The Quake franchise might only have a fraction of the popularity that it used to enjoy back in the day, but Quake Champions has still been enjoyed by thousands of players over the years. Even with a vastly diminished player count, the one aspect that certainly helped keep its niche community alive was the free-to-play availability on Steam.
In a strange marketing move announced on the official Quake X account, however, the studio has decided to swap Quake Champions from a free-to-play live-service model back to a one-time purchase model, leaving countless players and fans scratching their heads in confusion.
Given that these kinds of games normally take the completely opposite route of swapping from a paid experience to a free one in order to save their dying player bases, Quake Champions' surprising move comes as the studio announces the final update being made to the game, with no future content being planned for release.
Costing $9.99 on Steam, purchasing Quake Champions will let you unlock all characters, most cosmetics, and battle pass rewards that have been released over the past 30 seasons of the game entirely for free, with every microtransaction and loot box now being vaulted from the experience.
Who wouldn't want to expand their Steam library with some of these sweet free games to enjoy in 2026?
Rather than snubbing players who have been keeping the small-scale hero shooter experience alive all these years, Quake Champions is granting anyone who previously played the game or added it to their Steam library full access to the experience, and all the paid rewards that come with it.
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