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Each Quake Champions character has a single, powerful ability

Quake Champions abilities

While a new Quake was always a possibility, the promise that Quake Champions would be both true to its hardcore arena-shooter roots and implement more modern class-based tropes was difficult to understand. In a new video, id’s studio director Tim Willits, lays out exactly what that means: each champion has a single, powerful ability.

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He runs down the four that have been revealed so far here:

Of those four, three are movement abilities, while the fourth enhances map capabilities less directly. The point being, none of them simply buff the damage of certain types of gun, or raise HP, or give invulnerability. They’re clearly trying to add additional dynamics to the Rail/Rocket/LG formula, rather than mess with it for nothing’s sake. Given the relative power of these moves, we’d assume there’s an attached resource to be managed even if it’s simply charged by playing.

It is such an odd decision by id to try to pull the nostalgic strings of fans while simultaneously making the sorts of changes that you know is going to enrage them. Remaking Quake 3 only prettier wasn’t going to work, not up against the new efforts from the Unreal Tournament team and in the wake of Quake Live’s inability to take the world by storm, but pitching Champions as the return of a classic game when it clearly isn’t seems equally doomed to confusion.

It also remains strange that nobody’s yet seen the game in actual action. It’s playable, and id have even had hardcore Quake players in-office to test it, but talking heads and a minute-forty of flashy CGI is all we’ve been allowed to see. Chances are Quakecon – which is in just over a week on August 4-7 – will bring more information and footage, or at least reports from those who get to play it at the show. Hopefully, that alleviates some fears.