Nine Inch Nails’ legendary Quake soundtrack finally hits remastered vinyl 24 years later

It’s taken a long time, but one of the most iconic soundtracks in gaming history is finally getting the remastered vinyl release it always deserved. That’s right: Quake is back.

The soundtrack for the iconic, genre-defying first-person shooter from 1996 is lauded as one of the best game soundtracks ever assembled, helping bring the game's ambiance and world-building to life. But despite the love and buzz, the soundtrack never got the type of release other high profile original accompaniments have scored. The lack of release over these decades is even more mind-boggling when you consider it was put together by Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor himself.

The 2XLP, 180 gram vinyl release scored a surprise drop on Nine Inch Nails’ website, where it’s available now for $35. Even better? They put together a special booklet loaded up with essays from the game’s designers John Carmack and American McGee — the masterminds of the title back in the day at id Software. But, per the release, the certain unnamed video game publisher made it “impossible” to include the booklet in the release itself.

So they posted it online for fans to view and print themselves. So you still get the goodies, you’ll just need a printer to finish the set.

Here’s the track listing, in case you need a refresher:

SIDE A
01. QUAKE THEME
02. AFTERMATH
03. THE HALL OF SOULS

SIDE B
01. IT IS RAPED
02. PARALLEL DIMENSIONS
03. LIFE

SIDE C
01. DAMNATION
02. FOCUS
03. FALLING
04. THE REACTION

Though it’s never been on vinyl, the soundtrack itself was embedded on most CD copies of the game’s PC version. Basically, you could play the game disc in a CD player, so long as you skipped Track 1 (which was the game itself), and rock on out. But now you can do it analog-style, while reading your self-printed book of extras.