30 years ago, on June 22nd 1996, Quake was released. One day before the Nintendo 64 and Super Mario 64 in Japan, it was at the forefront of real-time 3D rendering at the time, offering fully polygonal models and levels in three dimensions. It was the spawn of a new era in gaming in the late 90s, where such 3D graphics were the shiny new thing, but still so blocky that you had to make up for it somehow.
And games like Quake, or later Ocarina of Time, did with it their atmosphere, created by fantastic sound effects and a striking soundtrack, in this case provided by Nine Inch Nails. With many inspirations taken from Lovecraft, Quake created something unique, something that has left a legacy until today with a number of sequels.
Personally, I'm only half a fan of the series, where I've primarily played the multiplayer episodes: Quake III Arena, Quake Live and Quake Champions. But eSports is another category where Quake had excelled things – to this day it's one of the fastest first person shooters with one of the highest skill ceilings, where it's incredibly impressive to watch professional games of Quake, even though the Quake Pro League sadly ended in 2023.
But you have to give it to Bethesda for keeping things alive with Quake Champions nevertheless. It's currently running its 30th season, while the average player count on Steam is around 250... This is rivaling the numbers of Sony's mega-flop Concord from two years ago, but Quake Champions somehow manages to stay afloat, with one main developer behind the project – a level designer who also creates weapon and character skins, while constantly delivering new features and improvements for the game, working close with the game's tiny community. It's truly refreshing to see this in modern times.
And it seems like the plans are to slowly transition Quake Champions out of its live service model, like how it was done with Quake Live, to preserve it for the future, despite its small following. The latest Battle Passes have been offering players a second chance of obtaining certain cosmetics and weapon skins, some of which that weren't available for years. For example, the current pass (which is entirely free) finally brings back all of the time-limited QuakeCon weapon skins, just in time for QuakeCon 2026 from August 6th to 9th – an event that has been "Quake" in name only, for several years now.
Still, if you're a fan of classic Arena Shooters, then you should give this a try, and now is a great time to do so. But if you're sticking to a Nintendo Switch, you can also play the remasters of the first two games by Nightdive Studios, with lots of additional content. Though, I personally would recommend to use something with a mouse and keyboard...
No comments:
Post a Comment