Home / Games / Quake Live
Quake Live
Experience the most exciting and fast-paced FPS gameplay while competing with players from around the world in over 100 arenas, a dozen game modes, and with persistent career stats tracking, in this online features-focused successor to Quake III Arena.
What players say
Steam review score and the most-helpful voices, which may include critical ones. Data as of 2026-05-20.
What reviewers agree on
65 of the 104 reviews raise this.
“As a fan of Quake III Arena on the dreamcast, this hits home and delivers the same experience arena did, I do highly recommend!”
“Quake Live is not just "still good." Quake Live is the purest, most perfectly balanced, most skill-rewarding multiplayer FPS ever created, and nothing released in the last 25 years has managed to dethrone it. This is…”
3 of the 104 reviews raise this.
“Quake Live is not just "still good." Quake Live is the purest, most perfectly balanced, most skill-rewarding multiplayer FPS ever created, and nothing released in the last 25 years has managed to dethrone it. This is…”
“Video gaming sport .... if I want to watch a movie I'll get a movie. FPS needs to be high and the graphics are more than good enough, even Quake at 320X200 was good enough to give us 3D gameplay ...”
3 of the 104 reviews raise this.
“Probably the best modern online quake experience, still plenty of players and a decent community keeping it alive.”
“Best PVP FPS.”
14 of the 104 reviews raise this · 12 of them still recommend the game.
“this is the only fps game i want to play but it's also cancer since im playing against what are essentially retired esports veterans with nothing better to do”
“fps version of melee. if you can handle the first 150 hours of getting completely violated by people who have been playing for over 20 years, you are graced with some of the most chaotic fast paced fps fun of all time.…”
“Quake Live like going to a nursing home and getting beaten by them.”
8 of the 104 reviews raise this · 2 of them still recommend the game.
“this had so much potential to be the definitive replacement and modern way of playing quake 3. it was once free and was made paid when it hit steam apparently. all the servers are just 50 year olds gatekeeping, i joined…”
“Really really stupid Bethesda decided to put a paywall on what was once a free game you could play in a web browser. Greed trumps all. Quake Live was such a good way to play Quake 3 easily for free online on modern…”
“weird community, but its very fun and is one of the most skill-demanding games I have tried recently- I suck at it”
6 of the 104 reviews raise this · 3 of them still recommend the game.
“this had so much potential to be the definitive replacement and modern way of playing quake 3. it was once free and was made paid when it hit steam apparently. all the servers are just 50 year olds gatekeeping, i joined…”
“This is a locked down, unmoddable* version of Quake 3 running in a Chrome instance with various balance changes**. Used to run okay under Proton (that's right, NO native Linux binary despite being idtech3), but recently…”
“THIS GAME IS NO LONGER SUPPORTED. ACHIEVEMENTS AREN'T WORKING.”
6 of the 104 reviews raise this · 1 of them still recommend the game.
“this had so much potential to be the definitive replacement and modern way of playing quake 3. it was once free and was made paid when it hit steam apparently. all the servers are just 50 year olds gatekeeping, i joined…”
“I used to play this a bit back in 2016 when there were still around 800 to 1k players. by myself or with a pro player that was my friend and was showing me the ropes Now that it barely has a pulse (for a reason I will…”
“This is a locked down, unmoddable* version of Quake 3 running in a Chrome instance with various balance changes**. Used to run okay under Proton (that's right, NO native Linux binary despite being idtech3), but recently…”
5 of the 104 reviews raise this · 1 of them still recommend the game.
“I used to play this a bit back in 2016 when there were still around 800 to 1k players. by myself or with a pro player that was my friend and was showing me the ropes Now that it barely has a pulse (for a reason I will…”
“Really really stupid Bethesda decided to put a paywall on what was once a free game you could play in a web browser. Greed trumps all. Quake Live was such a good way to play Quake 3 easily for free online on modern…”
“There is typically 3 servers that have humans in them and they play with 20 people on 6 player maps. Every time you spawn you are instantly in a 1v5. There is no map control, no item control, nothing that made quake 3…”
Counted across 104 English reviews, sampled to match this game's 86.5% positive rating · as of 2026-05-20
“pls play this game it is the highest skill ceiling fps game you can play and it will make you good at literally everything else”
— a player, Steam review · 50 hrs played“Quake 3 arena but better, feels really rewarding to get better at this game but it's very hard to do so due to how many years your opponents have played for. The playerbase is basically only 40 year olds that have played for decades and now hop on railgun only servers with their…”
— a player, Steam review · 39 hrs played“A Masterpiece Held Hostage by its Own Community. The gameplay is still 10/10, no issues with that but thanks to the unfriendly regulars i had a poor experience. I joined an 8v8 TDM and after i died I was forcibly moved to Spectator mode and didnt respawn and my slot was…”
— a player, Steam review · 1 hrs playedPlayer activity
Monthly average concurrent players. Live count fetched 2026-07-11 12:09 UTC · history via SteamCharts.
Achievement stats
Global completion rates across all Steam players — a data view of how far people actually get. Source: Steam official stats · as of 2026-07-25.
Price tracking
US-region pricing (USD), sampled twice daily by our own tracker since 2026-07-11. Steam prices vary by region — always confirm your local price on Steam.
Regional prices at last sample, in local currency — Steam sets each region's price independently.
Cheapest → most expensive, converted to USD at ECB reference rates (2026-07-24). Relative comparison only.
Latest official news
Developer announcements via the Steam news API — links go to the original posts. More across all games on the news hub.
Quake Live Update v1069
We've just released an update to both the client and the server today. Servers and clients will both need to update as the changes are not compatible between versions, and older servers will be de-lis
Quake Live Update v1069
We've just released an update to both the client and the server today. Servers and clients will both need to update as the changes are not compatible between versions, and older servers will be de-lis
Quake Live on Discord
We've setup a public Discord server for Quake Live players to chat and organize pickup matches. Use this invite link to join us and other Quake Live players!
Quake Live on Discord
We've setup a public Discord server for Quake Live players to chat and organize pickup matches. Use this invite link to join us and other Quake Live players!
Quake Live Update v1068
We've just released an update to both the client and the server today. Servers and clients will both need to update as the changes are not compatible between versions, and older servers will be de-lis
Games like Quake Live
From our knowledge graph — ranked by shared traits, not a black box. Each card says why it's here.
Quake III Arena
95.8% · 2,401 reviews
shares E Sports, Competitive, Classic, Arena Shooter
Quake Champions
70.9% · 19,845 reviews
shares E Sports, Competitive, Classic, Arena Shooter
Unreal Tournament 2004: Editor's Choice Edition
96.0% · 2,865 reviews
shares E Sports, Competitive, Classic, Arena Shooter
Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition
96.3% · 2,961 reviews
shares Nostalgia, Competitive, Classic, Arena Shooter
Counter-Strike
97.3% · 61,446 reviews
shares Nostalgia, E Sports, Competitive, Classic
Unreal Tournament 3
85.5% · 2,381 reviews
shares Addictive, Competitive, Classic, Arena Shooter
Painkiller: Black Edition
85.0% · 937 reviews
shares Cult Classic, Classic, Arena Shooter, Fast Paced
Deathmatch Classic
83.7% · 1,742 reviews
shares Competitive, Classic, Arena Shooter, Fast Paced
Screenshots
Official Steam store screenshots — click any shot to enlarge.
Facts & details
From the Steam store record, snapshot 2026-05-20.
| Genres | Action |
| Player tags | FPS · Arena Shooter · Multiplayer · Classic · Fast-Paced · Action · Shooter · e-sports · Competitive · First-Person · Difficult · Cult Classic (SteamSpy community voting) |
| Features | Single-player · Multi-player · Steam Achievements · Steam Trading Cards · Steam Workshop · Partial Controller Support · Steam Cloud · Stats |
| Languages | English * * |
| Achievements | 58 |
| Estimated owners | 2,000,000 – 5,000,000 (SteamSpy) |
| Official site | http://www.quakelive.com |
Minimum system requirements (PC)
Minimum: OS *: Windows 7 or later Processor: 2 GHz Intel Processor or better Memory: 1 GB RAM Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 4 MX or better, ATI Radeon 8500 or better, Intel i915 chipset or better 1024x600 resolution DirectX: Version 9.0 Network: Broadband Internet connection Storage: 1 GB available space Sound Card: Stereo Soundcard