Quake Champions Review and Gameplay

Hello everyone, my name is Vladislav, and as always i'm glad to have you here on my channel. So in today's video, we going to take a closer look at latest installment in "Quake" series, "Quake Champions" "Quake Champions" is a free to play competitive online multiplayer first-person shooter, that was developed by "id Software", in conjunction with "Saber Interactive", and released by "Bethesda Softworks" in 2017 on PC exclusively.

Yeah, for a long time i wanted to try out this game, but for some unknown reasons, I continued to kept putting it off for later. And being, maybe if not so hardcore, but still a fan of the series since the days of "Quake II" I still time to time tried to follow the development of a new game.

I did watch videos about it, tried to read all new information about game, and from all this flow of information over the past couple of years, to my great surprise, i learned that "Quake Champions" has a big problems. Like bugs and crushes, high server lantency, small number of active players and stuff like that.

And even on game's page in "Steam", the "Quake Champions" is still being considered as an early access game, which of course can lead to some contradictory thoughts. And so, after everything i heard about this game, i already refused to belive anything now, until i try it myself.

And finally, the time has come... Yeah!!! crank your mouse sensivity all the way up, enable gore and here we go. That's what i'm talking about! I expected no less from successor of "Quake III: Arena", and as for me, this game delivers it very well. Yeah, i'm of course not a pro hardcore online player, so i barely can compare this game to other games in similar genre, aside of already mentioned "Quake III" and probably "Unreal Tournament", but i can certanly see if game is good or bad.

And "Quake Champions" i tell you, is an absolutely fantastic game. Especially if you were looking for that classic "Quake" feel, it's unique atmosphere, combined with music and sounds, that are very reminiscent of the very first game in series, and familiar fast paced movement, that makes player think about every next step, with the speed of ray from a "Railgun".

But don't get me wrong, there is no matter if you were fan of entire series from day one, or fan of other multiplayer shooters, this game can offer unforgetable experience for everyone, no exceptions. And now let's take a closer look at everything that "Quake Champions" have to offer.

So even before considering start playing game, no matter if you got game from "Steam" or from "Bethesda.net" first thing that you will need to do, is to create "Bethesda" account if you still don't have one, and after that, you will be able to log into the game itself.

After login, first thing that game will suggest you to do, is to play practice match, to get used to controls and stuff like that. And here we already can see how many game modes "Quake Champions" can offer. Five classic game modes, that are available for practice, which are different varioations of "Team Deathmatches", i heavily recommend everyone to finish those first, because first off as i said, in those you will get used to game controls, calibrate your mouse sensivity, which is set as 3 by default, i for example playing at 6.

But what most important, after winning all 5 practice game matches at least once, you will unlock 2 additional characters, which are obviusly called "Champions" in this game. See thing is, game as i said is free-to-play, and really "Quake Champions", is one of those games, where most stuff you can unlock by simply playing game, without any additional purchases.

So right at start of game, we have only 1 permanent "Champion" that are available, which is "Ranger" from "Quake 1". See thing is, that unlike how it was in "Quake III Arena", where we had lot's of characters skins are available right at start, in "Quake Champions" every character have set of unique skills and traits.

Like "Ranger" as a starter character, have 75% damage reduction from your own weapons, so you will take less damage, let's say from rocket jumps. And his unique ability is to throw a teleport sphere, which is by the way can damage other players if you hit them directly with it, or even explode, if been unsued for a some time.

So after you finish all 5 practice game modes, two more champions will be unlocked, which is "Nyx" and "Scalebearer", that are already more advanced "Champions". Like "Scalebearer" are some sort of tank character, with ability to crush his enemies while running.

Or on other side is "Nyx", she is much faster than "Scalebearer" and "Ranger", have invisibility, can perform wall jumps, but same time, can sustain less damage. So yeah, all "Characters" now have lot's of unique stuff, and also separated by sort of character class, like light, medium and heavy characters, with difference in speed and characteristics overall.

In game we have 16 different "Champions" total, with "Ranger" unlocked straight away, and how to unlock 2 more "Nyx" and "Scalebearer", we already figured out. So what to do with other 13? Here's the thing, 2 random champoins are temporarily unlocked every week.

Like one week i have "Athena" & "Strogg" on rotation, and on other week it was "Eisen" and "Clutch", so i tried out already 4 more characters and it is possible not only play as them, but costumize also at will. And also it is possible to earn daily and weekly rewards like "Shards" that can be spent on various things, as well as unlocking new "Champions", such as "DoomSlayer", or "B.J.

Blazkowicz", Yeah! I of course understand, that this "Champions" aspect of the game, makes it a little different compared to the previous games in series, and especially "Quake III", where every character was just a skin and every player was equial, so here i can't say anything, love it or hate it, that already depends from player to player.

I'm personally totally fine with it, since i always can play some "Quake Live", just in case for more classic experience. But ok, so after we finished with practice battles, figured game mechanics and unlocked some more "Champions", it is finally time for real deal, play against real players.

In "Quick Play" tab, you will find 10 playable game modes, 5 of which are same as in practice tab, and 5 new ones. And here i want to say, that don't get discouraged if you will get destroyed at first by veteran players. because after some time, when you get better with game, you will start destroying them.

I in my first run, got only like 5 or 7 frags in 50 frag deathmatch, but still i had fun, especially when i ruined someone's life, when he just got "Quad Damage". And game even have some sort of special "Achievements" for doing it, this particular one called a "Party Breaker".

Yeah "Quake Champions" have actually lot's of those, and everytime when i see "Medal" pop up on screen, that's what getting me inspired even more. Next two game tabs is a "Ranked" and "Custom Game" modes. In order to unlock "Ranked" mode, first you need to achieve 10 wins against real players, yeah, to get into this already highly competitive mode.

And "Custom" mode, as description says, is game mode, where you can costumize your own matches against bots, or against players from your friend list. So with game modes we already figured out, and now it's time to take a closer look at weapons. In game we have 2 types of weapons that are available, starter and pick-up weapons.

Depend on type of match, that you currently playing, it can be very different varioations of weapons to choose before engage in battle. And yeah just to clarify, in some types of matches, player can start with rocket launcher or even railgun straight away.

But for the most time it will be regular machine gun, shotgun, nail gun, and of course gauntlet as a last resort, when you get out of bullets. Pick-up weapons are represented by upgraded versions of starter ones, like heavy machine gun, super shotgun, super nail gun, and 4 more unique types of weapons.

Lightning gun, Railgun and Rocket launcher doesn't need an introduction, since they works absolutely same as in "Quake III Arena" or "Quake Live", only aside of scope, that are available on long range weapons like machine gun and railgun. But there is weapon, that are absolutely new to the series, which is a Tri-Bolt.

Yeah, there is no classic "Grenade Launcher" in "Quake Champions", but instead of that, Tri-Bolt shots three delayed projectiles straight away, which can be used in direct combat, to set traps for runaway players, or even wall climb tricks, something like rocket jump.

Yea, unfortunately there is no "BFG" in this game, but who knows, maybe it will be added someday later, since game have constant updates. Although various weapon skins can be unlocked or purchased, if you will get tired of existing ones by some reason.

Yeah in order to unlock various items, ingame we have experience points system, as well as, yeah, game shop. But as i said, there is no reason to buy anything if you don't want to, since all "Champions" and some other stuff, can and will be unlocked by just simply playing game and that's it.

Ok, at this point i think we already saw lot's of gameplay and game elements, but still few words need to be said about game engine, graphics and stuff like that. As i mentioned at start of video, i read and watched a lot's of stuff about this game prior playing it, and there was some complains about game performance, so I want to assure you, that at the moment of record of this video in 2020, i didn't noticed any performance drops on Full HD, with High settings, well exept models which by default was set on medium, and which i didn't even noticed, since game already looks more than good enough, on my very mediocre PC i say.

Despite game being released in 2017, yeah one year later after "Doom" "Quake Champions" as i read working on sort of hybrid of "idTech 5" and "Saber3D" game engines. But well, who cares i guess, if game looks and plays just fine.
Right? 13 maps currently are available to play, that depend of game mode, can be very different in size.

I would also like to note fantastic sound and music in game, that are very reminding of previous games in series. Yeah, of course there are a lot's of nostalgic notes in my review, but i'm telling you as it is. Obviously "Quake Champions" was made for fans of series, or i better say, for fan's of Quake's multiplayer mode, since there is no dedicated storymode in this one, not even like how it was in "Quake III Arena" so yeah.

But i also see ,how game developers tried to gain some new audience, with this new fancy "Champions" stuff, which is as far as i know are present in other game of similar type - "Overwatch". Yeah, during video i didn't compared both games, but that is simply because, i personally never played "Overwatch" before, but at least i know, that this game it's very popular.

Unfortunately aside of all great things, that i liked in "Quake Champions", there is one sad thing. Highest online attendance that i saw in game, was slightly over 1000 players logged in sametime, which is very low numbers for such great game, that is absolutely free, unlike "Overwatch".

Yeah, probably "Quake Champions" had a very bad launch, i don't know, since i wasn't there, but right now i think, that everything is patched, since as i said, i didn't noticed anything suspicious, like framedrops. But well, even with low number of players, longest match that i waited, was around 50 seconds or so, and that is much faster, than all those loading screens and lobbies in modern "Battle Royale" games, which i think is another part of problem, since "Battle Royale" games as it seems, became one of most popular gaming genre nowadays, and classic "Deathmatch", unfortunately became a thing of the past.

But ok, that was it, that was my "Quake Champions" review. I hope that game will recover from that low online attendance state, in which it is remain today. Since game plays absolutely fantastic, since that "Champions" stuff, at least for me was absolutely new, i found it very interesting, so if you never played games like this, then you maybe will find it interesting also.