Wow. 25 years. It seems like just yesterday we were hosting a Quake server to celebrate the shooter's 20th anniversary. Now here we are doing it again at the 25 year mark, and five years later Quake is still a damn good time.
I played through Quake's singleplayer recently for PC Gamer magazine and found a shooter full of tight level design that's still worth your time today. And the Quake modding scene is unbelievably active for a game its age. Just look at a few we've written about in the last four years:
- Quake turned into a top-down shooter
- The Quake Xmas Jam 2020 is a slay ride across 19 new levels
- The most ambitious Quake map ever built has just been released in 2017
This week is all about multiplayer: We've spun up a new Quake server with a few different game modes. Now's your chance to relive those old glory days of late '90s shooters with a much, much better internet connection. Here's how to join (and the easiest way to install Quake today, if you don't have it ready to go).
The PC Gamer Quake servers
We have three servers open for anyone to join, all based on the US west coast (sorry about your ping, UK friends). Here are the addresses:
- 32-player FFA server: pcg.servegame.com:28501
- 4v4 Team Deathmatch: pcg.servegame.com:28502
- 8v8 CTF: pcg.servegame.com:28503
The FFA and CTF servers should be running continuously as players join, but the Team Deathmatch server requires all players to ready up before the match starts.
See below for advice on how to join. And let me know in the PC Gamer Discord if something's broken—these config files are tricky.
Happy fragging!
How to play
If you think you'll want to play Quake singleplayer, make sure you own the original game. You can find Quake on Steam for $5 or on GoG for $5 as well. But you don't have to buy it just to play multiplayer. To easily join our server, just download nQuake.
nQuake is a modern Quake installer that makes it much easier to play the game today. Once installed, you'll launch it from the ezquake.exe and want to go into the menu and configure your graphics, HUD, and control options. Once done, make sure to hit "Save Settings" on the Config tab.
To join our server, do the following:
- Make sure to set your name on the Player tab in the options menu!
- Choose Multiplayer from the main menu
- Press the Insert key to add a custom server
- Type pcg.servegame.com:28501 (or 28502 or 28503) and hit Enter
- Press J to join
