Quake On! Non-Linear Quake 4 Campaign False Dawn

While QuakeCon rages away in Texas, gibsters stuck at home might feel a little left out. Chin up, little buddy: Quake's coming to you. After missing its plan to launch during QCon 2013, Quake IV single-player mod False Dawn has launched alongside this year's fragging festivities. It brings a new story with 90-120 minutes of non-linear Strogg-shooting and a few tweaks to good old Q4.

Its single-player side was pretty good fun, from what I remember, so sure, maybe I will revisit that so very brown and frightful planet of meaty cyborgs this weekend.

False Dawn has a new story about a Strogg superweapon or somesuch, complete with enthusiastic new voiced dialogue. Supposedly objectives which can be tackled in any order, and enemies and obstacles will change depending on what you prioritise. Things are prettied up too, thanks to a version of Sikkmod. It also adds a new weapon damage system which means more-armoured enemies won't fall to bullets and shot as easily as meatbags. That is a list of features it has.

I did enjoy how Q4's trickle of weapon upgrades meant even early guns were useful against later enemies, so hopefully this rebalancing doesn't undo that. It was quite nice to revisit old favourites rather than inexorably scaling the number keys towards the rocket launcher as a go-to weapon, and crumbs, that souped-up nailgun was something all right.

As for how False Dawn looks rather than sounds, here's a trailer, but bear in mind it's from 2012: