Although it is often considered the weakest instalment in the Quake series, it remains memorable, even more than 20 years after its release.

We’ve been waiting a long time for Quake’s return, and now two new projects have emerged simultaneously. The original game has just received an official new episode to celebrate the shooter’s 30th anniversary, which is being marked at this year’s QuakeCon (we’ve already written about this). Raven Software’s Quake 4 has also joined the party, with a version of its abandoned expansion being discovered and uploaded to GitHub. Quake 4: Awakening was developed by Ritual Entertainment, the creators of the soon-to-be-remastered SiN and its abandoned episodic sequel. However, Activision cancelled the project due to disappointing sales of the base game.

The expansion was long thought lost until a veteran game developer stumbled upon a copy on the hard drive of a second-hand PC he had bought. That developer is Justin Marshall, a programmer who has worked on games such as The Evil Within, XCOM 2, Dead Island 2 and The Dark Pictures Anthology. Unfortunately, he is also one of the victims of the massive layoffs that have swept the industry. The discovery of the build clearly made a deep impression on him.

On the add-on’s GitHub page, Marshall explains that he found it during a very sad period in his life on the hard drive of an old computer he had bought on Amazon. He says it essentially saved his life, as he was in the middle of a divorce and the fact that he stumbled upon something like this by accident was simply unbelievable. Important clues can be found in the configuration files, some of which are named after Ritual employees, including the legendary Duke Nukem 3D level designer Richard ‘Levelord’ Gray and Michael ‘RomSteady’ Russell, who had previously spoken about the Quake 4 expansion. Last year, he said the expansion was 95% complete before Activision shut down the project.

The expansion features the first three missions, which include new weapons such as a cryogenic cannon, as well as a section where the player controls a mech. While some elements (such as a few scripted events) appear unfinished, Russell’s assessment of the expansion’s completion status appears to be accurate. Marshall says he uploaded the expansion for archival purposes, in the hope that the community will be able to create something impressive with it.

Given its current state, it’s possible that fans will be able to finish it!

Source: PCGamer, GitHub