Pulling off tricks like spinning around mid-leap isn’t simply exhilarating - it’s damn near necessary at points. The controls are instantly familiar to any arena shooter fan, but the speed and flexibility allow you to pull off moves a more traditional game would try to stop. Everything’s over the top, but never so noisy that you can’t focus precisely on the key details. In many ways, it evokes the sort of varied, memorable duels in a round of Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter.

Instead, even those distinctive wrinkles are just there to give you a brief edge in a pinch - skill and earned knowledge are what differentiates an average Quaker from a rocket-blasting master of mayhem. While each character has stats and ultimate abilities - like casting a healing field that explodes on enemies or briefly revealing enemy outlines on your HUD - none of them are overpowered like a Call of Duty killstreak. Every weapon is reliable, with consistent placement across maps and modes. There’s no progression system, weapon mods, or anything outside of the game modes that alters your in-game performance. Quake Champions works like chess more than anything else. Instead, your brain’s analyzing each opponent’s strategy and accounting for their respective champion’s unique attributes. Your blood gets pumping, dashing between rocket volleys and laser beams, but you never feel in danger or like you’re really fighting someone. After hours of rocket jumping and gibbing aplenty, I felt more relaxed than tense. Despite however grizzled its main cast may be, Quake Champions has established an air of respectful dueling. The thing that strikes you first is how oddly polite everyone is. Messy, with some obvious growing pains, but still an experience many competitive games could stand to learn from. So, when they gave away all the champions for free for this year’s QuakeCon, I finally dove in.Īnd you know what? Quake Champions might just be one of the smartest FPS games in years.

That’s remarkable given how many other hero shooter games have tried and failed to survive in a market dominated by Overwatch and Paladins, especially an M-rated title based on an IP that’s not nearly as well known now as it once was. Despite being essentially forgotten by the internet, the game has a devoted community, churning along at its own pace. It’s received numerous updates for over three years now to acknowledge that it does, in fact, exist.

Quake Champions is a game that certainly happened.

How to get better at quake champions