Quake 4 expansion files discovered on secondhand computer hard drive

Files for the canceled Quake 4 expansion, titled ‘The Awakening’, have surfaced on GitHub. The data was discovered by developer James Marshall on an unwiped hard drive from a secondhand computer purchased through Amazon.

Originally developed by Ritual Entertainment for id Software and Activision, the expansion was reportedly 95 percent complete before being canceled due to poor sales of the base game. The uploaded files represent an alpha development snapshot rather than a finished product. While the build is not a plug-and-play release, users have reportedly managed to get the add-on running due to the inclusion of a PDB-debug database for the game engine.

Although the id Tech 4 engine is open source, the specific game-related assets, such as maps, models, and textures, remain subject to copyright. No rights holder has officially confirmed or authorized the upload.