View source for Quake II

{{Language subpage}}{{stub}}{{Non-valve engine|game}}
{{todo|Elements relevant to Valve's engines (ex: skybox format, colored lighting, translucency, BSP format, etc.).}}

'''{{quake2|4}}''' (1997) is the second installment of the Quake series, following Quake. The game moves away from the original Gothic {{wiki|Lovecraftian horror}} theme and instead, making the game more sci-fi aesthetic.

Like it's predecessor, the Valve's {{goldsrc|4}} engine also used most of the code from {{Quake2engine|4}} as far back during it's early development, through later in the final version it used the heavily modified {{Quakeengine|4}}, with only few Quake II engine code. Another game, such as {{sin1|4}} by [[Ritual]], also used Quake II engine, which they licensed from id Software.

Furthermore, {{hl|4}} was originally planned to be released in November 1997 to compete with Quake II (which would be released in Dec 1997), but it's was later delayed to 1998 with Valve reworking every level of the game.

== Releases ==
=== Original ===
{{quake2|4}} was originally released in December 1997 for PC, then later ported to both Nintendo 64, PlayStation 1 in 1999, along with {{mac|4|nt=7}}, {{linux|4}} and BeOS operating systems, which all of them are also released in 1999. It is also ported to {{360|4}}, available on Quake 4 bonus disc.

=== {{nvidia}} Quake II RTX ===
In March 2019, a remaster of Quake II, called '''Quake II RTX''' was announced by {{nvidia|4}}, and later released in June 6 for both {{win|4}} and {{linux|4}}. As the name suggest, you need a NVIDIA RTX, Intel Arc or {{amd|1|nt=0}} RX 6000 series card in order to enable ray-tracing, but the game offers software fallback for cards that are fast enough. 

It is available for free on Steam with three demo levels included, but RTX version was able to play the full game as long the original game files were installed.

=== 2023 Kex Engine remaster ===
Also known as '''Quake II Enhanced''', and colloquially referred to as '''Q2EX'''.

Another remaster of Quake II was released for the {{switch|4}}, {{PS4|4}}, {{PS5|4}}, {{Windows|4}}, {{xone|4}} and {{xbseries|4}} on Aug 10, 2023 during QuakeCon. These runs on Kex Engine on top of modified version of id Tech 2 engine.

This is a first time that Quake II was officially ported to modern consoles, with 1080p 60FPS rendering on 8th gen consoles, while Windows, PS5, Xbox One X, and Xbox Series X{{!}}S are able to run on 4K (or higher on PC) up to 120FPS (or more on PC). It also introduced new single-player expansions, "'''Call of the Machine'''", which was designed exclusively for the remaster by Bethesda studio {{wiki|MachineGames|icon=hide}}, comprising 28 additional levels and a new Deathmatch map. A Nintendo 64 port of the game was also bundled with the remaster, as a bonus game.

Additionally, the game runs at a 40 Hz [[tickrate]] as opposed to the original's 10 Hz, and it's does not use any bilinear filtering for the textures at all unlike the original with OpenGL mode. 13 new achievements has been also added to the game.
{{ModernConfirm|Does the Enhanced/2023 Kex Engine remaster have any texture filtering like the original running in OpenGL mode?}}

== Research ==
{{stub|section=1}}
=== 2001 ===
* John E. Laird. 2001. It knows what you're going to do: adding anticipation to a Quakebot. In Proceedings of the fifth international conference on Autonomous agents (AGENTS '01). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 385–392. https://doi.org/10.1145/375735.376343

== Source ports ==
Thanks to the release of the [https://github.com/id-Software/Quake-2 Quake II source code], there have been many source ports that seek to supersede the vanilla engine. The following modern source ports are actively or semi-actively developed:
* [http://www.yamagi.org/quake2/ Yamagi Quake II] - Vanilla-friendly source port. Singleplayer-focused; multiplayer may be too insecure for netplay.
* [https://skuller.net/q2pro/ Q2Pro] - Multiplayer-focused source port, with added security fixes, optional anticheat, and many enhanced graphical features.
** [https://github.com/NVIDIA/Q2RTX/releases Q2RTX] (Quake II RTX) - Fork of Q2VKPT (which itself forked from Q2Pro) with real-time raytracing.
* [http://www.markshan.com/knightmare/ KMQuake II] - Feature-focused source port, aimed at removing limits to increasing mapping potential.
* [https://www.moddb.com/mods/quake-2-xp Quake II XP] - Graphics-focused source port, porting the graphics pipeline to modern GLSL. Aims to remaster the visuals without sacrificing the original "style" of the game.
For more source ports, see {{pcgw|Quake_II#Source_ports|Source ports section on PCGW}}.

== Bugs/Limitations ==
=== Original version ===
{{modernImportant|Transparency and Translucency:
* Only [[$translucent|translucency]] is supported in vanilla; [[$alphatest|alpha testing]] requires certain source ports (Notably ''not'' in Yamagi).
* Translucency is only supported on {{mono|worldspawn}} textures and SP2 [[sprite]]s, and cannot be used on brush entities or MD2 [[model]]s in vanilla, due to the usage of the [[Binary Space Partitioning|BSP tree]] for alpha sorting.<br>Compare to {{goldsrc|2}}, which supports translucency on any brush entity ''except'' [[worldspawn (GoldSrc)|worldspawn]] (as well as [[model]]s and [[sprite]]s).<br>Some source ports (such as KMQuake2) support translucency on brush entities, but exhibit the same alpha sorting issues as GoldSrc.
}}
==== Only in modern versions of Windows or modern PC ====
Like most unpatched games from the 1990s, the game can usually have issues and bugs when played on modern systems and modern version of {{win|1}}. You can check the {{Pcgw|Quake_II#Issues_fixed|Issues fixed section on PCGW}} for more information.
{{Bug|'''No CD Music:'''<br>
Like {{quake|1}} and WON/Retail version of {{hl|1}}, along with other games from that era, Quake II plays the soundtracks by streaming it from CD Audio.
*{{steamicon|2}} and Microsoft Store versions of the game does not ship with it's original soundtracks at all, it can be fixed by using {{pcgw|Quake_II#No_CD_music_in_Microsoft_Store_and_Steam_version|Ultimate Quake II patch}}, burn a new CD or use CD emulator that contains the soundtracks or simply use a source port.
*{{Gog|quake_ii_quad_damage|GOG}} versions of the game on the other hand, did include the soundtracks, however the soundtrack patch was broken by recent versions of Windows 10, and all versions of Windows 11, in order to resolve this, use a source port.}}

=== Enhanced version (2023 Kex Engine remaster) ===
{{Bug|Steam Cloud in the enhanced version of the game was misconfigured by the developers. As a result, only configurations files are synced, not the save files.{{ref|1}}<br>
{{Solved}}: Fixed in August 15, 2023 update. {{ref|2}}}}

== External links ==
* [https://github.com/id-Software/Quake-2 Original engine and game DLL source code] - Does not include game DLL source code for expansions
** [https://github.com/id-Software/quake2-rerelease-dll 2023 remaster game DLL source code] - Includes original and remastered game code for the base game and both expansions, as well as [[FGD]]s for {{trenchbroom|2}}
* [https://github.com/id-Software/Quake-2-Tools Quake 2 Tools source code] {{deprecated}} - Source code for original 1997 tools, such as map compilers. Provided for reference only; third party tools such as [[ericw-tools]] were used for the 2023 remaster.

== References ==
<ol>
<li>'''wolfinston85''' on Steam Community:<br>[https://steamcommunity.com/app/2320/discussions/0/6812310007737121164/#c6812310007737336713 Does Steam Cloud only support options and not saves?] - last accessed on 2023-08-11
<li>[https://steamdb.info/app/2320/history/?changeid=19910560 Quake II History · Change #19910560 · SteamDB] - last accessed on 2023-08-16
</ol>