On Thursday, a rumor spread regarding a possible new Quake game being developed. A semi-reliable leaker claimed they'd heard about the new game's development, said to be co-developed between Doom's id Software and Wolfenstein's MachineGames. That rumor has now developed in an exciting way. A QuakeCon schedule update that's now been deleted has provided evidence that not only is a new Quake game in development, but it's a throwback to classic Quake.

The leak in question showed a panel description for an event named "Let's Talk Quake," which has since been removed from the official QuakeCon website. It's tentatively planned to air on Friday, August 20, at 5:30 AM PT/8:30 AM ET and will last an hour. The description starts with the statement, "Quake is back." Further into the description, it explains that MachineGames will discuss new content that it has "contributed to this revitalized edition." Suffice to say, there's a lot to read into this leak.

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While the description of the new Quake game isn't specific, there's a clear message to be found. "Revitalized edition" implies that the game will be a remastered or repackaged compilation of one or more classic Quake games. Additionally, it's clear that MachineGames will be adding new content to this revitalized edition of Quake. What kind of and how expansive this content from MachineGames will be is up to fans to discover.

Quake fans shouldn't necessarily be overly excited about this, yet. It may be a much smaller-scale game than Quake fans would like to imagine. For context, at QuakeCon in July 2019 Bethesda announced and re-released Doom, Doom 2, and Doom 3 across multiple platforms, each updated in small ways to broaden the experience. There's precedent for what Bethesda could be doing again, only this time with Quake. This could just be a way of making all the Quake library easily accessible for a new generation.

Putting together new editions of classic Bethesda games is all the more important to the company now that it has been acquired by Microsoft. Bethesda has a back catalog of dozens of games, many that aren't readily available or accessible. Updated versions of Quake not only does makes those games widely available, but allows Xbox to put those games on Xbox Game Pass across all platforms. Therein lies a lot of the value of Microsoft's acquisition.

Until the new Quake game or Quake bundle is announced, it's possible that the leak isn't accurate. While the leak comes from an official source, it could have been a test post or listing and isn't accurate. Either way, Quake fans should look forward to QuakeCon's start on Thursday, August 19, when its opening keynote airs at 11:00 AM PT/2:00 PM ET.

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Source: PCGamer