E3 2016: Bethesda seemingly melds Overwatch and Quake to create Quake Champions

Question any fan of the deathmatch genre and their favourite game will still be Quake 3: Arena. If it’s not, they haven’t played it. If the Unreal Tournament fans will stop screaming blue murder for a second, we’d like to point out that Quake is deathmatch at its purest, the true birthplace of the genre and it’s never been beat. Quake is so iconic in fact that gamers have never quite been accepting of any sequels. But then again, it’s not like the developers tried very hard. Quake 4 was a train wreck, at least the multiplayer was. Quake Live isn’t bad but there’s no support for mods or LAN play, alienating a large percentage of gamers almost immediately. 2016’s Doom brought back multiplayer but it’s just Halo with a Doom skin. Pure deathmatch has been absent from serious gaming for a long time now. A handful of indie devs have done their best to keep the genre alive, but it’s not enough. Games like Overwatch , Team Fortress 2, Halo and Call of Duty have redefined the genre. The current generation of gamers are yet to experience the joy of real deathmatch. So what did Bethesda do at E3 2016? They came out with Quake Champions. We haven’t seen anything more than a teaser trailer so far, but what we’ve seen is simultaneously worrying and exciting.

Taking cues from games like Overwatch and TF2, Quake Champions will have a class-based system. Each character is “unique,” as far as that term is relevant in online gaming anyway. You have the usual tank, assassin and sniper classes and a few odds and ends in-between. Each will have special abilities including teleportation, speed, etc. However, these Overwatch-esque skillz will be put to the test in traditional deathmatch arenas. The developers, id Software in this case, assure gamers that Quake staples such as rocket-jumping and strafe-jumping will remain.

We don’t know if weapons will be restricted by class (Sacrilege!) as they are in Doom, but the cinematic trailer does show a character picking up a fallen foe’s weapon, so there might still be hope. Armour, ammo and weapon timings are integral to Quake’s metagame and we have no information on how that is being handled either. Still, we’re excited. A classic id game is again being reborn, but this time in the hands of id Software and not Bethesda. Let’s just hope it’s as lovingly crafted as fans hope.