A FEW LUCKY E-SPORTS PLAYERS GOT TO PLAY THE NEW QUAKE CHAMPIONS GAME

This year’s QuakeCon felt a bit sleepy compared to the chaos caused by last year’s big Fallout 4 presentation, but there was still plenty for gamers to get excited about at the Hilton Anatole Hotel, including demos of upcoming games such as Dishonored 2 and Shadow Warrior 2, footage of Prey and id Software’s recently announced Quake Champions, and much more.

What’s Quakecon with Quake?

For the rabid id Software fans that attend QuakeCon every year, the game everyone wanted to see was Quake Champions, which id announced for the first time at this year’s E3.

Only a few lucky e-sports players were allowed to actually play the game, but everyone else who attended QuakeCon had the chance to watch Quake Champions in action. The game already has drawn a few comparisons to Blizzard Entertainment’s Overwatch, but after seeing a majority of gamers playing Overwatch at QuakeCon’s BYOC LAN, that may not be a bad thing.

For those who were not able to attend QuakeCon in person, id also released a new gameplay trailer for its upcoming title, which showcases a few hallmarks of the Quake series, including fast-paced action, gruesome environments, and a wide variety of weapons.

A whole new Doom experience

Id’s most recent Doom game re-established the studio as one of the kings of the shooter genre, and the studio showed some new Doom experiences coming around the corner.

This includes the newly released multiplayer downloadable content (DLC), Unto the Evil, which launched during QuakeCon. id also showed off a newer version of Doom VR than what it displayed earlier this year at E3, and crowds of players lined up to try it out.

Finally, id offered a hands-on experience with the new Vulkan update for Doom, which offers even faster and smoother graphics for Doom.

Arkane crashes the party

While QuakeCon may be dedicated to id and its games, some of the most-talked-about events at the convention came from fellow Bethesda-owned game developer, Arkane Studios.

Arkane showed off two of its upcoming games, both of which are highly-anticipated by fans. The first was a playable demo of Dishonored 2, the sequel to Arkane’s 2012 stealth assassination game, which is set in a bizarre steampunk world full of dark magic and British accents.

The second game was Prey, a reboot of the 2006 sci-fi horror game of the same name that was produced by now-defunct Dallas-based studio, 3D Realms. Like its predecessor, Prey has undergone a lengthy development cycle, first starting out as a direct sequel before that idea was scrapped in favor of a complete reboot.

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