Quake Live

What is Quake Live?

Quake Live is an arena shooter by id Software and a reworked version of Quake III Arena. The game originally launched as a free offering played through a browser plugin. On 17 September 2014 it was re-released as a standalone title on Steam, and since 27 October 2015 it has to be purchased — the former subscription options were dropped.

At its core it is classic arena gameplay: high speed, movement techniques such as strafe jumps, control over armour and weapons, and short, intense duels. There is no campaign and no persistent game world — every round starts fresh on a map and ends once the frag, score or time limit is reached.

A Quake Live server is designed to run several game types at the same time. Supported modes include Free For All, Duel, Race, Team Deathmatch, Clan Arena, Capture the Flag, One Flag CTF, Harvester, Freeze Tag, Domination, Attack & Defend and Red Rover. So-called factories let you build your own rule sets on top of them, for example an InstaGib variant — those settings live in a JSON file rather than in the server configuration.

Which maps run on your server is controlled through a map pool. Additional content such as custom maps or third-party factories comes exclusively from the Steam Workshop: you add the item IDs on the server, the server downloads them on startup and your players receive them automatically. Admin rights and bans are managed through a simple text file containing SteamID64 entries.

Quake Live is especially popular among players looking for classic arena gameplay without matchmaking and without progression systems — and who want to configure their own server freely for regular rounds, duels or their own community. The game is available on PC via Steam.