Quake 2 remaster is now getting a path tracing mod as well

The recent Quake 2 remaster by Nightdive Studios is arguably the best way to experience the classic 1997 shooter. But could it be better? That’s what one modder thinks, who’s currently working on a path tracing mod.

Reddit user mStewart207 (as spotted by DSO Gaming) recently uploaded some images from their upcoming “RTX Renderer” project, which will aim to implement even greater lighting algorithms to the revamped version of Quake 2.

Judging by the screenshots so far, it looks pretty great. The modder is aiming to publish it to GitHub “as soon as it’s more or less playable.” We don’t know when that will be, though.

What is path tracing?

There are a lot of technical terms that get thrown around in this modern gaming era. From image upscaling to things like RTX and rasterization, it can be difficult to know what’s going on when it comes to visual acuity.

Many of you may already be aware of ray tracing, which is – in a nutshell – a piece of AI that uses the position of the player to make light and shadows look more realistic. But is this any different to path tracing? According to TechSpot, “Path tracing differs from ray tracing in that instead of following lots of rays, throughout an entire scene, the algorithm only traces the most likely path for the light.”

It’s up to you to decide whether you understand that definition or not.

At the very least, it sounds like the remaster of Quake 2 could potentially look even better once this mod comes out. Who knew id Software’s brown-and-gray FPS would get a second chance in the limelight?