Quake
Quake
Game
Game2007
Quake II
Developer id Software, Nightdive Studios, MachineGames
Quake II is a 1997 first-person shooter game developed by id Software and published by Activision. It is the second installment of the Quake series, following Quake. Developed over the course of a year, Quake II was released on December 9, 1997. In contrast to the first game, which featured a combination of science fiction and fantasy elements, Quake II entirely drops the latter elements and is set during… From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
367 reactions from 4 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon, Lemmy) · newest Nov 5, 2026 · last updated Nov 5, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
93
LovedLoved
215 positive · 15 negative
95% range 90–96%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 215 | 15 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 25 | 9 | 86 |
| Mastodon * | 2 | 0 | 10 |
| Lemmy * | 1 | 0 | 4 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Overwhelmingly Positive
6,499 of 6,836 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
94% recommend · 202 yes, 14 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 216 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Overwhelmingly Positive (9,975 of 10,457 positive).
Players praise the remaster for enhancing a classic FPS with quality-of-life improvements and new content. [1][2][3] Many reviewers highlight the game's satisfying weapons, heavy metal soundtrack, and pure action. [4][5][6] Some players find the campaign frustrating due to bullet-sponge enemies and dated design. [7][8][9]
Liked
Representative posts
- [7]
Quake II feels like Id Software looked at Quake I, and said "Hey, what if we made a sequel that's significantly more unenjoyable/annoying to play?". The guns don't feel as good to use, damn near ALL of the enemies are a chore to fight, and the levels don't feel as engaging. This next thing is purely a me thing, but the shift away from Quake I's dark fantasy theming into Quake II's sci-fi theming REALLY disappointed …
- [12]
Back in the day, Quake 2 was the reason I bought a Voodoo 2. I remember saving up allowance, eventually being able to buy the thing, then installing it into my computer. When all was said and done, I fired up the game and wondered why everything still looked and ran the same. That's when I learned that I had to manually switch the renderer. That experience of switching from software rendering to hardware rendering …
- [4]
Quake II is such an awesome game. You boot it up and 5 minutes later you're blasting Strogg into chunks with a super shotgun while metal music is kicking. No crafting. No battle pass. No "talk to the villagers." Just pure f*cking violence. The Strogg are still some of my true favorite enemies in gaming too. They're disgusting. They're ugly. They're half machine, half corpse, and every weapon in your arsenal feels …
- [2]
This review is for the remaster rather than the game itself. This might be Nightdive's best remaster so far, which I like to think was made with the attitude of "OH, YOU PEOPLE DON'T THINK QUAKE II WAS VERY GOOD, DO YOU? WELL TAKE THIS YOU MOTHERS." It plays and feels GREAT. More like a 2023 game than a 1997 one now, and I mean that in a good way. The new campaign is nifty and merges all the content from the base …
- [1]
Original Quake 2 and its expansions were alright and fun enough, but they were clearly lacking some things and unfinished. But this remaster by Nightdive? It's top-notch 90s fps gaming, even better than Quake 1. It has various qol improvements, ranging from adding unused attacks to enemies, an objective marker (thank god), graphical improvements that don't stray far from the original look and various gameplay …
Summarised from 34 of the 327 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 9, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
Players who liked Quake II talk about excellent remaster with new campaigns and improvements; those who didn't talk about enemies are bullet-sponges and frustrating to fight. Which matters more to you?
Critics, per Wikipedia
Quake II received very positive reviews across all platforms. Next Generation reviewed the PC version of the game and stated that "all in all, id should be commended for the advancement of its technology and improvement in its single-player level design, but it's going to be up to mod designers to provide the necessary additions to the multiplayer game in order to make it stand out from Quake." GamePro said the game "lives up to its impossibly high hype." Praising its interconnected levels, new weapons, enemy design, soundtrack, and the ability to play as a female character in multiplayer mode (which they called "an overdue nod to the growing number of QuakeGrrls"), they gave it a perfect…
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
60 of 367 · most liked first*Sips* Yep. Quake II was a good game.
positive · AI labelView post →Moody beats, coloured smoke and lighting, and industrial sci-fi architecture based on a real-life ironworks. A 1999 Polish FPS that looks like it use the Quake II engine but in fact runs on its own, and plays more like a stealth game than a run-and-gun. 📺: Pył (Dust), Optimus Nexus (DOS PC)
neutral · AI labelView post →For those still missing out on Dystopika, here’s another reason to check it out: the game now includes Dystopika: Meditations From the Future, an original soundtrack by Sascha Dikiciyan, known for his work on Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Mass Effect 3, and Quake II. 👉 gog.com/game/dystopika
neutral · AI labelView post →Microsoft’s much maligned Quake II AI demo has raised concerns about the future of game development. So, I spoke with those whose livelihoods are on the line and asked whether generative AI could actually help make a game. www.gadgetguy.com.au/game-develop...
neutral · AI labelView post →I never thought about this use case, but it is fully that SteamOS, the great hope of PC gaming, apparently has no idea what to do with a Quake II CD-ROM
neutral · AI labelView post →Hell yeah, I bet Quake II is incredible on this setup! In all seriousness, there are decades of wonderful games to enjoy with a setup like this. Doesn’t always have to be about the latest and “greatest”
neutral · AI labelView post →Haven't played Quake II* in a while, still tons of fun. *RTX edition
positive · AI labelView post →PC Gamer's top five computer games of all time, as ranked in the magazine's October 1998 issue: 5. StarCraft 4. TIE Fighter Collector's CD-ROM 3. Quake II 2. Civilization II 1. Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II Jedi Knight, while a great game, is a pretty wild pick (even by 1998 standards).
neutral · AI labelView post →finished Quake II for the first time since the mid-2000's. Honestly I think I might like it more than the first game.
positive · AI labelView post →RIP Jennell Jaquays - a legendary video game designer, know for her console ports of PAC-MAN and Donkey Kong, and work on Quake II, Age of Empires, at EA, Interplay, CCP Games, and more. Thanks for all you did for people and for video games. ❤️ www.timeextension.com/news/2024/01...
neutral · AI labelView post →I'm working on #Val'tyFPS (very early in development). It's a simple FPS game inspired by ParanoiaScape, MDK, Akuji, Chasm: The Rift, and Quake II. It follows a quirky alien and her daughter as they invade a living spaceship. Featuring maggots to eat, plushies to collect, and walls of rotten flesh.
neutral · AI labelView post →Quake II (the actual game hallucinated here, not Quake!) needs a 90MHz processor, 16MB RAM, and 70MB disc space. Orders of magnitude less system requirements, and you get an actual game for it, not 10 seconds of wobbly content guesses Who is this FOR? It's not fun, it's not good... what a waste
neutral · AI labelView post →I keep hearing REALLY good things about the Boom Shoot game Zortch. Weird name, but 90's camp story in a good shooter and I'm all in! For Kommunitee Night we are going back to some good ol' Skrag n Frag with Quake II multiplayer!
neutral · AI labelView post →Having issues gaming on Windows using a Intel Core 2 era system with an RTX 50 series GPU? Try gaming with Linux! It "works", can play Quake II RTX but some other games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Portal RTX still won't launch and sometimes some games like Portal will lock up the PC
neutral · AI labelView post →Quake II (PC) (1997) 10/10
positive · AI labelView post →New video on Quake II for the N64 as part of my journey to beat every game on the console. It is quite different from the original PC release and runs incredibly well on real N64 hardware! youtu.be/aPXf2zrStxE
neutral · AI labelView post →Back in the day, Quake 2 was the reason I bought a Voodoo 2. I remember saving up allowance, eventually being able to buy the thing, then installing it into my computer. When all was said and done, I fired up the game and wondered why everything still looked and ran the same. That's when I learned that I had to manually switch the renderer. That experience of switching from software rendering to hardware rendering and seeing the colored lighting for the first time was mind-blowing. I spent…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →You can't fool me Microsoft, Quake II is already a game made by an A.I it doesn't need your slop
neutral · AI labelView post →so stoked to play Quake II remastered when I get home from work tonight. it’s the game that got me to (sorta) build a gaming PC for the first time back in the day ❤️
positive · AI labelView post →Enhanced Edition of Quake II debut today on Xbox (Also Game Pass), PS4/5, Nintendo Switch & PC.
neutral · AI labelView post →Revisiting Quake II, the game that dares to ask the question: what if there was a guy... hiding behind a crate... and he shot at ya
neutral · AI labelView post →A remix/reimagining of Quake II, the N64 port is a totally different game. It looks and runs great with the Expansion Pak- it’s one of the most impressive first person shooters on the console, although it doesn’t quite feel as good as playing on PC. Fun Factor: 4/5 Vibe: 4/5
neutral · AI labelView post →Things are bad but I have terrific news that will fix it all. Thanks to The Video Game History Foundation I found my vaguely embarrassing letter about leaving dial-up to play Quake II on broadband in a 1998 PC Gamer.
neutral · AI labelView post →Quake II being the game Microsoft decides to do their shitty GenAI thing with is weird because you can just play Quake II any number of way, from the various source ports that exist to the recent-ish Nightdive release. Hell, running the N64 port on an N64 emulator would give a better experience.
neutral · AI labelView post →Original Quake 2 and its expansions were alright and fun enough, but they were clearly lacking some things and unfinished. But this remaster by Nightdive? It's top-notch 90s fps gaming, even better than Quake 1. It has various qol improvements, ranging from adding unused attacks to enemies, an objective marker (thank god), graphical improvements that don't stray far from the original look and various gameplay balances that are all for the better. Aside from the base game and the expansions from…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →ngl if it weren't for the compass I would've not bothered with finishing this one
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Quake II is such an awesome game. You boot it up and 5 minutes later you're blasting Strogg into chunks with a super shotgun while metal music is kicking. No crafting. No battle pass. No "talk to the villagers." Just pure f*cking violence. The Strogg are still some of my true favorite enemies in gaming too. They're disgusting. They're ugly. They're half machine, half corpse, and every weapon in your arsenal feels specifically designed to turn them into spare parts. ohh man, the guns.…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Quake 2 was the most anticipated game in 1997. As the successor of [url=steamcommunity.com/id/atisz2/recommended/2280/]Doom and [url=steamcommunity.com/id/atisz2/recommended/2310/]Quake it's no surprise. High expectations come with a heavy burden however: just something slightly better isn't enough, it has to be revolutionary. New engine, 3D card support without extra programs, an intergalactic war between man and an alien race instead of the messed up "dark fantasy" setup, diverse weaponry and…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I've not quite finished all the campaigns within Quake II Remastered, but I have finished the main campaign and the new 'Call of the Machine', which were the two main draws for me. I have a great love for Quake II after playing it in high school. Nowadays it seems to be a bit maligned as a game that's slower and less iconic than the first game, and not as polished or 'perfected' as the third entry (to the point where that game is more favourably renowned despite the singleplayer component…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →show me a game released during the year you were 12 ‘97 was the single greatest year for video games between these four, as well as Gran Turismo, Grand Theft Auto, Fallout, Age of Empires, and Quake II
neutral · AI labelView post →Quake II (PC) (1997) 7/10
positive · AI labelView post →Quake II (PC) (1997) 6/10
neutral · AI labelView post →Quake II (PC) (1997) 3/10
negative · AI labelView post →parental trip was nice, I got to show them Factorio (mum comment: wouldn’t you rather do a jigsaw puzzle?) and dad showed me his shiny new graphics card and Quake II RTX; gotta admit that ray tracing looked very shiny and it was nice to see him still enjoying a game he taught me to play as a kid :)
neutral · AI labelView post →Gory and problematic, SoF is a game cancelled by all. Despite everything, I have a soft spot for the game and all its fast paced Quake II-engine mayhem. Fun Factor: 4/5 Vibe: 3/5
neutral · AI labelView post →finished the original campaign in the Quake II remaster. great game, phenomenal remaster by Nightdive
positive · AI labelView post →So many childhood memories ... back when gaming was about passion and creativity. God I miss these times :( Everything is perfect : the maps, the guns, the ennemies, the music ...
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Quake II feels like Id Software looked at Quake I, and said "Hey, what if we made a sequel that's significantly more unenjoyable/annoying to play?". The guns don't feel as good to use, damn near ALL of the enemies are a chore to fight, and the levels don't feel as engaging. This next thing is purely a me thing, but the shift away from Quake I's dark fantasy theming into Quake II's sci-fi theming REALLY disappointed me as I think that's what made the first game so unique to me. All in…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Quake II RTX and its ilk are funny to me Like, yeah, use an old-ass video game, destroy the artstyle, make it look like a fake video game you'd see on a sitcom that's the future right there
neutral · AI labelView post →A bit of a break from working to play Quake II on my Mac Mini G4. Yes, G4... Not M4! 😅 This Mac Mini G4 is running a modified version of Mac OS 9.2 and it absolutely flies. It's perfect for games of the late 90s and early 2000s era. #retrocomputing #retrogaming
neutral · AI labelView post →Quake II Re-Master is out today! Includes the game and all its expansions and also Threewave Capture the Flag. Split screen coop too! Nightdive did a great job on the re-master. XB: https://bit.ly/47jHNnU PS: https://bit.ly/3YudsyV Switch: https://bit.ly/3s4rE5R PC: https://bit.ly/3OyjbiE
neutral · AI labelView post →QUAKE II is confirmed! Official announcement should be soon with more info like free upgrade path for PC PC/Xbox + Game Pass/PlayStation/Switch $9.99 All expansions New expansion called "Call of the Machine" Quake II 64 Enhanced visuals Online/local multiplayer & co-op Crossplay
neutral · AI labelView post →The STORY! the later part of the game! Multiplayer and single player! The game is dated but not old enough to have a good time and to maybe even relive a few memories!!!!! Make sure you are able to up date the graphics and get the sound working!!!!!!!!!! AWESOME MUSIC!!!!!!!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →An absolutely outstanding FPS that has stood the test of time and inspired many others to follow in its footsteps. The original Quake was a ground-breaking game when it first released, it absolutely changed the face of FPS gaming forever, and was the final nail in the coffin for many 2.5D shooters as it signalled a new dawn for the FPS genre. As Duke Nukem famously once said in Duke Nukem 3D "I ain't afraid of no Quake!" well...that didn't age so well! Quake II took what made the original…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This review is for the remaster rather than the game itself. This might be Nightdive's best remaster so far, which I like to think was made with the attitude of "OH, YOU PEOPLE DON'T THINK QUAKE II WAS VERY GOOD, DO YOU? WELL TAKE THIS YOU MOTHERS." It plays and feels GREAT. More like a 2023 game than a 1997 one now, and I mean that in a good way. The new campaign is nifty and merges all the content from the base game, expansions and console ports together, something I wish Nightdive…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The refreshed version truly brings out what makes this game great. Shooting feels a bit more tactical, while the missions provide a stronger sense of progressing through a real campaign rather than just short stages, giving each level a clearer purpose and heightened tension. Beyond gameplay changes, the updated graphics give the areas a cleaner, more modern appearance while maintaining the original aesthetic. Overall, it's a very solid release that lets players enjoy one of the classic…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →In 1998 I basically lived inside Quake II. I’d download mods, levels and character models for the game every day. You could not make me play this with a gun to my face
negative · AI labelView post →I honestly forgot how much I love Quake 2. The past week I've found myself playing it for hours on end, going through the single player over and over. Once on hard, again on Nightmare, and one more on Nightmare without the use of the Super Shotgun. In 2023, the game got a free remaster release that provides you with plenty new features to go from. You have the main game, coupled with the mission packs, Ground Zero and the Reckoning released back in 1998, along side a new expansion called Call…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Hexen with the Quake II compass thing so we know where the fuck the game wants us to go
neutral · AI labelView post →I’m hoping to finish Quake II on stream tonight on my Windows 98 PC! My first time ever completing that game! 7:30pm CDT twitch.tv/jamievx
neutral · AI labelView post →RIBBIT !! Quake II feels at least one and a half times better than its predecessor. It's still the same corridor-shooter maze, but now it finally has a proper story. Instead of dry text summaries at the end of episodes, the game tries to deliver full cutscenes and clear objective descriptions. The story is simple: you're a marine, cut off from your squad, taking on the Stroggs — the local cybernetic aliens — on your own. Switching from the demons of the original to high-tech and computers…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Because I only played Quake 1 in the childhood, so it's my first time to play Quake 2. I have got all achievements without using any cheats. This is the most enjoyable shooting game for me. I like to explore those complex maps and kill tons of enemies. However, the COTM expansion pack is really hard. I don't want to play it again.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Warframe or Company of Heroes 2 or Hexen: Beyond Heretic or Bloons Monkey City or ODDADA or Pony Island or Freedom Planet or Piglet's Big Game or AdVenture Communist or Boson X or Electronic Super Joy: Groove City or There Is No Game or Quake II or Tower of Guns or Just Get Through or Kairo
neutral · AI labelView post →92. Quake II Legendary sequel to a legendary game, this keeps some base mechanics, but goes from Lovecraftian dungeon horror to industrial hellscape horror with even more bombastic combat. Also replaces the episodic levels with a massive interconnected single map with many objectives and secrets.
neutral · AI labelView post →26. Quake II - probably my favorite Quake game, the chunky polys are just the best. the tech-heavy vibes are immaculate.
positive · AI labelView post →Replaying Quake II is reminding me how much Doom Eternal felt more like Quake game.
neutral · AI labelView post →Nightdive Studios did an incredible job with the Quake II remaster. They managed to preserve everything that made the original game great while giving it a much-needed modern polish. The improved visuals, smoother gameplay, enhanced lighting, and quality-of-life improvements make it feel fresh without losing its classic atmosphere. I played it on the Steam Deck, and it was an absolute blast! The experience felt smooth and perfectly suited for handheld gaming. It's a perfect example…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →great remaster, one of the worst campaigns iD Software ever put out. SSG feels nice, grenade launcher sucks like in Q1, Chaingun might be the worst one iD's ever made, enemies are bullet-sponge garbage that can tear your sh!t up in a half-second, save-scumming required to beat game on the hard skill-setting without wasting your time too much. there's a lot that i like about Quake II, but man is the main campaign rage-inducing at times. enemies grenade-spam a lot too. the campaign is only fun…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Played it in my youth and it still is a lot of fun today. A classic 3D Shooter of its time.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →honestly even if i dont jive too hard with Quake II I can say they are the most dedicated when it comes to being able to just open the game and hop into public servers Quake 3 players pine about a game that you literally can play right now on literally anything
neutral · AI labelView post →
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