QuakeCon schedule leak shows Quake “revitalized edition” from MachineGames

After two shiny, modernized updates to the venerable Doom franchise in recent years, it looks like Bethesda and fellow Zenimax subsidiary MachineGames (Wolfenstein: The New Order) are getting ready to announce a “revitalized edition” of Quake.

That tidbit comes by way of the recently posted schedule for Bethesda’s virtual QuakeCon 2021, which will be streamed online next week. As noticed by Xbox Era (and still visible in this archived version), the schedule initially included a description for a “Let’s talk Quake” session that mentioned participants will “discuss the additional content MachineGames have contributed to this revitalized edition [emphasis added].”

That line was scrubbed from the live version of the schedule sometime in the last 24 hours, implying that someone jumped the gun in mentioning the new “revitalized” edition. But the current listing still mentions that “Quake is back,” which suggests we might hear an official announcement at the “QuakeCon Digital Welcome + Celebrating 25 Years of Quake with id Software and MachineGames” opening session on Thursday, August 19.

This wouldn’t be MachineGames’ first dip into the Quake pool. Back in 2016, the developer released a semi-official new mission pack for the original Quake, titled “Dimension of the Past,” as part of the game’s 20th anniversary celebration.

Bethesda hasn’t totally ignored the Quake franchise since then, either. The 2017 release of multiplayer-focused Quake Champions was followed by a slick-looking raytracing-enabled update for Quake 2 in 2019.

For now, we’re left to speculate on what exact “revitalizations” MachineGames has in mind for this “revitalized” edition. While we wait, we’ll throw that speculation to the comments section—what would you like to see in a version of Quake updated for modern times?