I had forgotten about Quake Champions, the free-to-play take on Quake 3 Arena that first arrived on Steam in 2017. But it’s still around, it’s still got, well, a handful of players, and today it got a surprisingly beefy update to mark the 30th anniversary of Quake, including a free battle pass for everyone.
The battle pass is the most obvious hook here: Befitting the big birthday of id Software’s OG 3D shooter, the season 30 battle pass includes a number of cosmetic rewards from 1996 and QuakeCons gone by, plus previously exclusive skins and the new Disintegrator rocket launcher and Goroth’s Earth Magic podium.
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Functionally, though, I think the update is the bigger deal. Despite its age and relatively small player numbers—it typically peaks at a few hundred concurrent players on Steam these days—the patch makes some significant changes, including an overhaul to the network code aimed at reducing packet loss and lag compensation, and improving projectile predictions. The amount of lag compensation will now vary based on your ping, problems with hit validation for high-ping players have been fixed, and the 160 ms ping limit required to connect to games has been removed completely.
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A range of other fixes, optimizations, and tweaks have been made across the board, and a new “Random Champion Select” option has been added that lets players play as locked champions—when randomly selected—in practice, quick play, and ranked modes.
Universal weapon shaders have been added, characters and maps have been tweaked up in a range of ways, Quake 30th anniversary banners have been added everywhere—this is a sizable update by any measure, and particularly so for a shooter we included in our list of “eight ‘dead games’ that are still very much alive” two years ago.
That hasn’t gone unnoticed by players on Reddit. “I don’t know how [Quake Champions developer] syncerror convinced them to let him keep updating this game for so long but I’m grateful for his efforts,” redditor Fob0bqAd34 wrote. “When we got that battlepass some months back (or maybe it was last summer?) with a ton of the old weapon skins in one pass I thought that was going to be it. Hopefully he gets to keep quietly ticking away in the Sharma era as well.”
The patch notes for the Quake Champions 30th anniversary update are below.
- Game Client Updates
- Fixed the collision bug that pushed players out of the map, through the map geometry collision layer
- Fixed being able to damage a respawning player by attacking their death location with a gauntlet
- Raw Mouse Input fixes & optimizations • NVIDIA Reflex fixes & latency markers added
- Code optimizations and cleanup for the damage summation markers code
- Code optimizations and cleanup for the special movement input code
- Fixed Heavy Machinegun shader not applying when attempting to customize its shader prior to selecting any other weapons in Customization
- Fixed the wrong champion medals being awarded after meeting the qualifications for a medal and then changing champions
- Fixed an issue where you could see a static player doll in the map when a spectator enters Freefly cam mode
- Fixed spectators not being able to exit Freefly cam mode after entering it
- Fixed a crash in the camera manager when switching to a player that is currently dead
- Added caching optimizations to improve performance when referencing user setting values
- Reduced RAM size requirements for Texture Quality levels
- Quality Settings will no longer be lowered for hardware that is too new to appear in our internal CPU & GPU databases
- Removed the fullscreen UI popup that would occur after a match when reaching Level 2, announcing that a new mode (Slipgate) has been unlocked
- Fixed several cases of game crashes
- Threaded Input
- This option is enabled by default as it has tested to improve performance under most conditions – however, this option is not recommended for Linux users and may not be ideal for mice using polling rates of 4Khz or greater.
- Added Threaded Input setting – Enables moving the input to a dedicated thread that runs at above normal priority. This has some benefit regardless of input mode but greatly reduces Raw Mouse Input latency
- Sound UpdatesBroken Persistent Sounds
- Fixed sounds that would remain persistent in the world after they should have ended
- Pain Sounds
- Fixed missing pain sounds
- Fixed the incorrect pain sound playing when exactly 25 or 50 hp
- Restored pain sounds between 75 and 100 hp
- Added Acid & Fire panic sounds when a damage-over-time effect has been applied
- Death Sounds
- Death Sound radius extended to 35m to match other character sounds
- Weapon Sounds
- The volume of the RUTHLESS water railgun shot sound was reduced
- Item Updates
- Power-ups dropped from dead players will now have a minimum duration of 3 seconds remaining • Dropped Power-ups no longer pop up vertically before dropping
- Dropped items now fall at the normal rate of gravity
- Fixed in-game Lore drops, in addition to being able to unlock a readable lore item, it grants an in-game bonus to those who discover them
- Fixed dropped items (weapons, powerups, flags, etc.) from being able to land on a player’s head and remain floating in the air
- Bot AI Updates
- Fixed Doom Slayer Bots so that they can now use their Berserk ability
- Fixed Scalebearer Bots so they can no longer run backwards during Bull Rush
- Fixed Scalebearer Bots so they can no longer accidentally cancel their abilities early
- Fixed Strogg Bots so that they can now use their Drone Strike ability
- Armor Feedback
- To provide players better feedback regarding how their combat encounter is going, we have integrated the armor hit beep system from Quake 4 and expanded upon it further. This new feedback will provide unique hit beeps when dealing damage to an opponent with armor, as well as provide visual feedback when that armor has depleted.
- Armor Hit Beeps
- You will now hear a unique hit beep when you hit an opponent who has armor
- AUDIO Settings: Added ARMOR BEEP STYLE – includes OFF, Q4 and QC options Armor Break FX
- You will now see special fx when the damage you deal depletes your opponent’s armor
- HUD Settings: Added ARMOR BREAK FX Armor Break Sound
- You will now hear a special sound effect when the damage you deal depletes your opponent’s armor
- AUDIO Settings: Added ARMOR BREAK SOUND – includes OFF, POWER DOWN, ENERGY RELEASE, SHIELD PUNCH, and METAL TINK options
- Additional Hit Beep Options
- Added HITBEEP styles – includes:
- Mid-Tone (popularized in Quake 3)
- High-Tone (from Quake 4)
- Damage-Based (from Quake Live)
- Additive Damage (introduced in QC)
- Added HITBEEP styles – includes:
- Teamplay FeaturesTeammate Death POIs
- Teammate Death POIs have been added to assist in teamplay. These not just help you know when a teammate has fallen but can act as a sign of danger. Whether you choose to rush into that combat zone for revenge or heed its warning to find a new path is up to you.
- Show a Point of Interest markers at the position a teammate dies
- HUD Settings: Added TEAMMATE DEATH POI
- Drop Commands
- Now available in team modes are the Drop Weapon and Drop Power-Up commands. Each command will drop the item if available and trigger a message in team chat
- Drop Weapon will drop the weapon with the current ammo count if you own below the weapon’s starting ammo amount
- Say Commands
- Added 6 Say Commands: Yes, No, Hi, Bye, Thanks, Sorry.
- Available in all game modes, issuing these commands will print a chat message and generate a local in-world VO message that everyone can hear
- Show Vanity Customizations Toggle
- Enabled by default, this new setting allows you to toggle off the in-game armor shaders, vanity items, vanity weapons (including their custom fx and sounds), and weapon shaders. This can be toggled on the fly in a match. You will still see all vanity in the Match Lobby and the Pre and Post Match Podium scenes to show off your style, but during gameplay all vanity will be removed
- Weapon Zoom Toggle
- Activating the toggle will keep the weapon zoomed in until you either untoggle or change weapons
- CONTROLS Settings: Added ZOOM TOGGLE
- Hidden Weapon Position
- New Hidden option sets the weapon and hands to be invisible and centered
- Added a Gauntlet icon to the ammo HUD, so that the gauntlet weapon selection is always visible
- Weapon, Ammo, & Knockback Updates
- Starting Weapons now upgrade instantly without weapon switch downtime
- Weapon Pickups will now always add the starting ammo count to your current ammo count
- Knockback is now applied immediately instead of queuing and applied in delayed batches
- Knockback cap adjusted from 120 to 132, resolving the rocket jump penalty accrued in the prior update
- Champion Specific Weapon Loadouts
- Weapons are now equipped per Champion in Customization
- Added an optional Equip on All Champions button
- Random Champion Select
- The Random Champion, selected in the Champion Roster, will make a random selection from all champions. This option allows players to play locked champions (albeit random) on Practice, Quick Play, and Ranked
- In Duel, it selects one champion at random that will be used for the entirety of the match
- In Sac Tourney, CTF Tourney, and TDM Tourney, selects a champion during the pick phase, ensuring that it is a unique selection within the team
- In Duel Rounds, makes a random selection during the pick phase, ensuring that it is a unique selection within the squad
- In all other modes, it picks a Mystery Champion that cycles at random with each respawn, with ability cooldown retained
- Universal Weapon Shaders
- All weapons that currently have shader support now support 23 universal shaders, which have been made available for free to all players, instead of needing to own different sets of basic weapon shaders for every individual vanity weapon
- Basic weapon shaders
- Red, Pink, Orange, Yellow, Lime, Green, Teal, Blue, Purple, White, Grey, Charcoal, and Black Basic Shaders Camo weapon shaders
- Grasslands, Forest, and Snow Camo Shaders Patterned weapon shaders
- Blue and Brown Patterned Shaders Mastery weapon shaders
- Ithagnal, Cthalha, Goroth, Volkerh, and Master Shaders
- UI Player HUD Updates
- Buff & Debuff player info HUD (such as Quad, Protection) shows a remaining duration number when duration is 5 seconds & below (and shows decimal durations when duration is 3 seconds & below)
- Pre & Post Game
- Fixed the Drag/Move Player hit detection of the bottom right pillar in the Custom Game 4v4 Lobby
- Fixed a the Add-Bot [+] UI elements appearing on top of the Settings UI when passing Party-Leadership to a player actively in the Settings menu
- Added new tips to the map loading screens
- Fixed the persistent menu blur bug when leaving the Battle Report after a match
- Champion Updates All Champions
- Changing champion mid-game no longer resets the ability cooldown
- Anarki
- Disabled weapon switch during ability usage, while still allowing you to queue the switch, which will execute after the Injection completes
- Fixed the Anarki hoverboard sounds’ Teammate Volume support
- Athena
- Grappling Hook: Fixes & updates to pull speed acceleration
- BJ Blazkowicz
- Increased the maximum speed cap from 650 to 900 ups
- Starting Armor in Duel reduced from 50 to 25 ap
- Increased Walk Speed from 160 to 280 ups (for silent walking)
- Fixed BJ Blazkowicz’s SUMMERTIME outfit attachments when combined with the GOLDEN CROWN
- Clutch
- Starting armor reduced from 100 to 75
- Barrier
- Barrier: Breakable shield, increased duration that degrades as it receives damage, with a maximum of 200 dmg received before breaking
- Barrier: Both duration and damage soak share the same energy pool. For example, while the shield can withstand a maximum of 200 dmg before breaking, if half of its duration expires before taking damage only 100 dmg is needed to burn through the shield’s remaining energy
- Barrier: Shield sound now alters pitch as duration depletes
- Barrier: Fixed incorrect movement settings during ability usage, including move speed 300 instead of 320 and max speed of 750 instead of 600
- Mining Laser: Duration is now 3 seconds, instead of the remaining time from Shield duration
- Dodge
- No Dodge Passive while the Shield is active • Spawns with 1 of 3 dashes available
- Reduced stamina regen from 0.33 to 0.3
- Improved the responsiveness & accuracy of the Dodge Stamina UI
- Added a 10ms delay between executing dodges to address small issues when rapidly executing dodges
- Updated the Air-Dodge passive title & description to Dodge Jump, to fully encompass both Air-Dodge and Ground-Dodge mechanics
- Death Knight
- Increased the maximum speed cap from 650 to 900 ups
- Starting Armor in Duel reduced from 50 to 25 ap
- Fixed the “bayonet” bug that would leave the sword extended outward while holding a weapon
- Fixed Death Knight’s Humiliation vanity not staying equipped
- Flame Strike
- Fixed the splash damage from the fireball projectiles, they will now always add the flame dot
- Charring Passive
- Fire Dot – Increased from 6 dmg x 5 sec (30 dmg max) to 9 dmg x 5 sec (45 dmg max)
- Doom Slayer
- Increased the maximum speed cap from 650 to 700 ups
- Starting Armor in Duel reduced from 50 to 25 ap
- Berserk
- Improved enemy visibility in Berserk, making them appear solid white (with an enemy outline colored arrow)
- Duration reduced from 5 to 3 sec (to reduce the distance he can run away when using berserk passively)
- Duration restored in full when he lands a punch, resetting the remaining berserk time to 3 seconds (to encourage offensive usage)
- Added a sound effect when a punch lands, to help it feel more visceral and for punches to feel like they are making contact
- Added magnetism, trails, and new pickup sounds for blood punch bubbles
- Fixed a bug with the weapon drop and hand raise that resulted in being stuck without fists or a weapon during or after ability usage
- Blood Punch sound added when earning a kill with Berserk
- Eisen
- Increased the maximum speed cap from 650 to 700 ups
- Max Extra AP reduced from 175 to 150 ap
- Starting Armor in Duel reduced from 50 to 25 ap
- Improved Eisen armor decay rate from 1pt every second to every 2 sec
- Sentry Turret
- Added Damage Summation audio support for hitbeeps from turrets
- Added Overhead Health Bars for both friendly and enemy turrets; health bars on enemy turrets are visible when the turret is either below full health or when it has obtained any armor upgrades
- Decreased the turret’s max health from 120 to 100 hp
- Increased the turret’s starting health from 120 to 125 hp
- Starting Armor 0 ap, Max Armor 50 ap, Max Extra Armor 75 ap. Armor is granted via the updated Repair passive
- Improved Turret armor decay rate from 1pt every second to every 2 secs
- Damaged health now regens back up to 100 hp, healing 5 pts every 1 sec when it does not receive any further damage for 5 seconds
- Reduced activation delay from 2.0 to 1.5 sec
- Added an a health and armor info status indicator above the ability info to show when you have an active turret deployed and how healthy it is • Fixed turrets from eternally bouncing on jumppads
- Throwing a turret into a kill zone will now grant 80% of your cooldown back, as it isn’t exactly fair that we destroy the turret and you lose your cooldown just because we decided the turret was placed in an unallowed location. We grant 80% instead of 100% to discourage spam and exploitation
- Repair Passive
- Removed the armor regen passive, in favor of a new Turret Repair passive
- Eisen can now deny Light Armor pickups when at max armor by standing near the pickup for 2.5 sec. Any armor Eisen picks up will also be applied towards the deployed turret to “upgrade” the turret’s stack
- Salvage Passive
- Shards will now grant 5%, Light Armors 10%, and Heavy Armors 10% cooldown reduction
- Galena
- Increased the maximum speed cap from 650 to 900 ups
- Starting Armor in Duel reduced from 50 to 25 ap
- Improved the fitting of the QPL SEASON 3 BELT with Galena’s ACOLYTE Outfit
- Unholy Totem
- Hitbeeps will now play when damaging enemy totems
- Damage Numbers will now appear when damaging enemy totems
- Added Overhead Health Bars, Enemy Arrows, and Owner Names for friendly totems
- Added Overhead Enemy Arrows for enemy totems, when targeted Owner Names, and when damaged Hit Beeps and Health Bars
- Totems now receive Quad Damage, Protection, and Spawn Protection FX to show when they will deal or can receive more damage
- Added fire SFX to totems when 3 totems are deployed
- Totems you own will now appear solid through walls, to differentiate them from totems belonging to a teammate Galena
- Friendly totems will now appear yellow through walls when 3 overcharged totems are deployed
- Enemy totems will now have a visible SFX ring around them that is visible in any lighting quality setting
- Starting Health increased from 60 to 75, Max health increased from 60 to 75
- Damaged health now regens back up to 75 hp, healing 5 pts every 1 sec when it does not receive any further damage for 5 seconds
- Throwing a totem into a kill zone will now grant 80% of your cooldown back, as it isn’t exactly fair that we destroy the totem and you lose your cooldown just because we decided the totem was placed in an unallowed location. We grant 80% instead of 100% to discourage spam and exploitation
- Fixed applying the Super Shotgun’s close range bonus damage towards totems; damage was capped at 80 dmg with the Super Shotgun but you can now deal 120 dmg
- Slightly increased the totem’s weapon collision mesh, so that close range shotgun pellets don’t miss when expected to hit
- Keel
- Increased the maximum speed cap from 600 to 800 ups
- Starting Armor in Duel reduced from 75 to 50 ap
- Grenade Swarm
- Fixed grenades sometimes explode 3 times instead of once
- Reinforced Passive
- Improved self-damage reduction from 60 to 67%
- Improved splash damage reduction from 20 to 33%
- Stockpile Passive
- Improved ammo box cooldown reduction from 10 to 20%
- Nyx
- Increased the maximum speed cap from 750 to 1000 ups
- Ranger
- Increased the maximum speed cap from 650 to 900 ups
- Starting Armor in Duel reduced from 50 to 25 ap
- Ranger Gladiator outfit renamed to BRAWLER to avoid having two armor sets with the same name (Strogg’s GLADIATOR, which is based off of the Q2/Q4 Strogg Gladiator enemy). BP art for new reward added
- Dire Orb
- Velocity reduced from 1000 ups to 900 ups
- Shoot Delay after throwing increased from 0.4 to 0.5 sec
- Shoot Delay after teleporting increased from 0.4 to 0.5 sec
- The orb now has 75 pts of health and can be destroyed when shot, triggering the orb to explode. The explosion can be triggered by anyone: Ranger, teammates, or enemies
- The orb’s damage output is now based on it’s time in flight, gaining damage over time & distance
- Scalebearer
- Increased the maximum speed cap from 600 to 800 ups
- Starting Armor in Duel reduced from 75 to 50 ap
- Fixed an IK animation crash in the Scalebearer’s animation set when trying to reach a target position during weapon-aiming that was unreachable
- Bull Rush
- Fixed the Scalebearer sensitivity bug, where sometimes the default rotation limits are not restored
- Fixed Scalebearer Bull Rush sometimes passing through the enemy target with a collision (especially at high ping)
- Slash
- Sorlag
- Starting Armor in Duel reduced from 75 to 50 ap
- Strogg
- Starting Armor in Duel reduced from 50 to 25 ap
- Will no longer drop Stroyent when he commits suicide
- Fixed Golden Crown power-up shaders • Fixed Golden Crown crash behaviors that would occur when cloaking & decloaking
- Drone Strike
- Drone: Fixed Peeker’s camera view angles from updating if its Strogg owner’s body enters a teleporter domain
- Fixed Peeker’s drone flight sounds persisting after death
- Visor
- Starting Armor in Duel reduced from 50 to 25 ap Piercing Sight
- Piercing Sight now exposes the enemy’s health and armor information
- Increased the volume of Visor’s third-person ability VO and reduced how much the occlusion muffles its volume
- Game Mode UpdatesLobbies/Queues
- In a ranked match, when a player disconnects from the lobby/match, the leaver still gets the existing forfeit loss, but now loses SR. The remaining opponent now also gets a forfeit win persisted to their profile
- Added Unholy Trinity TDM to the Bot Practice queue
- Added support for disabling the Score Limit, by setting Score Limit 0 in Custom Game
- Matches
- Fixed the max warmup time bug, which would allow warmup to go on forever, instead of being capped to 120 sec
- Fixed the Auto-Abort system, to properly end matches when no enemies remain in game
- Anti-Griefing system will now exit the current match and send you back to the main menu, instead of closing the game application
- Duel
- Dead player bodies will now hide at the minimum respawn time (3 seconds) — so that it doesn’t convey when an opponent chooses to respawn. This also allows you to use the Hide Dead Bodies option without being penalized
- 2v2 TDM
- Dead player bodies will now hide at the minimum respawn time (3 seconds) — so that it doesn’t convey when an opponent chooses to respawn. This also allows you to use the Hide Dead Bodies option without being penalized. Instagib • IG Matches in Quick Play now last for 10 minutes with no score limit
- Sacrifice
- Active Abilities are now canceled on Soul Pickup, just like we do in CTF during flag pickups • Added an Announcer VO countdown from 10 to 1 as the point reaches 90-99% captured
- Clan Arena
- Added First-Person Spectating while dead to replace the third-person spectating
- Slipgate
- Added First-Person Spectating while dead to replace the third-person spectating
- Unholy Trinity
- UHT Matches in Quick Play now last for 10 minutes with no score limit
- Spectating
- Fixed spectators having a delay changing the spectator player, when the followed player dies and has entered the death HUD UI
- Map UpdatesAll Maps
- Quake 30th Anniversary Banners added
- Blood Covenant
- Removed an unused out-of-bounds jumppad
- Blood Run
- Added a teleporter from the Tri-bolt mid-level to the Super Nailgun / Power-Up room
- Fixed a hole in the wall mesh near a statue
- Fixed the position of an out-of-bounds breakable urn, placing it back into the map
- Church of Azathoth
- Fixed missing game mode flags for items in the disabled obelisk area
- Fixed the position of an out-of-bound breakable urn
- Removed the out of bounds jumppad
- Citadel
- Removed out of bounds fireplace reference inside the central jumppad Deep Embrace
- Recreated ocean mesh from scratch for performance optimizations
- Fixed three small holes in the map mesh
- Insomnia
- Fixed holes in the window frame mesh near HMG
- Ruins of Sarnath
- Swapped the SG spawn and SG player-spawn locations (so that you don’t have to turn around to pick up the Super Shotgun)
- Fixed three small holes in the map mesh
- Tower of Koth
- The smaller version of Tower of Koth will now be used in DM, TDM, IG, i9, and UHT
- The larger version of Tower of Koth has now added the support beam above the central mid-level teleporter that was introduced in the smaller version of Tower of Koth
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