Quake Champions does away with Loot Boxes in favor of Battle Pass

Bethesda’s new direction for their struggling arena first-person shooter Quake Champions has taken a new trajectory with the game getting rid of controversial loot boxes. Instead, players now can acquire a premium Battle Pass, similar to Fortnite and PUBG, which gives them the opportunity to unlock in-game cosmetics.

This new December update for Quake Champions is live now on PC but it includes a lot more than just a fundamental shift for the in-game economy. The return of a classic game mode and map are highlighting a major patch at the end of the year.

The evergreen Capture the Flag is now available as well as an Arcade Mode which aims to spice up how gamers play with weekly rotations of modifiers. The other big highlight is the new map Citadel.

It’s been a long time since the Quake series has been one of the prime first-person shooter games on the market. It’s influence throughout the 1990s can’t be understated but decades later, Quake is really struggling to be relevant among gamers. Overwatch, PUBG, Call of Duty long have taken over the reigns in the FPS genre.

With the smash-hit and return of Doom in 2016’s excellent reboot, things were looking bright for id Software to rekindle Quake once again. Maybe it was the decision to launch Quake Champions as a multiplayer-only title or as a PC-exclusive, but in the end, the game sadly didn’t manage to build a large player base worthy of the series.

As such, Bethesda decided to transform Quake Champions into a free-to-play title this summer. After an initial surge in players, user counts quickly began to dwindle down to its pre-F2P state. It’s likely this failed attempt that brings us arguably the next major shake-up for the game.

With this month’s big update, Quake Champions no longer will include controversial loot boxes. It’ll still remain free-to-play but now, players will be able to unlock cosmetic items, complete with a new progression system, with the introduction of a Free Reward System and Premium Battle Pass. It looks like the success of these monetization systems in Fortnite and PUBG have convinced Bethesda and id Software.

As explained in great detail in a news post, players of Quake Champions will now be able to unlock cosmetics by simply playing the game and completing daily and weekly challenges. A well-known mechanic by now. Whether this will be enough to kindle interest in the rather niche genre of small and fast-paced arena shooters remains to be seen.