In fact, id Software’s gothic shooter came back into the limelight not that long ago. Last August, a remaster of Quake launched on Steam, which came bundled with a number of goodies, including 4K visuals and a brand-new expansion pack. It also reinstated the full version of one of John Romero’s maps, which had to be cut in the original to save space on the disk. No doubt many have been getting back into the iconic game, but the new remaster has also provided newcomers the chance to step back across the ages and check out this classic FPS.

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Now user Sultim Tsyrendashiev, also known as sultim-t, has released their own mod for the original Quake, which implements full ray tracing capabilities. A trailer opens by saying, in the style of G-Man, that a similar Half-Life modification has had to be delayed, before the video then bursts into life by showing the new and improved version of Quake. A side-by-side comparison shows that, while still retaining the look of the original game, it’s got lovely lighting effects galore, with some spectacular reflections, shadows, and overall illumination. It all looks very impressive, especially for a game this old.

The same modder has been working on a ray tracing mod for Half-Life for some time now, which was reported on at the start of this year. There doesn’t appear to be any indication as to why this one has been delayed. In the video, during a black screen with white text that appears, similarly to Valve’s maiden release, it simply says that the reason is “awaiting further data,” which suggests it could be awhile before it emerges.

Half-Life is revered to this day, while Quake still has an active community. The former helped push the genre forward by integrating environmental storytelling and bringing the world Gordon Freeman, while the latter achieved fully 3D modeling, taking what id Software learned from Doom and setting new boundaries once again.

Quake was originally released in 1996 and is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Half-Life was released in 1998 for PC, and was later ported to PS2.

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Source: DSO Gaming, GitHub