Quake II

Quake II is a sequel to Quake in name only. Instead of running through castles and blowing up knights, you run through orange-tinted futuristic buildings and blow up the best Borg wannabes late 1997-era technology could render. On paper it sounds pretty different, but in reality it isn't.

FlareG (Flaregun)
A model for a weapon named “FlareG” can be found in the game's files. When the model is opened up, it shows some sort of weapon with extremely incomplete textures. There doesn't seem to be any place where a flare gun would fit outside of possibly the Outlands level, where the player must signal an airstrike. Possibly because of the few uses it has, it was cut before it could get a proper texture job.

The official Threewave CTF mod that ships with the official Quake2 patches finishes the skin and retools the cancelled weapon's art to serve as a grappling hook.

Disintegrator
Models for something called the “Disintegrator” can be found in the weapon models folder. When opened in a model viewer, it is the BFG 10K. The only difference between it and the regular BFG is that there is no pulling back the grip animation after firing it. This would make it a rapid fire-BFG. It was probably scrapped because the BFG is damn powerful enough already and making an upgraded version of the gun everybody knows is ridiculously powerful thanks to Doom would make the game stupidly easy. The Disintegrator re-appears in the Quake II official mission pack "Ground Zero" as a multiplayer-specific weapon, but does not seem to be related in models (as the Nuke ammo was not re-used).

Unused Blaster world model
There is an unused world model for the Blaster. This suggests that you had to pick it up at one time instead of always spawning with it when you start. However, the texturing is very early, suggesting the idea of picking it up was cut early on. However, the model was finished later on, for the 3.20 patch that added weapon models for characters in multiplayer.

Nuke Ammo


A model for ammo called “Nuke” can be found in the item models folder. There doesn't seem to be any sort of weapon it could fit for outside of maybe the scrapped Disintegrator.

Mines
An ammo model with very early textures named “mines” can be found. This was an early weapon concept found in Q2Test, the early beta pre-release of Quake II. In the beta, however, it has no use, and appears exactly as it does in the final release aside from having no entry in the item table or anywhere in the code suggesting that it was scrapped just after Q2Test was released. In Q2Test, Mines have an ammo & a weapon table entry, however the Weapon logic function for it is empty, leading to it locking up your weapon logic entirely.

Power Screen
An unused item named “Power Screen” can be placed in custom levels by level makers. It is a player usable version of the green screen the Brain enemy has. It was likely removed because the Power Shield does the same thing, but covers the player's whole body.

Enemies
While there are no unused enemies, there are unused enemy animations that point to them being a bit more dynamic at one time.

Berserker Duck
An animation of a Berserker ducking is in its model file, but unused. It was probably scrapped because it ducking would make fighting one pretty damn annoying.

Berserker Slam
An animation of the Berserker jumping and hitting the ground with its left arm can be found in its model file. The animation suggests that it would be able to jump and hit the player at the same time at one point in development.

Enforcer Defend
An unused animation of the Enforcer moving his chaingun to his face in order to block something can be found. It was probably deemed pointless because he can already duck to avoid projectiles.

Technician
An animation showing the Technician's claws coming out exists. This is never played in the final version; all Technicians already have their claws out as soon as the map starts.

player/male/bump1
A sound called bump1 can be found in the \player\male folder. It sounds like the player brushing up against something while making a noise. There is no female equivalent, showing it was scrapped before they made the female sound set.

misc/bigtele
This is an alternative version of a used sound. Oddly, this is named with a .map extension.

world/dr_short
Shorter version of world/dr_long.wav, unused

world/lashum1
A delayed laser humming noise.

world/mach2
This rattly machinery noise would probably be used for a small train.

items/protect3
The longer protection noise from Quake isn't used.

makron/voice2
Unused Makron chatter.

world/voice10
Unused radio chatter. "All personnel copying this transmission, rendezvous at designated points Alpha, Bravo, Charlie."

berserk/xfire
This sound exists in the Berserk folder, who only has a melee attack and doesn't fire anything.

world/xianbeats
Might have been intended for the Christian Antkow easter egg in Boss2, or another easter egg altogether. A different song is used instead.

Blaster Ammo Icon
An ammo icon for the Baster can be found in the \pics folder. It seems at one time, the Blaster was going to have its ammo visible, but why is unknown. Maybe it had to recharge its ammo or you needed to pickup ammo at one time.

Fixme
An icon that consists of a yellow ? Over a red background can be found with the file name “i_fixme”. It is very likely to have been a placeholder for an item's inventory icon until the final graphic was finished. It's not unused though - you'll see it when you pick up John Carmack's head from a secret easter egg area.

Power Screen
The Power Screen is an alternative power armor which only protects your front instead of all around you - this is exactly the same as the protection that the "Brain" enemy has. It is fully programmed and functional, but never used in single player or any official multiplayer maps.

Cloak
The manual has an unused image for a "cloak" item, resembling the Power Screen/Power Armor. This was likely scrapped very early on as Q2Test has no trace of it.

Explosion Sprites
Sprites for explosions can be found in the \sprites folder. These are unused, as the final game uses models for explosions. These are used in Q2test, though.