Quake Remastered: PS5 Review

Released by Bethesda

Platform: PS5

For those unaware of Quake's legacy, there would likely to be no game were it not for Doom.

Some 25 years ago, Quake burst onto the scene, adjusting the ethos for the point, run and gun shooter on the PC.

With its chunky pixelled environments and its atmosphere of jump scares, Quake doesn't really follow much of a plot throughout other than simply shoot, find the way around the maze and escape with your life intact.

The remastered Quake is not really determined to veer off that way of doing things, and simply sets out to provide a remaster that looks slick and more importantly plays slickly.

But it does it well, and shows that remasters don't have to reinvent the wheel or completely rebuild from the ground up. Perhaps with Quake, any direct fiddling of the game's simple MO would have annoyed fans and alienated newbies to the franchise.

However, what it does do  is provide a game that's smooth in its execution, and complicit in its own simplicity, meaning it's easy to dive in and play. It's no secret to say this is not a game that builds next gen capabilities into its gameplay, other than ensuring that it all plays out in a polished manner.

Levels are quite short, with checkpoints few and far in between because of the maze's inherent brevities. Start off in a maze, shoot creatures around you, get more armour and ammunition, find a key and escape a maze - it's not rocket science, but what Quake Remastered does is that it well and drops you back into the feeling of 25 years ago.

Quake Remastered also includes all of the original missions, a new side mission, the chance to multiplayer and the option to really shake things up from the usual short ethos of the gameplay.

Quake Remastered won't win any awards for radically changing and showcasing what the next gen capabilities can do, but it will win awards for giving you a major blast of nostalgia and a thrill as you load it up for the first time in 25 years.