Quake Champions – Season 29 patch overview

A new Quake Champions patch is out as part of Season 29. The update introduces a new battle pass item, resets ranked progression with updated tier ranges, adds a Controls+ menu for advanced movement binds, and includes a large set of gameplay and technical adjustments — including spawn logic updates, knockback changes, and a Lightning Gun rate-of-fire buff.

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Season 29 battle pass

• New: Cthalha’s “Elder Magic” podium
• Features seasonal content for winter and early spring
• Features the previously store-exclusive Valentine’s Day weapons and vanities

New ranked play rewards

• Leaderboards and skill ratings have been reset for all game modes
• Ranking tiers updated: Bronze 1–599, Silver 600–1099, Gold 1100–1599, Diamond 1600–2099, Elite 2100+
• New: Golden Crown vanity — unlocked when a player earns Elite
• Every champion has their own crown to earn, granted when playing as that champion in Elite

New Controls+ menu

• Added a Controls+ settings menu for advanced champion controls; special movement bind moved to this menu
• Doom Slayer can now use the special movement bind for Double Jump
• Nyx can now use the special movement bind for Wall Jump
• Special movement vars moved into the input config to address initialization concerns
  • Note: preferences will need to be reset in Controls+, as they will no longer be read from the old config or the cloud

Spawn code

• Updated spawn code to no longer favor respawn locations near teammates and to spread players out as much as possible
• Fixed line-of-sight check for respawns affecting spawn locations on Blood Run, Corrupted Keep, Crucible, Deep Embrace, which could cause an enemy to respawn in close line of sight of their attacker

Map updates

• Corrupted Keep: removed a totem spot outside the map
• Crucible: removed the central respawn locations and fixed spawn weight imbalances
• Crucible: fixed incorrect gamemode flags on 3 respawn locations (made them unavailable in Duel)
• Deep Embrace: made the trapped RL respawn location less likely to occur
• Insomnia: fixed incorrect gamemode flags on 3 respawn locations (made them unavailable in Duel)

Reduced knockback

• Reduced max knockback: 160 → 120
• Reduced max knockback scale: 3x → 2x (reducing the amount of knockback created by Quad Damage)
• Reduced the amount of knockback reduction provided by Protection, clamping knockback reduction between the bonus protection rate and 0.5 (Protection reduces knockback by 1/2, instead of by 3/4)
• Removed vertical knockback lift from Gauntlet, starting Machine Gun, and starting Shotgun
• Reduced vertical knockback lift from Heavy Machine Gun, Super Shotgun, and Lightning Gun: 16u → 10u
• Ranger: Dire Orb knockback 75 → 40
• Scalebearer: reduced knockback from the Stomper passive 50 → 25
• Strogg: Peeker hyperblaster knockback 22 → 15
• Strogg: Peeker explosive knockback 75 → 50

Additional weapon updates

• Lightning Gun rate of fire improved: 48 ms → 44 ms (125 → 136 DPS)

Quality of life on champion mechanics

• Clutch: Dodge Stamina — stamina regen 0.2 → 0.33
• Clutch: Air Dodge — removed min time delay between dodge activations
• Clutch: Air Dodge — removed the requirement of touching the ground after a dodge before being allowed to perform another dodge
• Clutch: reduced shield protection rate 40% → 35%
• Strogg: Stroyent drops on all kills, but HP bonus lowered 20 → 10
• Visor: no longer required to zoom during ability to gain the Piercing Damage bonus

Quake 3 weapon models

• Higher quality models for Terminator, Last Judgment, and Shaft, with additional details and higher quality textures

Additional fixes & changes

• Resolved the CPU-utilization issue introduced in the November anti-cheat updates
• Fixed the Quake 2 Blaster & Quake 4 Citizen Kane shot sounds (de-synced firing rate)
• Fixed main menu texture quality for the Napalm Launcher, Proximity Launcher and Q3 medals vanities
• Increased the Ultra Texture Quality from 2K → 4K (source quality)
• Bots will no longer steal major items from nearby players