Cancelled Quake 4 expansion gets surprise GitHub release after former XCOM 2 developer discovers it on an old hard drive: ‘This essentially saved my life’
A former XCOM 2 developer has released "Rubicon Rumble Pack", a cancelled Quake 4 expansion, publicly on GitHub after finding it stored on an old hard drive. The developer, who worked on the project during a difficult period, said rediscovering and sharing the lost content had a profound personal impact, describing the release as something that "essentially saved my life". The release gives players and Quake fans access to expansion content that never made it to market when the project was axed.
The expansion had been shelved and largely forgotten before its discovery, with no prior public indication that a playable or near-complete version still existed. By uploading the files to GitHub, the developer has made the previously unreleased Quake 4 content freely available to the wider community, preserving a piece of the franchise's history that would otherwise have been lost entirely.
- Cancelled Quake 4 expansion found on old hard drive
- Former XCOM 2 developer released it free on GitHub
- Developer says rediscovering it had major personal significance
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Rubicon Rumble Pack was a multiplayer expansion for Quake 4, the 2005 sci-fi shooter, that never made it to release before the project was cancelled. For years it existed only as unfinished work files, unknown to the public, until a developer who had worked on it kept a copy that eventually turned up on an old hard drive.
That developer later worked on XCOM 2, a well-known strategy game, and has now uploaded the recovered files to GitHub, a website where people share and store code and software projects for free. This means the expansion, which was made by id Software and Raven Software as part of the Quake series, is now playable by the public for the first time, more than fifteen years after it was shelved.
Beyond the gaming interest, the story also touches on the developer's own wellbeing, as they have said that finding and sharing the material had a significant personal impact on them during a hard period in their life. This gives the release a human dimension alongside its value to long-time fans of the Quake franchise.