Enemy Territory: Quake Wars will be an online-only multiplayer shooter that will actually take place just before the beginning of Quake II (when the warlike aliens known as the strogg had invaded the Earth). Quake Wars will take place during the initial invasion and will pit two teams against each other: the strogg and a united group of human soldiers known as Earth Defense Force (or EDF, for short). The EDF will be armed with fairly conventional weaponry, like assault rifles and grenade launchers, as well as four-wheeled jeep-class vehicles and tanks. The strogg will possess alien weaponry, and they'll be divided into totally different character classes. And yes, by the way, we did say vehicles.

Many of the missions in Quake Wars will take place in huge outdoor areas in which the fastest mode of transport will be in a vehicle, and thanks to reworked physics that have been appropriated in part from the Doom III engine, vehicles will handle and deform realistically (we watched a demonstration as part of a promotional trailer that showed a jeep skidding off the side of a road, only to have its tires shot off a moment later). And yes, some parts of Doom III technology are being used for Quake Wars. But we can say with complete certainty that Quake Wars does not look like Doom III. This is due at least in part to the huge and surprisingly detailed outdoor areas that are possible, thanks to an all-new "megatexture" mapping technology developed by id Software programming guru John Carmack. The megatexture is essentially one huge, continuous texture map that can stretch all the way to the horizon, without any need for fog or other effects to mask a limited draw distance or texture tiles that repeat and show seams at the edges.