Upcoming actioner crosses into Quake’s remaster with free mod

Now this is cool. The remaster of Quake just got a whole new adventure, with a fully licensed mod based on Slave Zero X.

A whole new world

Slave Zero X, if you don’t know, looks to be an extremely promising side-scrolling action title that could’ve blasted off the Sega Genesis. From the previews, it looks like it’s fast, loaded with gruesome action, and revels in classic design sensibilities. Well, there’s a free prequel for that game that’s out right now, and it’s the complete opposite of that.

In a super-cool twist, Ziggurat Interactive and developer Poppy Works have licensed the game’s world for a prequel, and it’s free. That’s to say, it’s free if you own a copy of the Quake remaster that was released a few years back.

The prequel is dubbed Episode Enyo, and is technically a free mod for Quake that stars an assassin who’s out to off the main bad guy in the full game. Of course, that doesn’t go according to plan, and said assassin actually ends up serving the arch-villain as the “Second of the Five Calamities”.

Known in the Megacity’s underworld as “Beloved by the Bullet,” Enyo resents the biotechnology embraced by her would-be master and favors the old-world style of firearms and ammunition. Before becoming the Second member of the Five Calamities, the SovKhan’s innermost circle of generals, she was a skilled mercenary —  a deadshot tasked with ending him and his tyrannical rule. As players progress through Episode Enyo, they’ll uncover how she became beholden to his iron will and forced to serve him in the story of Slave Zero X. 

Featuring eight new gnarly weapons to wield, eight new original music tracks, and five unique, Quake-exclusive maps modeled after levels from the main game, Episode Enyo gives a blood-tinged taste of what’s to come in the dark world of Slave Zero X.

Ziggurat Interactive press release

Again you’ll need a copy of the Quake remaster for PC (via Steam and GOG), Switch, Xbox, and PlayStation platforms to actually download and play Episode Enyo. At the end of the day though, it’s pretty awesome that Ziggurat released a free lead-in for the game’s world.

According to the publisher though, there might be some extra hoops to jump through if you’re going to play on the PC. Ziggurat says that you can check out the facts on that via the Poppy Works site here, on “the mod’s ModDB and itch.io pages”.