How to play Quake 64 on the Nintendo Switch

August 22, 2021June 29, 2023 James Woodcock American McGee, Bethesda Softworks, id Software, John Carmack, John Romero, Nightdive Studios, Quake, Retro Gaming, Sandy Petersen, Tim Willits 0 Comments 2 min read

The original Quake first released in 1996 on the PC. With it came a new engine, powering full real-time 3D rendering and support from 3D accelerator cards through OpenGL.

To celebrate the 25th anniverary, the medieval themed Quake has returned in a new ‘enhanced’ or remastered edition for various platforms including the Nintendo Switch by Nightdive Studios. It’s a wonderful experience playing Quake on a handheld system as well as enjoying the title through the TV. The enhancements include 1080p widescreen support, enhanced models, anti-aliasing and depth of field. The original PC soundtrack with theme by Trent Reznor is also included for good measure with a number of level expansion packs both old and new.

There is however also bonus content if you know where to look and for the Nintendo Switch, the original Nintendo 64 version from 1998, which also benefits from a number of enhancements can also be played.

How to get Quake 64 on the Nintendo Switch

Under the main menu of Quake on the Nintendo Switch, there is an ‘Add ons’ section
Under here you will find ‘Quake 64’
If you haven’t done so already, you will be asked to sign-in to a Bethesda account
Download Quake 64
Activate Quake 64
Return to the main menu and start Quake as normal

Quake 64 Add on available in Quake for the Nintendo Switch

Quake 64 features on the Nintendo Switch

Quake 64 has its own selection of music, which carries over to this enhanced version for the Nintendo Switch. One of the other unique aspects is that the N64 version also featured coloured lighting, which provided a slightly different visual spark to the atmopsheric ambience of the maps. You can customise a number of benefits to your liking including whether you wish to use anti-alising to reduce the number of jagged edges on polygons, texture filtering, high resolution mode and so on.

There is however a forced CRT-like filter that appears to be applied whether you like it or not, with no option to turn it off. I am not a fan of this look for this game, so hopefully a patch will at least allow us to remove it if we wish.

Quake 64 is now available on the Nintendo Switch and to have it return in amongst the Quake enhanced edition for the platform is a lovely bonus feature.