Quake Champions has big shoes to fill.
Sure, modern shooters have become the new go-to, with games like Overwatch and Call of Duty ruling that particular roost, but the Quake name still means a lot to a lot of people, myself included. I have fond memories of playing Quake II online over dial-up on the behemoth Packard Bell desktop PC I got for Christmas while all of my friends were deep into Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64, and truth be told, the speed and tight controls of Quake ruined me for other shooters for years to come.
That being said, you could understand my skepticism when Bethesda announced Quake Champions at the company’s E3 press conference last summer. Presented as a character-based first-person shooter, it immediately came off like an attempt to chase after the popularity of the genre in a post-Overwatch world using a franchise with name recognition among the hardcore PC base. Now having played Quake Champions firsthand, I can say that my fears are laid to rest for the time being.
My biggest fear was it being character-based, and that’s certainly the case, but the abilities gained by specific character choices aren’t as integral to success as a game like Overwatch. Those abilities are there, for sure. Nyx, the character I gravitated to the most in playing, is smaller, handles a bit easier and has the ability to go invisible for short periods of time. Playing Scalebearer, on the other hand, is a big, hulking brute with loads of health and armor on spawn and the ability to charge at enemies but has a way bigger hitbox and can be seen and shot a mile away. It’s worth noting that starting weapons aren’t character-locked, and on selection in our demo we could pick between a shotgun, SMG or nail gun, although what additional options the full release will offer remains to be seen.
Character selection will definitely be a factor, but, at least from the small slice of the game I’ve seen, won’t be the make or break for a team as it is in other games of this type, which is refreshing.
New elements aside, it was very easy for me to fall right back into the flow of things. Combat feels very much like what I would expect a Quake game to be in 2017. Even playing the game’s slowest characters it’s still way faster than anything you’d find in Battlefield, Call of Duty or Overwatch, and can very easily become hectic and require some getting used to.
I can definitely see running for weapons, health and armor packs, launching off jump pads and rocketing across the map while trying to take out invisible ladies and lizard men can definitely be overwhelming at first if your shooter experience primarily involves running around a map knifing dudes or hunkering down behind cover and popping shots off now and again, but that’s just how Quake do.
Every death felt like it was my fault, and I never felt like the game was cheap or the hit detection was off. All of my deaths were clearly me making a bad move. If you get your reticle over a target and click that mouse, you can be damn sure that it’s gonna land where you intended it to, which is important since most of those shots will be fired off while in pursuit and flying through the air. In a franchise where 90% of the experience is dictated by the quality of the controls, it seems like that is a major part of the game’s design that a lot of time has been spent to get right, and I certainly can’t complain for now.
A lot remains to be seen, as Bethesda announced at PAX East that the game will have a free-to-play option, and I definitely saw a section for loot boxes in the menus while tooling around, but for now, I can definitely say that Quake Champions feels like what a game called Quake should feel like in 2017, and that it comes off as a worthwhile addition to the franchise, albeit one with a few quirks and caveats.
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