Quake II

Quake II (vkQuake2)

kondrak/vkQuake2

vkQuake2: id Software’s official Quake II code, version 3.21, with a Vulkan renderer and the mission packs included (The Reckoning and Ground Zero, plus Zaero and Slight Mechanical Destruction). It aims to keep the original 1997 experience, which is why it builds directly on id’s code with no SDL-like libraries, so some of the original bugs may remain. It adds 64-bit support, more resolutions with interface scaling, slightly upgraded world colors (which can be turned off), the software renderer’s underwater warp effect, MSAA and sample shading, anisotropic filtering, the Nightmare/Hard+ skill in the menu, and OGG, FLAC, MP3, or WAV music besides CD audio. The software renderer was replaced with KolorSoft 1.1, which adds colored lighting. It ships a 64-bit Windows build, and it also builds for Windows ARM64, Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, and Raspberry Pi 4. Version 1.5.10 (August 26) fixed crashes when switching windows, updated it for recent Vulkan SDKs, and dropped the 32-bit build. The download also includes the Quake II demo content.

You needThe files from your own copy of Quake II: the retail .pak files, models, and videos, copied into the baseq2 folder; for the mission packs, their data in rogue (Ground Zero), xatrix (The Reckoning), zaero, or smd. Without the CD, the music as trackXX files (.ogg, .flac, .mp3, or .wav) in baseq2/music. Plus a Vulkan graphics card and, on Windows, the Visual C++ Redistributable.

Quake II (Yamagi Quake II)

yquake2/yquake2

Yamagi Quake II: an enhanced client for id Software’s Quake II with a focus on offline and co-op play. Gameplay and graphics are unchanged, but it fixes many bugs of the last official release and adds widescreen support, reliable high frame rates, a modern OpenAL-based sound backend, modern game controller support, and an OpenGL 3.2 renderer. It builds on Icculus Quake II, which itself derives from Quake II 3.21, is fully 64-bit clean, and is released under the GPL v2. Officially supported systems are FreeBSD, Linux, and Windows; macOS and other Unix-like systems have community support. The official add-ons (The Reckoning, Ground Zero, and CTF) and the Remaster variant live in their own repositories. Official releases are published on its homepage, and its continuous integration builds unsupported binaries on every commit.

You needThe files from your own copy of Quake II; the README points to the project’s documentation for installation. Windows, Linux, or FreeBSD (macOS with community support).

FTEQW

fte-team/fteqw

FTEQW: an advanced, portable Quake engine that grew from the Quake source code id Software released and plays several id Tech games, plus the games other developers have made with it. It supports Quake and its mission packs, QuakeWorld, Quake II and its mission packs, Quake III Arena and Team Arena, and Hexen II and its expansion; Half-Life and Half-Life 2 run through the Rad Therapy project. It finds games installed through Steam on its own, including the Quake and Quake II re-releases, as well as the classic Linux game folders. It renders with Direct3D 8, 9, or 11, OpenGL, or Vulkan, with a material system that accepts HLSL and GLSL shaders and video presets that make the games look like the originals or more modern, with real-time lighting. It has split-screen for Quake and most of its mods, Opus or Speex voice chat, a server browser covering every protocol it supports, a dedicated server, games with hundreds of players, IPv4 and IPv6, CD music replacement with Vorbis, MP3, WAV, or FLAC files, plugins (FFmpeg, Bullet or ODE physics), and its own QuakeC compiler, FTEQCC, which can run in-game, with a debugger. It runs on Windows, Linux, OpenBSD, and other systems, on x86, x86-64, ARM, and PPC64LE, and also on Android and the web. The builds for Windows (64- and 32-bit) and Linux (x86-64 and x86) are downloaded from its website; the GitHub repository is its official mirror, and its latest change is from June 4.

You needThe files from your own copy of one of the games (Quake, Quake II, Quake III Arena, or Hexen II, with their expansions if you have them), with the engine copied into the game’s folder; it also finds Steam installs on its own. For Quake II with the 64-bit build of the engine you also need 64-bit game logic, which the project recommends taking from Yamagi Quake II. Plus Windows, Linux, or another supported system.

⑂ Fork of yquake2/yquake2

Quake II (Yamagi Quake II Remaster)

yquake2/yquake2remaster

Yamagi Quake II Remaster: an experimental fork of Yamagi Quake II with ongoing work to add support for Quake II Enhanced (the Quake II Remaster), a version with many non-trivial changes; the README warns that your mileage may vary. It also supports many model, texture, sprite, map, sound, and package formats from id Tech family games, such as Quake, Quake 2, Half-Life, Hexen 2, Daikatana, SiN, Anachronox, Heretic 2, and Quake 3. There are alpha binaries for 64-bit Windows; the save format is unstable, and the macOS build has only been checked to compile. Version 8.71RR16 (September 22) is the latest release, with 32-bit and 64-bit Windows binaries.

You needThe files from your own copy of Quake II (or of whichever supported game you want to play); the README doesn’t detail them. 64-bit Windows for the published binaries.