Quake Champions closed beta next week

Quake Champions [official site], Bethesda's multiplayer FPS with a highly over-complicated business model that we're calling free to play in the absence of anything more straightforward, is getting close. Close enough that I can raise a wet fingertip to the wind and sagely declare that a beta's a-comin'.

A closed beta specifically, and if you want any chance of getting into this first round you'll have to strafe directly to the sign-up page - they've been taking applications for a while already. However, sticking your name in the hat now at least means you'll be in the pool they select from for promised future betas.

This beta kicks off next Thursday, April 6, by which point presumably we'll all have stopped gossiping about whatever it is Bioware are revealing they're doing to tart up Mass Effect Andromeda on April 4.

The beta brings with another new character, hoverboard-riding 'transhuman punk' Anarki. He looks a little bit Necromunda, and though heavily based on the olden Quake III fella of the same name, his hoverboard seems to be more of an active feature, he's a whole lot less butchered-looking and a whole lot more yah bro:

Yeah, I definitely preferred him when his mouth was stitched shut.