Quake Champions to add bots

Quake Champions plans to roll out bots that players will be able to play against to hone their skills or use to fill slots in games, developer id Software has announced. It didn't confirm whether that meant the game was getting an offline mode or not.

In a video uploaded this week, technical director John Dean said that the bots will be able to do all the things that players can, including trick jumps and strafe jumps, and that you'll be able to set their difficulty on a sliding scale. At the easiest levels, the bots will avoid powerful weapons and pickups, which will be a chance for new players to learn how to use the best items, including Quad Damage.

At all difficulties, the bots are designed to defer to their human teammates—if a bot sees a human ally going for the Quad Damage, for example, it will avoid the pickup.

Bots will be rolled out in two phases, Dean said. Phase 1, which is coming "soon", will see the bots able to use all champions and weapons, but not champion abilities. They'll be available in a limited number of game modes, including deathmatch, team deathmatch, and instagib. In the second phase, the bots will be able to use champion abilities, and will be available in more game modes.

When asked whether the game would get offline bots, Dean said: "There's a lot of really good stuff coming down the pipe, [but] I can't talk about all of it yet". Watch the full video at the top of this post.

Samuel Horti

Samuel Horti is a long-time freelance writer for PC Gamer based in the UK, who loves RPGs and making long lists of games he'll never have time to play.