Congratulations, Quakefam: you've collectively played 1,000,000 Slipgate matches, unlocking Athena--or her lore skin if you already own her--for everyone in the community who participated!

These rewards will unlock for players on Thursday, November 1. Great job out there, Quakers! See all you crazy swingers in the Arena!

Achtung, Quakefam! Our latest Champion (coming in November!) is now available for Champions Pack owners to test on the PTS. Eisen, a German spaceship captain with a knack for machinery, can build turrets that alert you of incoming enemies and allow you to move in for the frag! His ability is a great utility for positional awareness!

Watch his reveal trailer here:

https://youtu.be/LLu3izM96Xc
We've also included a ton of Champion ability and Weapon balance changes in this PTS version. You can read full patch notes here: https://beth.games/2Ptgjap

Let us know your feedback in the PTS forum!

Congrats Quakers:

You've hit the 50% waypoint towards the Slipgate Festival community event goals! This means that everyone who's played and participated in the event now owns the Scalebearer lore skin! (Already had the lore skin? You get Scalebearer's weight in shards!)

Now you've got some brand new digs to wear while playing this week's "Lead the Way" Arcade mode.

Keep up the pace completing those Slipgate matches. We need everyone playing to help unlock Athena! (Or her lore skin if you already own her.)

Congratulations, Quakefam: over the weekend you unlocked the Annihilator Heavy Machine Gun skin for completing Slipgate matches! Not only that, you've now reached the 30% mark as of the tally this morning!



You're so close to unlocking Scalebearer's lore skin--and then, Athena! Keep it up!


You can always see the most up-to-date progress we post by checking the Quake.com site here: https://beth.games/2IIcPLd

We also post progress milestones in-game when you log in! Note that because we need to pull match numbers as a manual process, there isn't a "real-time" progress bar--but we're continually monitoring and updating it so you know just where you're at!

We also update the community's progress on social media:
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram

Good work, everyone! Keep it up!

The October Game Update is now LIVE! This update includes a new mode: Slipgate; a new Champion: Athena; a fresh rotation of weekly Arcade Modes; the Quake 4 Heavy Machinegun Vanity Skin “Annihilator”; Champion & Weapon Balance Changes; and a Game Hardening Pass (performance gains).

New Mode: SLIPGATE

https://youtu.be/9IN5spGwE1Y
Slipgate is an attack-and-defend mode where both teams fight over the Slipgate portal: a massive wormhole capable of summoning an ancient unnamed horror. Each-and-every sharpshooter spawns with all weapons, full health, full armor but a single, precious, precious life. The defending team of Elder God cultists are trying to open the Slipgate, while the attacking team must stand on the point to close the gate before whatever tentacled terror on the other side pulls itself into our dimension!

LIMITED TIME EVENT: SLIPGATE FESTIVAL

https://youtu.be/8NM3ng8URjw
From October 11th - 31st all players taking part from day one will immediately receive the Elder Guardian Tentacle Weapon Shaders for all starting weapons (Machinegun, Shotgun, & Nailgun)!

Subsequent festival milestones will result in the new Annihilator Heavy Machine Gun Skin being gifted to all participants, then unlocking the Overseer Scalebearer Lore Skin and, ultimately, Athena – or her Coalition Lore Skin if the Champion is already owned either through the Champions Pack, or by purchasing Athena any time before the goal is reached.

Read more about the Slipgate Festival here.

New Champion: ATHENA

https://youtu.be/aLnyZiXc1i0
Athena was among the first to sign up to the GDF and seek vengeance against the Strogg who devastated Earth. Caught in a trap laid for the expeditionary forces, she escaped when a Slipgate generator collapsed, teleporting her drop pod into the Dreamland arenas. Now she uses her grapple line throws and aerial acrobatics to dominate the airspace above her enemies and rain death from above.

Starting Statistics:

• Health 125/100
  
• Armor 0/50
  
• Speed 320

Active Ability – Grappling Hook: Athena will launch a grappling hook to the target location and immediately pull herself towards it. While in flight, Athena can stop pulling herself and instead swing, allowing her to perform impressive maneuvers:

• Linear Pull Hook
  
• Swing Hook
  
• Piercing Damage 25
  
• Swing Damage 50

Passive Ability – Ramp Jump: Athena can reach great heights by using the top ramp or step as a launching platform.


A brand new way to queue up and play! The Arcade is a weekly rotation of rule modifiers that shake up how you play Quake Champions in fun, different ways. This month we’re introducing four new modes, one for each week of the month (in order of appearance):

UNHOLY TRINITY TDM
Choose any champion, all weapons have been removed from the map, however you spawn with the unholy trinity – Rocket Launcher, Railgun, & Lightning gun & NOW WITH A TEAM FULL OF FRIENDS! Armor and health are still present on the map. Practice your combos!

LEAD THE WAY
Everybody’s Scalebearer in a Free For All Deathmatch where Bull Rush is an insta-kill on your enemies. So, basically, it’s an Insta Scaletrain to ChooChoo town!

SWINGER PARTY
Put your keys in the bowl and… No, not THAT kind of party!!! Everybody’s Athena in a Free for All Deathmatch where a direct Grappling Hook shot on an enemy Athena is an insta-kill. So, basically, it’s a SWINGER’S PARTY.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

SACRIFICE
Remember Sacrifice? Well, it’s that, but now w/ a shorter cap time - down from two-and-a-half minutes to just one minute!


Used on all galactic fronts, the SMC Annihilator is a space marine's best friend. It punches holes through enemies like they were paper. This Quake 4 Heavy Machine gun fits right into to any player's perfect arsenal.

In this update we’ve included a number of general improvements:

Game Hardening: The team have taken a forensic look under the game’s hood in order to better deliver solid framerates and eradicate ‘ghost’ inputs as part of our ongoing commitment to improving the game’s performance.
Read the full details of our Game Hardening in our latest Dev Diary here.

Performance Summary

• Improved performance of FX heavy Champions
  
• Improved client and server-side performance for shotgun
  
• Improved performance of Gore spawns
  
• Improved performance of several maps through art/shader optimizations
• and poly count reductions

Quality Of Life Updates

• Added a HUD section to Game Settings
  
• Added Ally and Enemy Outline Color options in HUD Settings
  
• Added Current Challenge Info toggle in HUD Settings
  
• Added Zoom FOV options to Game Settings
  
• Reintroducing Scoreboard to End of Match – Thanks to your feedback, we brought this back from a lost Slipgate in the depths of the Dreamlands

Champions

• Fixed an issue where Respawning via the pause menu with Slash could cause death camera to shake rapidly
  
• Fixed an issue with Strogg where player was unable to pick up the soul during Sacrifice after using Peeker
  
• Fixed an issue with Strogg where the 'Sensor Antenna' Vanity did not cloak properly upon ability use
  
• Fixed an issue where Ranger's Dire Orb could pass through doors

Maps

• Addressed an issue on Longest Yard to improve Lighting on the pre/post game podium screens
  
• Fixed various art issues by the Heavy Machinegun spawns on Longest Yard
  
• Fixed an issue on Longest Yard where players could shoot and damage others through the floor
  
• Addressed an issue on Tempest Shrine where players could stand out of the playable area by the Ship
  
• Hourglass pick-ups adjusted to reduce how quickly active abilities can be restored, reducing the number of available hourglasses and/or moving them to positions that favor the player out of control.
  
  • Awoken 5 to 6 (increased, but moved them from areas of power to areas of weakness)
    
  • Blood Covenant 10 to 6
    
  • Blood Run 7 to 6
    
  • Ruins of Sarnath 17 to 10
    
  • Tempest Shrine 15 to 13
    
  • The Molten Falls 9 to 7

Map Changes: Lockbox

• Updated Lockbox item layout
  
• Swapped the locations of Mega Health and Power-Up
  
• Removed the Railgun near the floating platform in the Aeon Crystal room (upper toilet bowl)
  
• Swapped the locations of Lightning Gun and the nearby Light Armor
  
• Moved the Heavy Armor: In TDM/DM it is now located in the Blind Oculus room (Point B) - In Sacrifice / Slipgate it is in the cavernous staircase near the Blind Oculus
  
• In the Bridge Room: moved the Light Armor from behind the Acidfall to the center of the lower level
  
• Added a Teleporter behind the Acidfall that leads to the upper 3rd level of the same room
  
• Replaced the Super Nailgun on the 3rd floor of the Acidfall Bridge room with a Railgun
  
• Added two Small Healths near the Rocket Launcher
  
• In Sacrifice / Slipgate: repositioned the Heavy Machinegun in the closed base (Point A) to align with the nearby jumppad
  
• Added a new teleporter to Lockbox behind the acid-fall

Weapons

• Fixed an issue which occurred after using abilities which could break the increased damage from zooming in with the HMG
  
• Fixed an issue where Flame effect could appear on the gauntlet when not playing Death Knight
  
• Fixed an issue where weapon textures could appear low res
  
• Fixed an issue where weapon zoom would zoom in several times further than intended

Vanity

• Fixed the historically incorrect US Flag on BJ’s Liberator set
  
• Fixed a texture error on Sorlag’s Savage set
  
• Removed a reversed decal from the Pummel Gauntlet

UI

• Fixed an issue where Players could appear in the lobby after disconnecting from a Custom match
  
• Fixed an issue where the Player profile would appear blank when opened
  
• Fixed an issue where the Time limit and score limit on the scoreboard were shown incorrectly
  
• Addressed an issue where Users could not access their player profile
  
• Fixed certain strings that were not showing up correctly
  
• Fixed an issue where a box would appear when hovering over the Eradicator Weapon in the Store
  
• Updated the Battle Report, Match Achievements to show proper amount of digits
  
• Fixed issues where certain buttons were not easily selectable

Gameplay

• Fixed an issue with Strogg where Players were unable to pick up the Soul after using Peeker, during a Sacrifice match
  
• Fixed an issue playing Unholy Trinity where Rocket Launcher God medals earned were not added to profile properly
  
• Fixed an issue in Unholy Trinity where the Rocket Launcher would play the near-empty audio when fired at all times
  
• Fixed an issue in Team Instagib where Certain Champions did not take self-damage
  
• Spawn Protection added to all Quick Play and Arcade Modes, for consistent behavior in all unranked play

Tech

• Fixed a crash in spectator mode which could occur if player was in free cam between matches
  
• Fixed a crash that could occur if players were using voice chat during warmup
  
• Addressed an issue specific to AMD Vega machines which could crash on launch
  
• Fixed an issue where the game could crash when spamming the Death
• Knight ability when joining a session in progress
  
• Addressed various forum reported FPS and Performance drops and hitches during matches
  
• Addressed various champion gore issues throughout matches on different maps

Spectator

• Fixed an issue where the Spectator would see an empty Respawn button after a player respawned during warmup

Bots

• Made various improvements to bot navigation
  
• Improved weapon handling & difficulty

All Champions

• Adjusted View Heights to account for recent rescaling of player models - essentially this pass is updating all Champion in-game model sizes to reflect their hitbox changes that we have over many patches from Feburary to now
  
• Unified Crouch Speeds
  
• Light Champions increased from 80 to 160u
  
• Medium Champions increased from 77 to 160u
  
• Heavy Champions increased from 75 to 160u

*Slash’s changes noted below
**Scale = Model Scale + Hitbox
Anarki

• Raised View Height 0.65 to 0.66m

B.J. Blazkowicz

• Lowered View Height 0.58 to 0.56m

Clutch

• Scale 1.175 to 1.15x
  
• Lowered View Height 0.68 to 0.58m
  
• Further Reduced Hitbox Size

Death Knight

• Lowered View Height 0.555 to 0.52m
  
• Flame Strike direct damage 50 to 40
  
• Flame Strike splash damage 51 to 30
  
• Flame Strike radius 3 to 2m (120 to 80u)

DOOM Slayer

• Lowered View Height 0.75 to 0.6m
  
• Hands Raise Time 0.3 to 0.4s

Galena

• Scale 1.1 to 1.2x
  
• Lowered View Height 0.62 to 0.6m
  
• Further Increased Hitbox Size

Keel

• Scale 1.15 to 1.22x
  
• Hitbox size reduced (had too much padding after scaling)

Scalebearer

• Scale 1.15 to 1.175x
  
• Lowered View Height 0.65 to 0.64m
  
• Bull Rush Damages Adjusted from 50/75/100/150/200 to 75/100/125/150/200

Slash

• Lowered View Height 0.78 to 0.6m
  
• Crouch Speed 85% to 50% (272 to 160u)
  
• Crouch Slide Friction 1.3 to 1.0

Sorlag

• Scale 1.1 to 1.0x
  
• Lowered View Height 0.7 to 0.58m
  
• Bunny Hop Acceleration 0.02 to 0.05

Strogg & Peeker

• Lowered View Height 0.58 to 0.56m

Lightning Gun

• Cooldown 55 to 52ms (18 to 19 shots per second) resulting in a very slight DPS boost of 1 more hit per second

See you in Slipgate mode, Quakers! Have fun!

In addition to all the features coming in tomorrow's major game update, we've also taken a deep-dive under the hood of Quake Champions to root out and resolve some networking and clientside issues, to help improve your gameplay experience.

Read our Dev Diary for all the info: https://beth.games/2CBIX31

This is the first of many optimization-focused "game hardening passes" to come, where we focus on continually improving performance!

Hey Quakers!

Our all-new attack-and-defend teamplay mode Slipgate is coming in this week's October Update, and what better way to celebrate than by giving you a chance to win some major rewards--including unlocking the all-new Champion, Athena, FREE for the whole community!

The task is simple – play Slipgate matches from October 11 through 31 alongside your fellow players to complete community goals. New rewards unlock all month long as Quakers worldwide reach milestones! You can read the full event details here: https://beth.games/2IIcPLd



Haven't heard of Slipgate mode? We've got you covered: Slipgate mode preview

GREETINGS CHAMPIONS!

The September game update includes a new map: Longest Yard; four new Arcade Modes; Quake 2’s Super Shotgun Vanity Skin “Trespasser” (named by you, our community!); Champion & Weapon balance changes; and performance improvements.


New Map: Longest Yard
Only the power of the Rune of Black Magic prevents the floating ruins of Volkerh’s tabernacle from tumbling into the Blind God’s oblivion-maw.

The classic bottomless space map returns! Beware railguns and ringouts in this open area map where jump pads propel you to new heights and distant floating islands.

Arcade Modes
A brand new way to queue up and play! The Arcade is a weekly rotation of rule modifiers that shake up how you play Quake Champions in fun, different ways. This month we’re introducing four new modes, one for each week of the month (in order of appearance):

• Unholy Trinity - Holy Trinity weapons only: the Rocket Launcher, Railgun, and Lightning Gun! This is the only mode with abilities disabled.
  
• Hot Rockets - Rocket Launchers only! Your own rockets won’t hurt you (so rocket jump to your heart’s content), but they’ll do triple damage to your enemies!
  
• Mystery Champion - Each time you respawn, you’ll come back to the Arena as a random Champion!
  
• Team Instagib - Now you can play this one shot, one kill mode with friends!

New Weapon Skin: "Trespasser"
Like a Berserker bursting out of a monster closet, the pump-action QUAKE 2 Super Shotgun likes to get up close and personal to its target, only to obliterate it.

Our players suggested the name for this one based off the Quake 2 Berserker Strogg's famous voice line, and we just had to use it!

Bot Backfill support
Bots will now fill in when players leave during a match to prevent uneven games.

Party Queuing for Deathmatch and Instagib
Want to frag your friends in free-for-all modes? Of course you do, and now you can! Players in parties can now queue up for Deathmatch and Instagib Quck Play modes.

In this update we’ve included a number of performance improvements:

• Gore System improvements – Decreases performance spikes caused by players respawning
  
• Logic optimizations – Reduces performance spikes upon respawn; score events; entity creation & destruction; and increases FPS
  
• Particle and Sound Effects optimization - Reduces hitching issues

Anarki

• Cooldown 50 to 45 sec
  
• Disable Shoot Duration 1.35 to 0.75 sec

BJ Blazkowicz

• Cooldown 40 to 45 sec
  
• Duration 7 to 5 sec
  
• MG Rate of Fire 1.6x to 1.5x
  
• LG Rate of Fire 1.6x to 1.45x

Clutch

• Cooldown 35 to 40 sec
  
• Duration 7 to 5 sec
  
• Shield Hide Time 0.7 to 0.9 sec

Death Knight

• Splash Bug Fix
  
• Added Splash Damage Falloff
  
• Cooldown 30 to 45 sec
  
• Duration 8 to 6 sec
  
• Flame Dot 10 to 5
  
• Added 10 Damage on Trail (Standing on fire deals damage, similar to standing on Slash’s Plasma Trail)

Scalebearer

• Improved Bull Rush target detection
  
• Bull Rush Damage Reduction 0.5 to 0.66

Slash

• Max Speed 18 to 50 m/s

Sorlag

• Scale 1.15 to 1.1x
  
• Disable Shoot Duration 1.0 to 0.75 sec

Strogg & Peeker

• Delay before Charge 1.0 to 0.75 sec
  
• Peeker Step Height 0 to 0.3 m (Peeker will no longer get stuck going up staircases)

Visor

• Duration 6 to 5 sec

Machinegun

• Spread 0.02 to 0.03

Heavy Machinegun

• Spread 0.045 to 0.03
  
• Zoom Spread 0.01 to 0

Shotgun

• Rate of Fire 800 to 1000 ms

Super Shotgun

• Rate of Fire 1050 to 1000 ms

Tri-bolt

• Rate of Fire 1000 to 1200 ms
  
• Starting Ammo 15 to 10 bolts
  
• Max Ammo 25 to 20 bolts

Matchmaking

• Added skill banding to increase the size of the matchmaking pools for "very low" and "very high"-skilled players

Tutorial

• Scalebearer bot battle segment of the tutorial now replayable

Misc. Gameplay

• Ring outs on opponents now count as frags

Data Centers

• Added Northern California server
  
• Added Tokyo server
  
• Removed Novosibirsk and Mumbai servers

Friends List updates

• Added "View Profile" Feature - Players can now access the profile page of other players on their contact lists or in their match lobbies
  
• Hide banned players names from in-game player searches
  
• Banned players are removed from leaderboards

UI Update

• New ‘Play Now’ menu
  
• Tutorial UI Changes
  
• Leaderboards Moved to top navigation Panel

Store Updates

• Decreased lootbox duplicate rates
  
• Chests contain 2 items of common, uncommon, rare, epic, or legendary quality, and every box contains at least one item that’s rare quality or better!
  
• Reliquaries are a premium loot box that contains 3 items of uncommon, rare, epic, or legendary quality, and every box contains at least one item that’s epic quality or better!

Misc. Updates

• Store: Scroll Visibility Update
  
• Disabled Voice Chat for Russia

Misc. Fixes

• Fixed an issue with the bots not respecting the respawn time settings
  
• Fixed an issue during match queue where game fails to start a match after saying "Match Found"
  
• Fixed an issue where the music loop stops during the match
  
• Added fixes for frequent hitching during gameplay
  
• Added fixes for players having FPS and performance drops throughout the match
  
• Fixed issue in Lockbox where Muzzle flash alters lighting of entire rooms
  
• Added a fix for when servers added more than 8 players & bots into a match
  
• Fixed an issue where completing Basic Training did not unlock the 2nd tutorial appropriately
  
• Fixed an issue where Entering Customization through the Runes page from the Battle Report caused the camera to be off center
  
• Fixed an issue where Spectators could receive "connection to dedicated server lost" prompt and experience infinite loading
  
• Fixed an issue where the Game could become unresponsive when navigating from the statistics screen to player profile and back
  
• Added a fix for when Death Knight Flame Strike damaged players but there was no flame effect
  
• Fixed issue where players would spawn on fire when viewed from 3rd person
  
• Added fix where players were unable to search Deathmatch or Instagib while in a party
  
• Added fixes to address bots falling out of the map at start of a match with 4+ bots
  
• Fixed issue where user may crash while on the Podium screen for 2v2 Ranked
  
• Fixed an issue where players were not ordered correctly on post-match lineup after sudden death
  
• Fixed a Steam store issue where String text pop-up appears when attempting to purchase Platinum with Steam Overlay disabled
  
• Fixed an issue where Death Knight could inflict Two Fire DoT's to enemies
  
• Fixed an issue where users could receive error 104 during matches
  
• Addressed various in-match crashes
  
• Fixed incorrect Champion rotation on the pre-match podium
  
• Fixed an issue where a dark line would appear on low pre-sets on The Molten Falls
  
• Fixed an issue where on Low settings dark textures on floor are present on Blood Covenant
  
• Fixed an issue where finishing damage was not displayed sometimes
  
• Fixed an issue where hitmarkers could fail to appear when damaging an enemy
  
• Fixed an issue where Death Knight bot's name appears as a string text in matches
  
• Fixed an issue where some weapons clip into model in 3rd person
  
• Fixed an issue with Custom Game: Default icon and description text for
• Bots Setup and Difficulty dropdowns was incorrect
  
• Fixed an issue where server and client trajectories of Dire orb in corners and obelisk appear different
  
• Fixed an issue where there was missing light on some items
  
• Fixed an issue where Sorlag: Pack Lord Attachments are removed when the Player quits the game
  
• Fixed an issue where in Basic Training: Z-fighting near lightning gun in room with bot
  
• Fixed an issue where in Basic training: missing wall geometry near portal
  
• Improved bot UI element hit registration in Custom Game
  
• Fixed an issue where Rocket Launcher and Tri-bolt shells damage through Clutch's shield
  
• Fixed an issue where Death Knight: Charring: Melee Passive ability does not do the correct DoT
  
• Fixed an issue where Strogg: Drone: Drone’s Projectiles sporadically appear invisible in third person
  
• Improved playback performance of the start up cinematic video
  
• Fixed an issue where after finishing custom game match a player appears on main menu
  
• Fixed an issue with rareness colors on tooltips in lootbox sequence and tooltips in shop are different
  
• Fixed an issue where Spectator: Sacrifice: Spectators can receive "connection to dedicated server lost" prompt and experience infinite loading
  
• Fixed an issue where in custom game in Ranked TDM 2x2, spectator watching player of blue team always sees him in the 1st place on scoreboard
  
• Fixed an issue where music sometimes stops during Ranked TDM match
  
• Fixed an issue where player receives "Ring Out" medal on suicide
  
• Fixed an issue where Pure Skill challenge cannot be completed with Nyx's
• From the Shadows medal
  
• Fixed an issue where low ammo sounds from nailgun can be heard when shooting plasma gun
  
• Fixed an issue where bots can be added on a pillar after starting a match
  
• Fixed an issue where Menu is opened when right-clicking mouse on bot in custom game, if a player's in a party
  
• Changed default fov parameters (120) and sensitivity parameters (3)

Longest Yard Map
"Why is the Quad Damage powerup floating in the air where it cannot be reached?"
This is known to occur when a player carrying Quad damage is killed in between a series of jumps.

"Why does my performance drop in The Longest Yard?"
There is a known issue where performance may drop when the player is looking towards the central area of the map. A workaround is to lower graphics settings. This is intended to be fixed in a future update.

Spectator Mode
"I cannot stay on a particular player with the Spectator Auto-Follow camera."
There is a known issue where Spectators in Auto-Follow mode cannot disable it using hotkeys. To disable Auto-Follow mode, switch to Free-Camera, or Fixed-Camera, and then back to the player you want to follow.