Quake II RTX clearly reflects the impact of ray tracing. To reduce distraction by nightmarish difficulty / music, console command “notarget” (unattacked enemies ignore you) is used and sound is turned off. So you can fully concentrate on the nightmarish content.
With today’s (2025) hardware, the game is playable with high quality settings, high resolution and high framerates. Nvidia Image Scaling (NIS) upscales from 3482x1836 to 4K resolution. In ReShade, Technicolor2.fx and LumaSharpen.fx and the fps counter are activated. FOV (field of view, standard 90) is set to 105. Played on a 65” TV screen, 4096x2160 res, Nvidia GeForce 4090 RTX.
The enemy race in Quake II are the Strogg. They are superior to humans because they have transcended humanity by combining organic flesh (humans are butchered) with machines. The Strogg have surpassed the limits of nature, the rules of creation; they have no moral restrictions, just superhuman power. In Quake IV, you are the only one who can fight the Strogg - by becoming a Half-Strogg yourself. So Transhumanism - the singularity of melting human and machine - not only works, but it is also necessary for mankind to survive.
