Two and a half decades after launching, id Software's gothic first-person shooter Quake is still heralded as a landmark 3D action game. However, when first released in 1996, an aspect of one of the original game's maps never made it to final release. The map in question was E2M6 which was recently restored for the Quake remaster. As a result, the level's creator, the one and only John Romero, has expressed joy that his creation has been reintroduced into the game.
Posting to Twitter yesterday, Romero congratulated id Software, Bethesda, and Machine Games on the release of the remastered version of Quake on Steam. In the tweet, he said he was both pleased and surprised that his E2M6 map, which is entitled "Dismal Oubliette" was restored. He seemed genuinely grateful that the map was put in as he intended back when the game was first being developed, saying that it "killed" him to have to cut it down.
In an additional tweet, Romero, who has been working on his sequel to his recent Doom map Sigil, added that the reason E2M6 had been cut down was due to file size. All maps had to be no more than 1.4MB in size, essentially the same storage capacity as a floppy disk. Given that the extended part of the map exceeded this strict limit, the developer had to trim it down. The content in question was the beginning of the level. Initially, the opening part began further back than in the commercial release. Players began in murky water and had to climb their way up, fighting off demons, before finding themselves at the area that eventually became Dismal Oubliette's new starting point.
Quake was unexpectedly updated on Steam, tipping fans off to the eventual remastered announcement later that day. The original was given a remastered makeover, which included improvements to some of the visuals, the reinstatement of Trent Reznor's soundtrack, and the inclusion of the official expansion packs. It has been a welcome update for fans of the original game.
With the remaster now on everyone's mind, talk has been going around about whether an official remake could happen in the future. Given that rumors did the rounds recently, which said that Quake may be getting a reimagining, only with a female protagonist, it seems as though the world is ready for a reboot. With the success of the Doom reboots, a remake of Quake would almost certainly be popular with longtime fans.
The Quake remaster is available on Steam now.