Hard to believe it's been 30 years since Quake came out. Time flies and all that. Anyway, kudos to the devs on releasing this for free if you already own the base game.

Personally, I was never the biggest fan of Quake 1. Back in the day, it ran kinda slow on my Pentium 133 at higher resolutions (i.e. above 320x200), and its low-polygon enemies didn't look so great even then. Compare that to Duke3D, which came out around the same time, had better environment interactivity, ran fine at 640x480, and had more detailed (though sprite-based) enemies.

I still appreciated Quake for its fully 3D environments, dark atmosphere and foreboding soundtrack, but it never really clicked with me. The sequel was much more to my liking. I especially remember being blown away by the colored lighting, and how the glow from the blaster pistol illuminated the surroundings.

There seems to be no direct download of this new "Dawn of the Machine" episode. I don't suppose it will work on the original 1996 DOS Quake, either. If someone may prove me wrong by providing download links to a DOS-compatible version of the episode, I'll be mightily impressed.

zyzzle wrote on 2026-08-07, 05:41:

There seems to be no direct download of this new "Dawn of the Machine" episode. I don't suppose it will work on the original 1996 DOS Quake, either. If someone may prove me wrong by providing download links to a DOS-compatible version of the episode, I'll be mightily impressed.

It doesn't run on the original engine, it's designed for the updated KEX engine currently sold in digital storefronts. It's also commercially licensed content so you won't find a regular download link.

I am slowly making my way through Quake using vkQuake, it is still a lot of mindless fun. But the game is all over the place in terms of pacing, atmosphere and level design. It's like every episode was made by someone who had a completely different idea about what the game was supposed to be. And then the episodes just got thrown in together to release a game and showcase the engine. It works, and it's fun, but man it is so weird overall 🤣

Also, vkQuake is amazing.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2026-08-07, 04:33:

Hard to believe it's been 30 years since Quake came out. Time flies and all that. Anyway, kudos to the devs on releasing this for free if you already own the base game.

Personally, I was never the biggest fan of Quake 1. Back in the day, it ran kinda slow on my Pentium 133 at higher resolutions (i.e. above 320x200), and its low-polygon enemies didn't look so great even then. Compare that to Duke3D, which came out around the same time, had better environment interactivity, ran fine at 640x480, and had more detailed (though sprite-based) enemies.

I still appreciated Quake for its fully 3D environments, dark atmosphere and foreboding soundtrack, but it never really clicked with me. The sequel was much more to my liking. I especially remember being blown away by the colored lighting, and how the glow from the blaster pistol illuminated the surroundings.

30 years....!

but yes, i also appreciated quake at the time, especially some of its technical achievements like lighting, but then went back to playing duke3d because it was more fun for me. I have appreciated quake more over time though

NeoG_ wrote on 2026-08-07, 06:41:

It doesn't run on the original engine, it's designed for the updated KEX engine currently sold in digital storefronts. It's also commercially licensed content so you won't find a regular download link.

Yeah, so everywhere I turn everybody's raving about the awesome new FREE add on for 30-year old Quake and I ask myself what's the point if you can't actually run it on your 30-year old hardware and software??? What a huge letdown.

On a side note, that's also why I'm not a fan of modern "pixel art" games. If the devs are so smart, why don't they make the games actually run on a real SNES? Sheesh 😜

revolstar wrote on 2026-08-24, 13:23:

Yeah, so everywhere I turn everybody's raving about the awesome new FREE add on for 30-year old Quake and I ask myself what's the point if you can't actually run it on your 30-year old hardware and software??? What a huge letdown.

Yes, that's not a free add-on for a 30-year-old game. Its a reboot / remake and it's cheating and disingenuous to falsely lead people on claiming it will be compatible with the original DOS version when it isn't in the least bit. You need a modern system with all the usual bullshit and bloat installed to even think about running it.

in the meantime if you want another good 30th anniversary map pack that'll work on the non-bethesda engines and has amazing new tricks and an OST, there's Tremor. (not to be confused with past shovelware of that name as the thesaurus can only take quake so far)