It features both split-screen and online multiplayer, new levels, and 4K.
Quake II gets a remaster for PC and consoles—and it’s exactly what it needs to be::It features both split-screen and online multiplayer, new levels, and 4K.
I'm torn. My head says yes, but Carmack and his revolutionary 3D tech milestones (of which Quake II was definitely one of them) are deffo tech worthy, and the fact that 90's shooters are unbelievably successful at the moment does make for an industry-defining trend right now.
Wow, quite an update! I bought Quake II on Steam a long time ago and I like that this update was free - they could have squeezed a few dollars out of me, but I'm glad they didnt make me but it a second time.
(Or actually a third time since I still have the original I got in the nineties. Come to think about it, I dont remember if I actually bought it on Steam or if I just entered some code from the original CD.)
An RTX version of Quake II was released on Steam a couple of years ago, but I tried it, and it does not seem to work with this new enhanced edition, which is a bit of a bummer.
It adhered tightly to 60 fps at max settings and 4K on my PC gaming rig (AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080, 32GB of RAM).
Since my desktop monitors are only 60 Hz, I briefly played it on the same system connected to my LG C1 TV and found that it didn't have any problem maintaining 120 fps at that resolution either.
But I played enough both then and now to know nothing at all has changed on the gameplay front, and that's a good thing because it's a very tight first-person shooter.
I had a little trouble finding lag-free online multiplayer matches; some were unplayable, even though the ping in the server list was fine.
There are some extras like achievements, concept art, and so on, but there's no big progression system metagame to tie all your multiplayer matches together like you see in modern online shooters.