Welcome to the Arena, where high-ranking warriors are transformed into spineless mush. Abandoning every ounce of common sense and any trace of doubt, you lunge onto a stage of harrowing landscapes and veiled abysses. Your new environment rejects you with lava pits and atmospheric hazards as legions of foes surround you, testing the gut reaction that brought you here in the first place. Your new mantra: Fight or be finished.

It was a chilly November (21st) day when Quake III Arena went gold, and as far as we're concerned, it's still solid, 24 karat funk! It was the day Deathmatch was done right as far as id Software was concerned and they had put all of their years behind the first Quake aimed directly at online play. Single player action was the same "arena" combat you'd find online except your opponents would be AI controlled, gun totting hunks of fun called "bots". But what it all comes down to is some of the best run and gun action you'll find. It was Dm done right indeed, but there also CTF out of the box and the amount of community inspired content available is truly staggering.

Quake III Arena is the third in the series and differs from previous games in the series by excluding a traditional single-player element and focusing on multi-player action. The single-player is instead played against computer controlled bots in a similar style to Unreal Tournament.
Q3A's aim is to fragging (killing) enemy players and scoring points based on the game mode's objective such as capturing the enemy flag. When a player's health points reach zero, that player's avatar is fragged; in the majority of modes the player can then respawn and continue playing, health restored, but without previously gathered weapons and power-ups. Games end when a player or team reaches a score or time-limit. Game modes include deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag, and tournament.

Notable features of Quake 3 include the minimalist design, lacking rarely used items and features, the extensive customizability of player settings such as field of view, texture detail and enemy model, and advanced movement features such as strafe-jumping that give more speed with greater skill in contrast to the digital, all or nothing design of many computer games.


_{Working links checked on 05/07/09 by LC_bot}