Diabotical is a newly released arena FPS that emulates the gameplay of the Quake franchise. Developed by a former Quake 4 professional player, Diabotical features the same weapons, movement, pickups, and an overall very similar experience to the Quake franchise.
Experienced Quake players will already be at the top of the game, while newer ones will need to learn the many classic mechanics. These include strafe jumping, circle jumping, weapon switching, and more. The game is available for free on the Epic Games Store, so there’s no reason not to give it a try.
There are 6 major game modes in Diabotical with the launch of the game. Each is unique and has a different objective. While some are familiar to Quake players or even players of other multiplayer shooters, some are also brand new to the genre.
Free For All
Free For All is every player for themselves, where the objective is to score the most frags before time runs out. In this mode, you’ll start with only a melee weapon and the machine gun and need to maneuver your way around the map to find the other weapons. You’ll also need to memorize the placements of health and armor, as there is no regeneration and the only way to gain your stack back is to collect the pickups.
Most importantly, remember the location in which the Diabotical powerup spawns, because 240 seconds into the match, whoever picks up this item will deal 4x damage to opponents for the next 30 seconds.
Wipeout
Unlike Free For All, Wipeout is round-based, and players automatically spawn with a full loadout. This means that as soon as the game starts, you already have every weapon, so there’s no need to circle the map looking for each one. This includes a Healing Weeball. In this mode, there are no armor and health pickups scattered around the map, which means you must use your time wisely and find a way to recover using the Weeball whenever you have a free moment.
In Wipeout, each death for an individual player increases their respawn time. The team with all players dead at the same time loses the round. The first team to win 4 rounds wins the match. If you’re the last one alive on the team, you must choose whether it is worth it to push a fight or if you need to back off and wait for a teammate to respawn. It might be worth it if the enemy team has only one player left, but 1v4s usually don’t go very well.
Aim Arena
In Aim Arena, players spawn with a full loadout and only have two lives per round. When a round is over, the players are moved to a different arena. Arenas are small parts of existing maps used to limit the space in which players can move.
Keeping players inside a small area together with specific weapons like a PNCR, Rocket Launcher, or Shaft helps train your aim and get a feel for the combat of the game without needing to search far and wide for a fight. Players start with full health and armor and cannot inflict self-damage in this game mode.
MacGuffin
MacGuffin is a round-based mode where the objective is to bring the MacGuffin to your base to generate 100 coins, while preventing the opponent from stealing it and attempting to do the same. Each team is assigned a base at the beginning of the round, swapping bases at the start of the following round.
Carrying the MacGuffin generates 10 coins while being carried by players, which are instantly deposited when the MacGuffin enters the base. 100 coins in the base can take some time and serious defending, so be ready with a full stack and loadout when you deliver the MacGuffin to your base. In this mode, you’ll need to pick up all weapons and health items from the map, as you will only start with a melee weapon and the machine gun.
Extinction
This is a round-based mode where each player only starts with 3 lives, and the first team to lose all of their lives loses the round. However, if you’re out of lives, make sure you’re paying attention. You will continue to respawn for as long as there is a player alive on your team. Ghosts have a much longer respawn time but can protect their living teammate as well as attempt to take a life or two away from enemy players who have a lot remaining.
If the player remaining on your team has more lives than anyone on the enemy team, your team’s ghost players will have less health on spawn based on the difference and will drop a death orb that reveals the living player’s location if retrieved by an enemy. There is a new powerup each round, either Vindicator, Vanguard, or Siphonator. No loadout to start in this one, so map control and weapon management are extremely important.
Duel
The classic competitive Quake game mode. Duel is a 1v1 battle to see who can score the most frags before time runs out. Each player starts with nothing, needing to manage the map and weapons to get their loadout.
After the allotted time runs out, a player must get the Golden Frag to win the match. The game’s base time limit is reduced by 30 seconds for each point in total frag difference between the players. This means if someone is getting completely destroyed, the match will end more quickly. Once that time limit is reached, the Golden Frag means the winning player needs one kill to win, and the losing player has a final chance to make a comeback.
Game Mode Playlists
Diabotical features multiple playlists for trying each of the above-mentioned game modes. This includes practice, quickplay, ranked, and custom.
- The practice modes in this game are quite good. There is an aim trainer, a free-roaming map for trying out weapons and abilities with moving bots for aim practice, and a race track for learning and practicing your strafe jumps.
- Quickplay is a casual playlist with no rank where the standard game modes are available for practice with real teammates and enemies to get a taste of what ranked will be like.
- Ranked is available with team-based modes, solo modes, 3v3s, and more. Players have an individual ranking for each game mode, which they are given after completing 10 full-length matches.
- Custom gives you the ability to make your own settings, choose your own map, and even allow people to search for and join your server.
