On September 23, id Software and Bethesda unexpectedly relaunched Quake Champions, although not in the usual sense. Update 1.31 removed the arena shooter's entire live-service layer: the Battle Pass, Store, in-game currencies, and loot boxes. The game also switched from free-to-play to a standard paid Steam release priced at $9.99. In return, players now get everything at once: all 16 Champions are unlocked, while most cosmetics accumulated across 30 seasons are available to everyone without additional purchases.Update 1.31 effectively feels like a final act for the project. Along with the Battle Pass, weekly and event challenges are gone, as are Platinum and Shards, loot boxes, daily login rewards, and the old Champion progression system. In other words, nearly everything that made Quake Champions a traditional free-to-play live-service game has been removed. In the patch notes, the developers called this a "new chapter." For $9.99, players now get the complete shooter, while most previously released cosmetics can be equipped without additional spending.Image unavailableThe Microsoft Store version is no longer supported. Bethesda offered owners a way to link their Bethesda.net and Steam accounts and claim a Steam copy for free, with the offer running from September 23 through October 7. Players who had already launched Quake Champions on Steam received the transition for free. The game simply changed from free to $9.99 without requiring them to buy it again.No additional content updates are planned at this time. The reasons are fairly clear. For several years, Quake Champions usually hovered around 500 to 1,000 concurrent players, while its all-time peak came eight years ago. In that situation, continuing to invest in seasonal content makes little sense, and the team chose a rare but straightforward approach: turn the game back into a conventional pay-to-play product.
