A new Quake Champions trailer reveals the old hero, Ranger

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Bethesda's latest Quake Champions trailer actually showcases the original Quake champion, the super-solider named Ranger, who was sent through a "Slipgate" teleporter to confront and destroy a mysterious extra-dimensional enemy named "Quake." But years of endless combat since then have taken a toll, leaving him a broken shell of a man: "Only a photograph of a family he no longer clearly remembers serves to help him retain some of his hope and humanity."

Of course, "hope and humanity" won't get you very far in a free-to-play arena of gib-ification, so it's fortunate for Ranger than he brings a couple of other tricks to the table as well. His active ability, the Dire Orb, enables him to teleport around the map, making it easier to reach out-of-the-way areas and also to inflict the occasional telefrag on careless opponents. If it's deployed and then left alone, it will eventually explode, causing damage to any enemies caught in its blast radius.

Ranger's passive ability, "Son of a Gun," reduces his self-inflicted damage by 20 percent, handy for rocket-jumps and flinging around high-explosive death in close quarters.

We got some hands-on time with the ongoing Quake Champions closed beta that you can dig into here, and while there are still a lot of questions that remain unanswered—how, or if, it will support mods, for instance—it sounds like this latest iteration will do a good job of preserving "the essential Quake-ness" of the series. If you haven't already signed up for the beta, you can do so at quake.bethesda.net.

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.