Way too many differences for it to be a feasible origin typeface. This post is based on a few similar-looking letters but they’re not even that similar-looking: the O, for example, has a different curvature.
I wouldn't put too much weight on curvature differences, that's an inevitable part of turning curved letterforms into a bitmap font. The letters would obviously have required significant pixel-by-pixel tweaking to look good on a 320x240 raster.
Quake didn't even present the bitmaps in a consistent aspect ratio or size, it did a 1-to-1 pixel copy regardless of the target pixel shape/size. Quake shipped with a 320x200 default resolution in 1996, with configurable support for a variety of resolutions including 320x240. Over time, most people ended up on a 4:3 resolution on a 4:3 display.
This isn't viral mutation we're talking about here. An artist easily could have redrawn the O because of some issue or purely taste. There's a lot of commonalities and the article seems interesting and potentially correct.
Yes, the A in Quake is very different having a small bridge in the cross piece, whereas the font shown omits the lefthand stroke almost entirely to create a bridge.
I’m not sure if is really is the font, but I suspect the font in Quake started as some conventional font and then was modified to fit the aesthetic of the game. Specifically, to make it look more threatening, because the 90’s ruled and even the fonts were edgy. The O is, I think, looming, and the T is a dagger.