Watch another new Quake Champion liquidize enemies in the latest trailer

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Bethesda has unveiled a new contender in the Quake Champions arena, and he's a big, brutish heavyweight by the name of Scalebearer. The complete reverse of the stealthy assassin Nyx who was revealed last week, Scalebearer is all about charging headlong into enemies and pounding them into submission.

"This warlord of the marauding Greiss plundered the technology of countless worlds to strengthen his armies. But defeat by a reclusive, phase-shifting race led to his exile," his description states. "Obsessed with vengeance, he discovered their power source: an ancient shrine holding a seething sphere of liquid within. When at last he slaughtered its guardians and entered, the sphere consumed him—and he vanished."

That sounds like a pretty clear reference to Nyx, whose people were able to use the Fathom Orb to "phase-shift" into another dimension—until it was breached by an attacker. Scalebearer's special ability is also the polar opposite of hers: While Nyx uses Ghost Walk to pass by enemies unseen and untouched; his Bull Rush power lets him charge into enemies with so much force that they literally explode in a spray of blood and bone.

Quake Champions will be free to play with an option for those who would rather just skip all that, and it is also, as we noted in our recent preview, still Quake. You can sign up for the closed beta 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.