Quake Champions

Quake Champions is the 5th mainline installment in the Quake series and it tries to honour its legacy by providing fans of every game a champion that will suit their playstyle. It mostly succeeds at this and is very enjoyable both, on a casual level as well as competing on a high skill bracket.
Some regions might suffer from the low playerbase, but generally in North America and Europe it's not hard to find matches. Additionally, the community is doing its best to provide players with ample opportunities of getting to play some games.

Contrary to popular belief, it's far from a clone of other games that try to merge the character based action with first person shooters. Quake Champions at its core is a absolutely still a Quake game.
Weapons are still universal across all champions and the base movement mechanics are very much like they were in vanilla Quake 3. Some champions receive additional movement mechanics which are mostly derived from the previous Quake games, like Anarki and Sorlag have air control, like you would see in the CPMA mod and even less well-represented mechanics like the power-slide from Quake 4 is present for Slash and Strogg.
How well this concept is executed is still up for debate within the community, but generally I believe the game succeeds and should by no means be viewed as "yet another hero shooter".

Because of this, just like in all other Quake games, the learning curve is immense. Even seasoned FPS players will find themselves fumbling across the keyboard as they try to find the most optimal weapon choice in mere milliseconds. The movement mechanics are poorly explained and have a surprising amount of nuance to them.

As a free-to-play game, the business model is surprisingly fair. You don't start with all champions, which doesn't necessarily mean a player is at a disadvantage, as Ranger, the protagonist of the original Quake, comes free for all players and is a great all-around character. Additionally, there are always 2 champions on a weekly rotation, which you are able to play for free. As you gain the in-game currency, you can unlock them permanently (and I suggest you do save up your shards specifically for this purpose, if you are just starting out). All of this can of course be accelerated with real money purchases.
The rest of the monetization comes from weapon and champion skins, which do not provide any factual gameplay difference. All of these can be even unlocked with the in-game currency, which admittedly does require some time investment.

I saw someone write recently "why use aim trainers when you have this game" and it all clicked for me. With the custom game types, you can practice tracking in AAAArena in the Warehouse map, practice leading with rockets with Hot Rockets in the Midair map, and flicks with Instagib.
I've never won a pub deathmatch, but losing hardly subtracts from the fun of this game. It's so fast paced and adrenaline inducing, and once you realize you're playing with veterans, it starts to become more of a competition against yourself. There's arguably no skill ceiling higher than the Quake franchise, which means no matter how much you grind and practice, you can always get better. The satisfaction of watching your KDR and weapon accuracy slowly improve over time, nailing more insane trick shots, and laying successful traps is unparalleled for me. The movement mechanics make it so that you always have a small chance at out-maneuvering and winning a fight with a player more skilled than yourself.
If you want to push your abilities to the limit and give yourself the ultimate challenge, Quake is always there for you

If this game had the proper support and direction right from the get go, it would of easily revived Arena shooters and bring it back to it former glory.
Although its troubled development and constant hand-offs. The ONE person thats pushing out updates and still trying to make this game better with every update today I give huge props to Syncerror
although it is now free to play I still recommend friends and peeps who havent tried or played a Quake game ever to give this a shot. yes there is a learning curb but the community is here full of Pro (or former Pro) players or casuals willing to play teach and learn along with you.

Its a wash. The gameplay and graphics, physics is all great, The ''champions'' are one of the worst ideas in the FPS gaming industry (battle royale revivals is second). If all champions were equal without abilities (atleast as an option) then it would be a great game to play.

This is a great game and fantastic arena shooter. There are so few games like this anymore and that's a huge shame. I played Unreal Tournament and UT2004 back in the day for thousands of hours. Awesome games. Quake Champions is worthy to sit on the arena shooter throne until Epic gets off their asses and makes Unreal Tournament 4. The Mortal Kombat-ish announcer voice is a cherry on top too :)

great game very underated, sadly it is a dead game with only a few hundred players left :{

You can be best lizard Sorlag. CPMA movement style with extremely fast paced gameplay is an absolute blast.