The info was spotted by Gematsu, always first on the news come rain or shine. As they point out, the timing of the classification of Quake II Remastered fits perfectly with the approach of QuakeCon 2023, scheduled for August 10-13 in Grapevine, Texas. You won’t need our analysis to understand how important the historic franchise is to them. Already in 2021, Quake Remastered first of the name was announced at QuakeCon with great fanfare.
And the content, then?
If we base ourselves on the first opus, Quake II Remastered should feature a graphics update suitable for modern systems as well as all released expansion packs, either The Reckoning And ground zero. To see if the Netpack I: Extremities would also be part of it. We can also consider a pack of new levels, like Dimension of the Machinewhich enriched Quake Remastered of about fifteen levels.
Note that in 2019, Nvidia released the free Quake II RTX demo to showcase the power of their raytracing software and hardware solutions. Still live on Steam, this port from Lightspeed Studios in-house team features the first three levels of the game, exactly the same as when the original was just a demo shareware to hang out with friends. A nostalgia pill on steroids that shouldn’t have a direct connection to this new remaster, likely co-managed by Bethesda and Nightdive Studios.
Only time – well, QuakeCon 2023 – will tell if all of these guesses are correct.