Where to get it

Steam

2010 · Arena shooter · First-person shooter

Quake Live

From the legendary series that founded the online shooter genre comes the most exciting, energetic, and fast-paced shooter on the Internet. Play against players around the world in over 100 arenas, and a dozen game modes, in one of the most competitive shooters online today. Welcome to Quake Live.

Released: 6 August 2010
Platforms: Windows
Genres: Arena shooter First-person shooter Shooter
Developers: —
Publishers: Bethesda Softworks
Series: Quake
Modes: Multiplayer Single-player
Perspective: First person
Themes: Action Science fiction
Engine: id Tech 3
Country: United States
Age ratings: ESRB T
Languages: English
Time to beat: 1hmain story107hcompletionist
Directors: Tim Willits

About

Quake Live is a first-person arena shooter video game by id Software. It is an updated version of Quake III Arena that was originally designed as a free-to-play game launched via a web browser plug-in. On September 17, 2014, the game was re-launched as a standalone title on Steam.

Quake Live was previously a free to play game, with subscription options offering additional arenas, game types and game server options. The game is no longer free to play after October 27, 2015 and subscription options were removed.

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Gameplay

The gameplay of Quake Live consists of players attempting to kill more of their opponents than any other player or team in a given match. This is achieved by navigating a 3D environment and shooting other players with a variety of weapons, while collecting health, armor, weapons, ammo and various power-ups. As players get more advanced, they use other tricks and techniques such as rocket and strafe jumping.

Quake Live was released as a free version of Quake III: Gold (Quake III and its expansion pack, Team Arena) available only through a web browser. Skill-based matchmaking is powered by a "metagame engine" developed by GaimTheory. Development of the match-making system was taken on by id Software after GaimTheory's closure.

Development

On August 3, 2007, at QuakeCon 2007, id Software publicly announced their plans to release a free browser-based Quake III game titled Quake Zero. In early 2008, the title was officially renamed to Quake Live due to a domain squatting issue.

During late 2008 and early 2009, Quake Live was in an invitation-only closed beta. A handful of players were selected to begin the testing of the beta and were later allowed to invite a limited number of friends, whom, in turn, were permitted to send out invitations of their own. On February 24, 2009, the game progressed from closed beta to open beta, which caused an increased amount of traffic on the web server. Queues were organized to limit the stress and prevent the overloading of the servers.