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Quake Champions was meant to be the game to revive the classic arena shooter. The pitch was old-school bunny-hopping and rocket-jumping arena deathmatching with just a little bit of Hero Shooter spice. Unfortunately, while it has a small but dedicated following, it never quite caught on as much as it could have.
Despite this, it sure left an impression on some very talented modders. Today, the boundary between worlds grew just a little bit thinner, as Gordon Freeman joins the deathmatch over in Quake’s chunky low-fi universe, as part of the ever-expanding mod Quake Champions Classic.
Quake Champions Classic has been around for a couple years now, part of the big Quake 1 renaissance that kicked off with Arcane Dimensions and brought us ambitious maps like The Immortal Lock. Gordon hopping through the wrong portal is a great excuse to mention here.
The work of solo developer Blue Key Games (also working on the promising Lovecraftian boomshoot They Came From Dimension X), Quake Champions Classic lets you play through any of Quake’s official campaigns (including the remaster’s new episodes and horde mode) or in deathmatches as an assortment of mismatched heroes, each with a special ability and some manner of passive perk.
Sadly they don’t get their full arsenals, but each does get a unique melee weapon. It should go without saying that Gordon gets his thoroughly peer-reviewed crowbar, and the noises it makes are every bit as obnoxious as you remember.
Gordon leverages his theoretical physics degree to theoretically swap places with his enemies (theoretically telefragging them in the process) as part of a quirky delayed teleport move. Passively, he also gets his Long Jump Module for air-dashing in any direction, and picking up weapon energy cells boosts his armor. Cutely, Gordon’s HEV suit is every bit as chatty in this mod as you remember in Half-Life, putting him at a distinct disadvantage if he wants to sneak up on anyone in a real multiplayer deathmatch—especially ironic for a silent protagonist.
Gordon is just the latest character to join the fun, bringing the total character roster up to sixteen. Among the others are other retro FPS heroes like Doomguy, Duke Nukem, Caleb (from Blood) and even the nameless bearded weirdo from Dusk. Most surprisingly is probably Commander Keen with his fully functional pogo stick and quirky combat mechanics. You can check out the full character roster (as well as details on setting it up on your engine of choice) on the Quake Champions Classic site here, along with breakdowns of the new deathmatch and horde maps it adds to the mix.
You can grab Quake Champions Classic from community hub-site Slipseer here, and it’s fully compatible with Nightdive’s official remaster on Steam. It’s also worth a quick mention that this isn’t even the biggest Quake Champions demake project. That award goes to the somewhat clunkily-titled Quake Champions: Doom Edition, currently standing at a hefty thirty playable characters and an extensive single-player mode. Even if Quake Champions never developed as big a fanbase as I feel it deserved, it’s great to see that it has a real and deeply entertaining legacy.
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Kurt Indovina
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