Quake Champions is free if you get it now (or much later)

I've never been a Quaker. I've always thought a life spent pursuing peace and friendship through a religious lens was at odds with the Quaker's requirement that you spend 5 hours of every day playing a version of Id Software's hyper-violent shooter, but I won't pretend to understand such ecclesiastical matters.

I just got myself all tangled up over something that's quite simple, now that I've managed to spell it out. Quake Champions is an upcoming free-to-play arena shooter, only for now it's in paid for early access. Except for right now and up until June 18th - until which you can get free permanent access to the early access version if you download it and play at least one match. If you're like me and have barely dipped your toes into Quake before, this seems like a good opportunity to fix that.

Well, maybe an OK opportunity. At this point playing without paying only gives you access to one Champion, which is what this latest iteration of Quake calls classes. You do at least get all the maps and game modes, but if you want to play around with the defining feature of Quake Champions you'll need to pony up £13/$20/€20 for the Champions pack. Note that that normally costs £20, and nets you "all current and future Champions alongside custom matchmaking and other in-game goodies".

If you've got Quake on your brain, that might be because a few days ago Dominic Tarason told you about a big 'ol Quake Champions update that added bots, gore and balance tweaks.

I might have been content to let this one pass me by, but Bunker Punks recently got me in its robo-clutches. That's a single player roguelikelike, but it puts a similar emphasis on running and jumping while gunning - so now I'm keen to pit my strafing skills against other people's.

You can download Quake Champions for free on Steam until 6pm GMT/10am PST on June 18th, and remember that you'll need to play one match if you want it for keepsies. There's no word on when it'll come out of early access.