Discussing 25th Anniversary of Quake

Quake's 25th Anniversary Logo.

This month has been pretty rough for me, to say the least. Although I don't want to keep go on about personal stuff, it was really hard to choose the topic for this week's post. Initially I thought about checking out some games at recent Steam Next Fest, but my motivation to play any game is still rather low. That's when I realized "Wait a minute, Quake's 25th Anniversary is happening this week!" So yeah, I got saved.

My celebration of this important day in gaming industry was pretty underwhelming. I thought about maybe finding some server to play Deathmatch on again (was fortunate to spot some "New DM" server on QSS; It was a lot of fun, even if I played mostly against bots), complete some more Arcane Dimensions maps... Instead, I just went through The Dimension of the Doomed. With that, I would like to discuss some announcements that were made at that day... and a bit of personal thoughts regarding Quake, sort of speak.

Official Celebration.

First of all, it's worth to bring up the event in Quake Champions that started in June. Quake Guy skin for Ranger & Gladus Axe vanity (both are models from the original game; latter was exclusive to Premium Battle Pass) were added into the game to celebrate Quake's 25th birthday. Just complete some in-game challenges and receive all this stuff. That's cute and nostalgic addition.

Time has come and Bethesda released an article that went in a bit of detail in regards to how they're going to celebrate this anniversary. The Dark Zone, quite popular "DM6" map from original game, will arrive to Quake Champions as a part of Summer Update in early July on top of adding/unlocking many Quake weapon skins for players. Also:

"We’re also creating some never-before-seen developer interviews and retrospectives that we can’t wait to share with you soon."

I love this kind of content as it's usually very interesting and fun. Will see how it goes this time. As you can see, that's it. Nothing else has been announced... yet? Recently dropped rumour about new Quake game sounds very questionable, to say the least. Don't recommend giving it too much thought, but it doesn't mean that something isn't in the works. Something might still happen a month later, July 22, as that's when full registered version of the game was released. Not to mention the upcoming Quakecon, which will be digital-only again, in August 19-21. Would be very good moment for something special.

Community Celebration.

There's no need to worry about the lack of proper celebration in case if previous mentioned stuff is all we're getting from Bethesda, id Software and others though. Because Quake community stepped in to celebrate the anniversary of their favorite game series in their own way!

Quake25 logo. Taken from Twitter.

And what a beautiful way it is. A few neat releases & announcements happen during anniversary day. Q25 Limits Jam is a compilation of maps that were made specifically within original limitations, so you can play it in WinQuake! Another project is Sinister 625 limited mappers to 6 textures, 2 surprises and 5 monster types. Lastly, Tremor was teased: 32 levels across four dimensions, unique soundtrack and good old 1996 experience in one package. It's not released yet, but I really want to get my hands to all this content.

Honestly, I'm not as much informed in regards to other games in the series. Even though Quake25 welcomed community of all titles in the series, it doesn't seem like anyone answered the call as only original Quake gets the spotlight. Don't get me wrong, it really should and I'm more of a fan of the first game anyway... but that's just a bit sad when you think about it. I just hope that other games will get a few moments to shine later on from both owner of the IP & gaming communities alike.

My Vague HUH Plans.

Despite my previously mentioned hiatus when it comes to playing games, I think it's obvious that Quake really hooked me up nowadays. There're many games I should go back again or for the first time and then there's a huge amount of Quake content I want to dig into. It's kind of surprising to me since usually I don't interact with mods and stuff like that all that much. Either way, I would say that my current "Quake Play List" looks somewhat like this:

• Beat remaining 9 Arcane Dimensions maps.

• Replay both Mission Packs.

• Dimension of the Past.

• Beyond Belief and maybe Malice.

• Dwell.

• Alkaline.

• Q25 Limits & Sinister 625 Jams.

• Waiting for Tremor and observing the development of Violent Rumble.

In other words, the world of Quake's community work is vast. What it's going to be like when I fall into DOOM in similar manner? Anyway, one last thing I want to bring up is... Trial of Runes. I've been thinking about it for a while now and I guess you can see that's kind of the reason why another "Just an Idea" post wasn't written yet. 

I'm still very uncertain and indecisive in regards to pursuing it, even though I did kind of started to read and watch reviews out of curiousity. Not that I think I'm catching up on everything, but using Trenchbroom doesn't seem all that difficult. Something tells me that I should stop drifting in this constant stream of paranoia and dread. When I think about it, this project could be a trial of my own. After all, I did had some thoughts about going into gaming industry. Modding is a good way to try yourself in this field. See if that's your thing.

From concerns about my laptop's conditions to desire to be more busy and productive in real life, there's a lot of actual and artificial obstacles on my way towards... being normal. I haven't even started going more deep into pixel art, despite my ambitions about it. This blog is the only thing I'm holding on too because I just think that's the right thing to do. Even though just 2-4 people read these stupid posts of mine, writing them is one of the few things I'm actually capable of. And I want to have more cards up my sleeve. Nobody would care? Well... I know.