It was last updated in October 2013 to include 4K resolution support. You could just run vanilla Quake 2 straight from Steam, but there are multiple modded versions of the game that modify the original files with great features. Step 2 is deciding how you want to run the game. There’s also the $30 Quake Collection that packages up the older Quake games and their expansions.ĭownloading Quake II from Steam and installing it is the first step of the installation process. The easier option is to download Quake II on Steam for $10. But that’s a bit more work than most of us want to put into playing a game. If you want to build your own version of Quake 2 from the source code, you can download that on Github right here. This week’s Pixel Boost tackles one of the most popular versions of Quake II, KMQuake2, in 4K.

As a result, there are tons of customized versions of Quake II out there that apply higher resolution textures, easily support modern operating systems, and can run in widescreen at high resolutions. Quake II’s technology stuck around for years the iD Tech 2 engine powered games like Daikatana and Anachronox, and in 2001, John Carmack made the code open source.

It’s hard to overstate how big a deal a sequel to Quake was in 1997 as PC Gamer editor-in-chief Gary Whitta wrote in 1997, “Fourteen pages dedicated to a preview of one game? More than 70 screenshots? Have we gone insane? A few months ago we might have thought so ourselves-but that was before we saw Quake II in action for the first time.” In between those two landmark games, iD released Quake II, which added a more involved single-player campaign (with cinematics!) and native OpenGL support. Its influence is still felt today, and people are still playing it on Steam. In 1999, Quake III Arena defined the online multiplayer shooter.

In 1996, Quake brought the first-person shooter into a fully 3D world with 3D acceleration.

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