There was a significant amount of esports on show and being talked about at PAX East this weekend past, but the title that produced arguably the most hype was Quake Champions.
Speaking at PAX East, id Software Studio Director Tim Willits discussed how the latest version of the Quake franchise differs from the past few and it will be ultra competitive with its Dual Mode.
He said: “There is a hole with one-versus-one, it’s missing from first-person esports. The title fights are great for Quake so our Duel mode is going to be uniquely Quake, but will still incorporate the champions.”
The studio behind the game, id Software, will keep the game free to play but with Champion Packs available to buy.
The sole difference will be the full availability of characters for those that stump up the cash. Willits told Polygon: “At its core, it’s a free-to-play game with the option to buy the Champion Pack and just get in and play with all the Champions. There are a number of Quake players that just want to play their Quake, right? And they are familiar with the business model of our previous games, and they are totally fine. ‘I want to buy the game. I want to start playing. I want to have access to all the Champions.”
Quake has its place in the history books of gaming assured and now the developer is aiming to reignite this flame and bring it into 2017 by making it an esports title for the masses. The studio has been working with pro players and having them test it out.
Willits commented: “We have Duels [working in-game] but we need to get more pro players to play it, just to make sure they like it. We’ve been listening to [the pros] too, at Quakecon last year the pro players came in, they played our team mode and they were like ‘yeah you gotta change this,’ we said okay, we started changing it.”
It’s looking for as much feedback as possible too and you can watch the trailer for the closed beta here, and sign up via this link.
Esports Insider says: The free to play model makes sense to ensure a decent volume of players and with them only receiving access to one Champion, the likelihood is that many players will reach for their wallets. If Quake Champions can recreate the energy around the game that it enjoyed in the 90s then we’ve potentially a major new esports title to consider.
