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Cancelled Quake 4 expansion Awakening found on old hard drive, uploaded to GitHub

A build of the previously cancelled Quake 4 expansion 'Awakening' was recovered from a vintage PC hard drive and uploaded to GitHub. The build was recovered by veteran programmer Justin Marshall, who worked on XCOM 2 and other titles; Ritual Entertainment developed the expansion before Activision canceled it after the base game's weak sales. Config files in the build include names of former Ritual staff and multiple users have already run the expansion, supporting its authenticity. The release makes a near-complete, long-lost expansion publicly available and represents a notable piece of preservation for Quake 4's development history.

• A build of Quake 4: Awakening was found on a hard drive of a second-hand PC purchased by programmer Justin Marshall and posted to GitHub.
• Awakening was developed by Ritual Entertainment and canceled by Activision after Quake 4 underperformed; developer Michael 'RomSteady' Russell has said the expansion was about 95% complete before cancellation.
• Config files in the recovered build include names of former Ritual employees such as Richard 'Levelord' Grey and Michael 'RomSteady' Russell, and several users have successfully run the expansion, bolstering its legitimacy.
• Marshall, a veteran developer on titles including The Evil Within, XCOM 2, Dead Island 2 and The Dark Pictures Anthology, described finding the build as profoundly positive while he was dealing with a divorce and industry layoffs.