Quake Champions

Quake Champions #1-4

by Ram V, Alan Quah (Illustrator)

Hellish landscapes, brutal violence and arcane Elder God’s collide in this brand new comic title based on Bethesda’s cult first-person shooter videogame franchise.

While the Earth burns in a war without end, grim fighters from the far reaches of the hellverse battle through nightmare dimensions in search subsistence and salvation. Trained to kill, scavenge, survive and locked in a never-ending gauntlet of bullets and bloodshed, only one of these Champions shall prevail.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics

112 pages, Paperback

First published February 5, 2018

About the author

Ram V (Ramnarayan Venkatesan) is an author and comic book writer from Mumbai, India. His comics career began in 2012 with the award-nominated Indian comic series, Aghori. A graduate of the City University of London’s Creative Writing MA, he has since created the critically acclaimed Black Mumba and the fantasy adventure series, Brigands.

Reviews

[Owen · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story is non-existent. Rather, it is a series of one-shots, each focusing on the backstory of a different playable character from the Quake Champions game. The only thing consistent across issues was that the focus of issue 2 would kill the focus of issue 1 at the start of their issue and so on then never reference the previous events again. They weren't bad but largely inconsequential.
The art was a strong point. The front cover initially drew me to this book and it has a grimy, grungy style throughout which fits the tone and environment of the comic well. Although not original for this story, the character designs were also really unique and well done, bursting with personality that made them completely distinguishable from one another.
I would've liked an overarching story tying things together and giving this a sense of purpose but it was one of the better 99p comics I've read and for the price I can't complain.

[Monika · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5* interesting. Good illustrations. For game fans.

[Bill · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kinda pointless, even as a huge fan of Quake and Quake Champions as games.

[Ann DVine · Rating 2 out of 5]

An unfortunate situation, that the dialogue is decently paced and the suitably crunchy art is sporadically engrossing, but the video game source material doesn't have characters interesting enough to act as the focus of a comic book plot - even when featured one at time in flashback vignettes, as presented here. Cheers, then, to the illustrator and scribe - and jeers to id Software, for giving them little more to work from than a motley crew of bland, barely distinguishable sci-fi archetypes.

Also, weirdly, there's a typo in the blurb? This volume collects all four issues of the Quake Champions series, not issues "#1 - #3" as printed. Not that it's a big problem, considering I don't exactly recommend this book, but I figure it's worth clarifying nonetheless.

[Amy Walker - Trans-Scribe Reviews]

Despite Quake having been a franchise that’s been around for years it’s not a game I can really remember ever playing, despite having seen it many times and being passingly familiar with the franchise. As such, I was excited to learn more about the universe and their characters.

Instead of dropping the reader into a complex story set within the pre-established lore of Quake, Quake Champions takes the time to look at the characters in small, yet intimate backstories, tales that take the time to shed some light onto who the Quake competitors are and their motivations. This makes the book instantly accessible, as you can go into it knowing absolutely nothing.

Yes, there are some things that are only vaguely explained, such as the dimension that all of the characters are in, and the fact that they keep coming back to life after being killed in brutal combat, but these are things that don’t really matter for this book. Quake Champions is about characters before anything else.

There is a vague narrative to the book, however, as we move from one character to another as they work their way through the battleground killing each other. The handover of focus from character to character as one kills the other is a fun conceit, and you begin to actively look forward to how it will happen; especially when you find out that they can still come back from being killed so they’re not gone once they’re killed.

Between these moments of violence we get to see how these characters ended up in this strange dimension. Whilst not incredibly in-depth, it does give a good feel for each individual character, their motivations, and how varied they all are. The script helps with this backstory a lot, providing more narration boxes and insight into the characters thoughts than actual dialogue. These give each of the chapters a very different feel, as they’re essentially all told from a different point of view rather than one singular outside observer.

The art within the book by Alan Quah is gorgeous, and doesn’t feel like traditional comic book art, having traded in the harsh lines that some artists use, instead embracing a much softer art style. This art style works well, and the characters never feel too far removed from their environments, even when there’s nothing in the background of their panel. The tones used throughout make the universe feel more alive and natural, and creates some very stunning pages.

The artwork works wonderfully during the action sequences too, with gunfire, flames, and smoke all looking amazing. They give these sequences much more energy than you’d expect, and helps the panels feel like there’s real movement within them, rather than being static and rigid.

Whilst there’s not a whole lot of story within the pages of Quake Champions it’s a great jumping on point for people who may not know much about the franchise, as it gives some great insight into the universe; and I’m sure that it would appeal well to those who know the source material well too, giving those readers more depth into the inner workings of characters that they’ll be familiar with.

If this book is anything to go by more comics set within the Quake universe would work extremely well, and I look forward to seeing what could happen next.

[Cale · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you're looking for a story, you are looking in the entirely wrong place.
Quake was never much for storylines, so trying to build one out of an arena deathmatch game was a losing prospect. The best you can do is what they've attempted here, building loosely related stories centered on the random character designs that make up the game. So we get multiple origin stories of characters that have no real personality traits beyond their wardrobes and physical characteristics. Within that, Ram V. has done his best, and each of the stories is unique, at least. But the sum is not greater than the parts, and there's nothing here that feels at all essential to the game or the characters.
The art is done well enough that it evokes the games, especially when it comes to the weapons (the rocket launcher is immediately recognizable, for example). The character design works to carry over from the games to the page, and some of the action moments are nice, but others are unclear or just boring.
Ultimately, this is a book trading on name recognition that has no way to succeed because there's nothing under the surface to build off of. A fault of the property, not the creators.

[BookieWookie · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 out of 5.

Well, kudos to the author for trying to write a story for a game series that famously has no story!

I actually enjoyed this. It's basically just a graphic novel version of some of the lore pages found in the game, with each issue exploring a different champion's backstory before they're killed off and we follow another character. The lore pages are fleshed out a bit more in the comics, but not too much.

Sure, it's mostly cliche grimdark stuff, but it's written entertainingly enough, the art is great, and I enjoyed the variety of stories since all the characters basically come from different worlds. I also enjoyed all the references to past Quake games, and found all the Nine Inch Nails references cute.

Obviously you have to play the game to get more lore, but in a few cases what's in the book is all there is in the game, and due to the nature of Quake Champions, you're not going to get a conclusion to anyone's story.

So, it's in a very odd position, but that's not surprising since it was basically made to promote the game. Only worth reading if you're a fan of the game!

[Nikola Ziki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being a very huge fan of Quake series I felt like I just had to read this comic.

The volume is divided into several chapters, with each chapter introducing us to the backstory of one of the characters from the game.

Frankly I am not very interested in the Quake champions game, so I didn't have any high expectations going into the world of this comic. I only wanted to feel that sci fi horror vibe from Quake 1 and II. On that note I was disappointed, but the feeling of competing and hunting other players you get from the Quake 3 Arena is there alright.

Storywise, the chapters themselves are not that special, but they are interesting to say the least.
I especially enjoyed Marine's and Visor's ark. Man that last chapter was awesome.

All in all, I must say that the comic is not great, not terrible, with a bit more redeeming qualities than disappointments. It would be nice if they published more volumes with the rest of the characters.

[Jeffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pleasant surprise. The comic consists of the backstories of the characters from the game - I enjoyed them all with my favourite being the Anarki/Slash story arc.

I will especially recommend this GN to fans of the franchise, but others who know nothing about the game may enjoy it as well.

[Neurocomp · Rating 5 out of 5]

great graphics / style , nice backstory ...wasn't much of a quake player/doom player but reading a backstory was awesome. Hope there's a second one, as its sort of left things hangin...unless i gotta go back and play the games.

[Petr · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was surprisingly good. Obviously, it is about Quake so the prime is shootouts between the characters, but the backstories, albeit a little cliche, were interesting and the narrative presentation was very captivating.