It's only on screen for a few seconds and only partially, but make no mistake: the whiteboard in the "Indiana Jones and the Great Circle" video shown at this week's Xbox Developer Direct has the Quake logo on it. Above it are the cropped words "-AKE 6."

MachineGames would not have written "CAKE 6" on the whiteboard.

Bethesda, the parent company of MachineGames and id Software, does not recognize this Easter egg. What is accidentally written on a whiteboard does not appear in a widely publicized video. In this case, however, it is clearly intentional and has been pointed out by ResetEra and Reddit. The whiteboard can be seen at 44:46 past the 44:46 mark of the Developer Direct video.

The case that Quake 6 is real is helped by an existing rumor: a few years ago, XboxEra co-founder Shpeshal Nick said that id Software and MachineGames were working on a multiplayer and "female protagonist" single-player campaign He said he had heard from sources that id Software and MachineGames were working together on a reboot of Quake that would include multiplayer and a "female-led" single-player campaign. [It is worth noting, however, that MachineGames is currently teasing its involvement in the Quake game, and the idea was already out there; it would not be the first time MachineGames has played a leading role in id Software's history-making series. Wolfenstein 3D was one of id's first games, and the series has been handled by MachineGames since 2014's Wolfenstein: The New Order.

If there is indeed a Quake 6, we will have to accept Quake: Champions as Quake 5, which is fine. Just ask the Kingdom Hearts games.

Quake: Champions is id Software's free-to-play multiplayer FPS that spent several years in Early Access before its full release in 2022, much like Epic's attempt to revive Unreal Tournament, I had thought that this would be the end of the Quake series, as it failed to create a second golden age of multiplayer arena shooters.

Nevertheless, id had some success with their single player Doom reboot, and MachineGames' Wolfenstein game was a good, if not a huge commercial success. Perhaps id Software will handle the multiplayer and MachineGames will handle the campaign, but returning Quake to the old-school multiplayer-FPS-single-player-campaign format has not been a free-to-play phenomenon. seems like the next reasonable thing to try.

As a Quake 2 fan, I'm all for it. I never cared much for the single-player campaign, but when Quake 3 went multiplayer-only, I missed the sci-fi adventure foundation that was always so flimsy. (The bad guys are aliens called The Strogg. Kill them.)

There is another sign that a new, old-fashioned Quake may be on the way: a substantial Quake 2 remaster was released at QuakeCon last year. Aside from graphical upgrades and improved multiplayer support, the update added 28 new campaign levels from MachineGames.

Practice runs?

If the announcement of Quake 6 is really imminent, it would be a bit unreasonable for it not to be announced at QuakeCon. id Software's fan event dates are not yet set, but they usually take place in August. In previous years there have been showcases for Xbox and Bethesda, and this year will probably include Activision Blizzard.