Quake Champions‘s December update is live, and it’s one of the biggest the old-school arena shooter has seen since it entered early access. The much-maligned loot box-based economy of the game is dead, replaced by a linear progression of cosmetic rewards for each character, and extra goodies for those who pick up a Fortnite/Rocket League-styled season pass. They’ve also brought back Capture The Flag mode (my favourite way to play classic twitchy shooters), added a new map and squeezed a little more performance out of the game for those on lower-spec PCs. Check out the full patch notes here.

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Twitchy old-school arena shooter Quake Champions is the latest competitive game to axe random rewards in favour of a more deterministic reward structure. Outlined here, the free-to-play deathmatch (still technically> in early access) will drop loot boxes this month in favour of a Fortnite and Rocket League-esque progression system. Players earn a chain of rewards each three-month season just by playing, or speed things up and earn shinier things by spending 1000 Platinum (around 8) on a seasonal Battle Pass. Id explain it all in a development diary video below.

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Today’s update for Id’s twitchy online FPS Quake Champions holds a special place in my heart – much as I appreciate its Quake 3-inspired core, Quake 2 was the first competitive FPS I got into. On top of a new attack-and-defense playmode called Slipgate, new champion Athena feels like she’s been lifted straight from Quake 2, laser-like grappling hook and quirky physics intact. Below, videos introducing Slipgate and Athena. The game is in early access and free-to-play, and the Slipgate update is out now. You can see the full patch notes here.

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Big changes for Quake Champions today. Id’s twitchy (and now free-to-play) arena FPS revival is paying tribute to the fans – favourite high-flying Quake 3 deathmatch map The Longest Yard is back in business, plus a grab-bag of alternative modes for more casual play. The September Update is live now, though the game still technically remains in early access.

Update: Quake 2 character Athena’s release had been announced, but has been bumped back to the next update. The Longest Yard and Arcade Mode are up now.

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Ever since Quake Champions first bunny-hopped onto the scene, we’ve known that it would go free-to-play, but Id Software kept a price-tag on it during its initial months of public testing. During their QuakeCon keynote mere moments ago, they announced that now (and forever), Quake Champions is free-to-play. While you can earn characters through play, the option still remains to buy all present and future champions outright, and this pack is on sale, too.

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I can only assume the makers of Quake Champions are bunny-hopping around the office, rocket-jumping off their keyboards. That would explain the flurry of activity surrounding the old-school arena FPS. Today’s update marks the first leg in Id’s recently-revealed roadmap out of early access, introducing a new playable character (one of the more irritating monsters from Quake 1) and returning the briefly-mothballed bots to service, along with some improvements to their murderous robot brains.

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Chances are if you play twitchy arena FPS Quake Champions, you take your shooters a little more seriously than most. It’s an uncompromising game where knowing the ins and outs of every map is nigh essential. Enter the heatmaps section, added today to the Quake Champions site. Not only is it neat to poke around the living history of each map, seeing where players lived and died, but it’s genuinely informative, especially as you can filter by both kills and deaths to a specific weapon.

Update: While we were busy monkeying around with heatmaps, Id announced a bundle of new features and modes in this developer stream recap. We take a peek at some of that below.

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It’s been heartening to see Quake Champions doing so well. After the likes of LawBreakers failed to draw the crowds even during free beta events, was there even room in the market for an old-school arena shooter? Apparently so, as when Bethesda announced at E3 that the game was going free-to-play early (for a limited time), the servers filled up fast, and stayed full. They reckon they’re on to a good thing, clearly, as they’re extending the giveaway for another week. Tag the game now at Bethesda.net or on Steam and keep access forever.

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I’ve never been a Quaker. I’ve always thought a life spent pursuing peace and friendship through a religious lens was at odds with the Quaker’s requirement that you spend 5 hours of every day playing a version of Id Software’s hyper-violent shooter, but I won’t pretend to understand such ecclesiastical matters.

I just got myself all tangled up over something that’s quite simple, now that I’ve managed to spell it out. Quake Champions is an upcoming free-to-play arena shooter, only for now it’s in paid for early access. Except for right> now and up until June 18th – until which you can get free permanent access to the early access version if you download it and play at least one match. If you’re like me and have barely dipped your toes into Quake before, this seems like a good opportunity to fix that. (more…)

Thursday was patch-day for early access arena shooter Quake Champions [official site]. Tons of changes in this update, but there’s something for everyone as it’s raining buffs: BJ Blazkowicz gets a buff! Clutch gets a buff! Doom Guy gets a buff! And everyone’s favourite scary alien lizard-lady Sorlag gets… a nerf. Two, in fact.

Poor Sorlag. At least there’s a Double XP event running this weekend. That’s something, right?

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