Quake Champions has been updated to version 1.31, a change that strips the arena shooter of its live-service mechanics and alters its distribution model from free-to-play to paid. The title is now listed at a price of 10 dollars on Steam.
“Today's update opens a new chapter for Quake Champions: the game moves from being a free-to-play service to a paid application on Steam,” the patch note description states.
Update 1.31 removes the battle pass, weekly challenges, in-game currency, loot boxes, the in-game store, and other live-service features. In addition, all champions and most cosmetic items have been unlocked and made available to players.
Players who launched Quake Champions on Steam before September 23 will receive the game for free. The Microsoft Store version is no longer supported; Bethesda is offering a solution by allowing users to link their Steam and Bethesda.net accounts to claim a free copy on Valve’s platform. If account linking fails, or if a player did not run Quake Champions before the cutoff date, Bethesda support may provide a free copy on a case-by-case basis.
The developers also implemented a range of gameplay and technical changes, and said they do not currently plan to release updates that add new content to Quake Champions.
Notable changes included in the update:
- Implemented a voting system to exclude cheaters and toxic players from matches.
- Added new weapons, colors for the "Railgun" and "Redeemer," a new pedestal, and profile icons from Team Arena.
- Added adaptive framerate stabilization and improved the framerate limiter.
- Introduced a new leveling system — players can now reach level 999.
- Reduced the number of server regions "to increase player concentration on remaining servers and speed up matchmaking."
- Fixed a number of critical crashes and improved bot behavior.
- And more.
All details are in the patch notes.
Quake Champions launched in early access in 2017, moved to a free-to-play model in 2018, and saw its full release in August 2022. According to SteamDB, the game never achieved large player counts — current average daily concurrent players do not exceed 600. The game includes Russian text localization.