A Nightdive developer and longtime Quake 2 modder, Paril, has rebuilt Quake 2's unique PlayStation port in the game's 2023 remaster. Rather than directly porting in the maps, Paril painstakingly recreated each one in the Kex Engine. Quake 2 PSX is now available for download on ModDB.
Back in the good old days of consoles having wildly different chipsets and capabilities from both each other and PCs, games would often be "ported" by having a studio remake the game from scratch, imitating the design (or at least the spirit) of the original on new hardware. This often resulted in unique remixes of canonical games that are fondly remembered in their own right, like Doom on N64 and PSX or PowerSlave on the Sega Saturn.
Quake 2 was no different, and Digital Foundry made a deep dive of its ports and their differences back in 2017. The Quake 2 Remaster by Nightdive actually included the modified Nintendo 64 levels at launch, but HammerHead Studios' PlayStation version was MIA.
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According to Paril, the technical difficulties introduced by HammerHead's custom engine meant it was more feasible to recreate the game's levels in the Kex Engine rather than trying to directly use the original map data. Paril has also introduced bug fixes, smarter enemy AI, and even some tweaks to the level design and visuals, making this more of a remaster of PSX Quake than a slavish recreation.
The biggest improvement, though, is probably the removal of the original game's control scheme—it supported DualShock dual analogue sticks, but not in the intuitive style later codified by Halo. Quake 2 on the PlayStation had topsy-turvy, almost tank controls where each stick would adjust your aim on one plane, and movement on another. If you want to check out Quake 2 PSX for yourself, the base remaster's just $10 on Steam, and you can download Paril's remake on ModDB.
