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id Software working on Vulkan support for Quake Champions

by Mark Tyson on 4 April 2017, 11:21

Tags: AMD (NYSE:AMD), Khronos Group, Bethesda Softworks

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Matt Charles, senior producer at id Software, was at the Asus ROG Day this weekend and talked about development plans for Quake Champions. In conversation with PCGamesHardware.de (PCGHD) the producer said that his studio was working on a Vulkan rendering path for Quake Champions. Furthermore, thanks to the ongoing agreement and camaraderie between Bethesda and AMD, Quake Champions is likely to be optimised for Ryzen CPUs.

Bethesda is apparently enviously eyeing Blizzard's Overwatch, and its money making ability. It hopes that Quake Champions can reignite interest in first person arena shooters, with the swift speed and tactics involved in the multiplayer gameplay. PCGHD had hands-on time with the game at the Asus ROG event and report that it plays a lot like Quake 3 Arena.

Quake Champions will be an F2P game. Money will only be useful only for cosmetic items, say the developers, with no form of pay-to-win accessible. Another way for Bethesda to gain income will be in the rotation of characters available - if you like a particular character you can pay to keep them. It is noted that all champion characters can use all weapons but each has their own special skill.

PCGHD checked out an early beta of Quake Champions and noted that it didn't play very smoothly at this time. The test system was equipped with an AMD Ryzen 7 CPU, 16GB of RAM, and a Radeon RX 480 graphics card (Asus ROG Strix OC). The software isn't using Vulkan rendering as yet but is instead using DirectX 11 or OpenGL. The Vulkan enabling patch is expected to roll out later, possibly some time during the beta stage.

You can sign up for the Quake Champions Closed Beta for right now. This F2P title is coming to PC, PS4 and Xbox One.

HEXUS Forums :: 6 Comments

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Posted by Corky34 - Tue 04 Apr 2017 12:16
How is paying money for characters with special skills any different than paying money for special weapons, either way seems like a P2W game.
Posted by Kanoe - Tue 04 Apr 2017 12:27
Because there will always be a roster of free to play characters that will change over time like Heroes of the Storm but if you like the character and want to make sure you can always play it then pay one off to perma unlock it.

It worked well in HotS cause you could try all the characters and if you really liked one unlock it otherwise just play one from the free roster.
Posted by DirtyDean68 - Tue 04 Apr 2017 12:53
Using Vulkan API will be a good move, but I'm not pinning my hopes in a Linux port. Bethesda are anti Linux sadly, so it is very likely there will be no native Linux version. Unless the Windows version can run fully under WINE.
Posted by Corky34 - Tue 04 Apr 2017 14:34
Kanoe
Because there will always be a roster of free to play characters that will change over time like Heroes of the Storm but if you like the character and want to make sure you can always play it then pay one off to perma unlock it.

It worked well in HotS cause you could try all the characters and if you really liked one unlock it otherwise just play one from the free roster.

You mean in the same way i like playing with an auto-aim mini-gun and can pay money to permanently use it? Sorry but any game that allows players to buy things that effect gameplay is a P2W game and HotS is no different in not only my opinion but many others, including a group of people who filed a suit against Blizzard.
Posted by scaryjim - Tue 04 Apr 2017 14:42
Corky34
You mean in the same way i like playing with an auto-aim mini-gun and can pay money to permanently use it? ….

No - you still need to be a good player. Unless they utterly screw up the character balance (which is possible, let's be honest) having permanent access to one particular character won't give you an innate advantage over an equally skilled player whose character matches their play style.

It will take some of the chance out of whether the current free characters suit your play style or not, and it will mean that people who pay will get more chance to become accustomed to their character. But they won't have any innate advantage, and better players should still beat them. Like I say, it all comes down to how well they manage the character balance.

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