. Adding ray tracing to the first Quake, similar to what Nvidia did with Quake II, is one such possibility.
In 2016, Machine Games, most recently known for the rebooted Wolfenstein games, released a new set of levels to celebrate Quake's 20th anniversary. The developer is currently working on an Indiana Jones title under the new Lucasfilm Games label.
One good reason to remaster Quake is that the original hasn't received any official versions for consoles since the Nintendo 64 and Sega Saturn. In recent years, Bethesda has put considerable effort into updating the original Doom and Doom II from the 90s to make it easier to play with some modern functionality and download fan-made maps on consoles and PC.