Bethesda Announces Quake Champions is Now Free to Play

[Raevenlord]

During its QuakeCon 2018 keynote, Bethesda has announced that Quake Champions is now permanently fixed in a Free to Play model - no more will you have to wait for free-entrance weekends to grab a little time with this game - which is still in Early Access though - don't forget that little tidbit.

Included in the base Free to Play model are Quake Champions Quickplay, Arcade, and Ranked modes, maps, and two Champions (the Ranger and Scalebearer). Bethesda will also keep one extra free Champion on a weekly rotation, but gamers who want to make use of another Champion can purchase access to it through Fervor - earned by completing matches. Of course, if you want to have access to the full Champion package, Bethesda has a promotion going on the Champions Pack, which gives you access to all current and future Champions - usually $40, reduced to $19.79 during QuakeCon, and another sale for $30 until September 4.

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[BumbleBee]

pew pew

 

[lexluthermiester]

Why? Oh that's right, because not many are playing it.

 

[StrayKAT]

lol.. it's a free game. I have no complaints.

I don't think it has a chance of conquering the world like the rest of them, but Quake (and all Id) worlds are far cooler than everyone else's. So it has that going for it at least.

 

[lexluthermiester]

but Quake (and all Id) worlds are far cooler than everyone else's. So it has that going for it at least.

Good point.

 

[cucker tarlson]

I was quite a Q3 head back in the day.

 

[dj-electric]

This should have been free from the start just like the new UT is

 

[Manu_PT]

Quake Champions is really, I mean REALLY bad!!! There is no balance at all. The rocket launcher is so fast and is all you need to get frags not involving any skill. Just spam left mouse button and boom boom, then you need 3 well aimed rails to kill a champion. The nercode feels terrible too, on some servers I felt like I was ahead 500ms and obliterating everyone. On other servers ppl hit me with lg with their back turned to me loool massive desync.

Cant really recommend this game to anyone but at least now is free so...

 

[RejZoR]

Netcode and everything related to hit registration is less predictable and consistent than a lottery...

 

[lexluthermiester]

I was quite a Q3 head back in the day.

It was fun for LAN parties, but the single player was boring and was literally just a long, drawn out tutorial for the multiplay side of the game. I was very much a fan of Q1. Q2 was good, but was a radical departure from the very excellent game play physics of the first. Q4 was great also as it had a very good single play aspect and the multiplay was well done. Champions has none of what made the best versions of Quake great. No LAN play? No Thank You! Even Q3 is better than this nonsense.

 

[Ubersonic]

Of course, if you want to have access to the full Champion package, Bethesda has a promotion going on the Champions Pack, which gives you access to all current and future Champions - usually $40, reduced to $19.79 during QuakeCon, and another sale for $30 until September 4.

So it's not free is it lol, they're just not charging to buy the game AND charging you for the characters in it anymore ^^

 

[GamerNerves]

I recommend to try this out. It is a good game on a good path. It's yet in development, so it's not pitch perfect, but the core gameplay is solid. The netcode today is quite solid aswell.

EDIT. And remember: you essentially play a generous demo when you play this free. If you wish to have all the champions and little more, then buy the champions pack, which practically opens up the full experience. This game may be hard for some, but soon the matchmaking will put you against even players.

 

[silentbogo]

So it's not free is it lol, they're just not charging to buy the game AND charging you for the characters in it anymore ^^

As with all FtP games, you have to pay for something. At least with the current loot system you can get all champs simply by playing and collecting in-game currency.
I've played since march and I've already unlocked all champions except Strogg and DeathKnight.
The only thing I don't like in free package, is that you cannot run custom matches like in CBT (only public games are available).

Quake Champions is really, I mean REALLY bad!!! There is no balance at all.

It's not that bad. The game itself is actually fun and the "balance" thing boils down to your ability to utilize characters, even if you play the most unlikely mode for this particular character.
For example, Clutch can be a nice choice for Instagib regardless of his huge hitbox, or Nyx is very strong character in FFA (even though she can die from a single shotgun blast at spawn).

But as @RejZoR pointed out - there are some serious netcode issues. Last couple of patches made it even worse, bringing back all the shitty behavior and glitches that I haven't seen since closed beta (stuttering, warping, frame drops, huge input lag, spawn bugs etc.).

Another mistake ID did is slashing Sacrifice before even announcing CTF mode and going free on Steam. When Quake Champions went Free-to-Play for the first time, it left all new players with only ONE team mode, which is why the number of players went from 13,000 at it's peak all the way down to it's pre-summer patch numbers.

 

[coonbro]

It was fun for LAN parties, but the single player was boring and was literally just a long, drawn out tutorial for the multiplay side of the game. I was very much a fan of Q1. Q2 was good, but was a radical departure from the very excellent game play physics of the first. Q4 was great also as it had a very good single play aspect and the multiplay was well done. Champions has none of what made the best versions of Quake great. No LAN play? No Thank You! Even Q3 is better than this nonsense.

''Champions has none of what made the best versions of Quake great''

that's right that's because its Bethesda not Id / carmack and the ones that made id what it was . Bethesda is just trying to cash in on Id 's good name and and may as well say drag it through the mud for all they can get from that .

only ones left from Id are the ones that could not find work else where or on there own merits ..lol... thios crap is a far cry from what Id would of offered you in game and game play

 

[Keullo-e]

For headless shooting I still love UT2004 most.

 

[Ubersonic]

As with all FtP games, you have to pay for something.

I think you missed the point.

They are saying it's "free" now because instead of paying for the game then being charged extra to play all the characters in it, they are now offering the "game" for free and only charging for the charecters.

Basically they have gone from selling a graphically updated Quake III with inferior game play for twice the price, to selling a graphically updated Quake III with inferior game play for the same price ^^

 

[GlacierNine]

Quake Champions is really, I mean REALLY bad!!! There is no balance at all. The rocket launcher is so fast and is all you need to get frags not involving any skill. Just spam left mouse button and boom boom, then you need 3 well aimed rails to kill a champion. The nercode feels terrible too, on some servers I felt like I was ahead 500ms and obliterating everyone. On other servers ppl hit me with lg with their back turned to me loool massive desync.

Cant really recommend this game to anyone but at least now is free so...

I'm glad to know that people with no skill complaining about lag and the "noob tube" will always be a constant, no matter how good Quake is.

The rocket launcher doesn't feel bad at all. It's maybe slightly faster, but so is the whole game, with most characters having solid movement abilities or in some cases, higher base speed. It's damage is the same 100 it always has been.

The Railgun does exactly 10 damage more than it did in Quake Live - to compensate for the fact that several of the new champions have larger health pools. Versus an enemy with no armor it will 2shot them, just like it did in Quake Live. versus an enemy with armor, it does 90 raw damage compared to 80, which is fine, because if you were playing Scalebearer versus an 80 damage railgun in QC you'd be unstoppable.

Netcode wise I've actually been extremely impressed. Going between QC and Overwatch feels like going from a crisp spring breeze to walking through molasses. There's a bit of favour-the-shooter but not too much, and the link between what you see on screen and what happens in game is extremely strong - very crisp, very responsive.

If you're having lag problems, you should just go into the settings and make sure you're set to only connect to servers with low pings. By default the game prioritizes faster matchmaking, so it can throw you into servers with reasonable delay. That's perfectly fine for casuals, but if you're more serious you want to keep the available servers sub 50ms.

 

[Airbrushkid]

Never been into Multi - Player games. Just Single player games all these years period.

 

[silentbogo]

They are saying it's "free" now because instead of paying for the game then being charged extra to play all the characters in it, they are now offering the "game" for free and only charging for the charecters.

But that kind of was the original idea. You either play for free starting with only a Ranger, or you pay for a full package, which includes all existing and upcoming champs.
What I meant, is that at this point there is no paywall. Back in CBT and even later there were no daily rewards and FtP players only got their champs randomly from lootboxes. During that time I've only got Nyx and three duplicate Nyxes, which was frustrating.
Now you simply grind and buy whatever you want without actually spending cash, which is a lot more than most of other "Free-to-Play" games can offer. At this point everything is unlockable from within the game, except "Custom Match" availability (which may change if people start pressuring iD through community forums about it).

I think I've only paid $10 for a Scalebearer pack when it came out, cause I got tired of Bethesda launcher and wanted to play the steam version.