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September 2026

The State of Quake III Arena

Every number here comes from QuakeHub polling every public Quake III Arena server on Earth every 90 seconds, real players only, bots filtered out, since August 2026.

MonthQuarterYear
November 2026October 2026September 2026August 2026
All Games–Quake Live–Quake III Arena–Quake II–QuakeWorld–CPMA–NetQuake–Quake 4–Bloodrun–Quake (Enhanced)–Quake Wars–QC: Doom Edition–Quake Champions–
Quake III Arena
All Games–Quake Live–Quake III Arena–Quake II–QuakeWorld–CPMA–NetQuake–Quake 4–Bloodrun–Quake (Enhanced)–Quake Wars–QC: Doom Edition–Quake Champions–
5,589,405▲ 81%
frags scoredby real players, counted between polls
48,079▲ 10%
hours of Quake III Arena played
72.1▲ 7%
players online on average
227▲ 13%
peak players at once
219▲ 13%
servers hosting real matches2+ real humans and a real frag
1,539
bots detectedon a typical poll

Players by day

Average online each day. Shaded columns are weekends; hover or click a day for its number.
50100150 avg 70 120peak · Sep 2 Sep 18152229 50100150 avg 70 120peak · Sep 2 Sep 18152229

Servers on the map

! ^-UnFreeZe.fpsclasico.de (Oct 01, 01:59) - 5,674 hours***2026 FREE - 3,450 hoursQ3MSK FREEZE - 3,396 hours! ^&FreeFUn.fpsclasico.eu (Oct 01, 01:59) - 2,341 hours! 2x RAIL FFA - 2,007 hoursRETRO|FFA - 1,698 hoursQ3RETRO.COM|CTF - 1,627 hours! 1x RAIL FFA - 1,601 hours*A51* FFA - 1,552 hoursQ3MSK CA(PL) - 1,305 hours! ALT-Retro FFA - 1,275 hoursQ3MSK CTF(DE) - 959 hours
219 servers hosted a real match this month (2+ real humans and a real frag) - dot size is hours of play. Watch it live on the world map.

By hour and weekday

Average players in each hour of the week, UTC. Brighter is busier; hover a cell for its number.
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
12am6am12pm6pm11pm
quieterbusiernot sampled yet
Busiest slot: Sun 18:00 UTC, avg 141 players. Prime time: 15:00-23:00, busy every day.
By hour · UTC
12am6am12pm6pm11pm
By weekday
70
Mon
54
Tue
76
Wed
67
Thu
71
Fri
75
Sat
77
Sun

Records

Top row: the best September 2026 has seen. Bottom row: the best ever recorded, since August 2026.
September 2026227players online at once on Quake III Arena
Sep 2
September 202638in the fullest single match
Q3RETRO.COM|CTF · q3ufc28
Sep 26, 01:00 UTC
September 20265,674hours of real players on the busiest server
! ^-UnFreeZe.fpsclasico.de (Oct 01, 01:59)
September 2026120average players on the busiest day
Sep 2
all-time227players online at once on Quake III Arena
Sep 2, 12:00 UTC
all-time47in the fullest single match
q3.pieter.com · q3dm7
Oct 9, 13:00 UTC

Maps and countries

400
different maps played
37
countries reached
49,027▲ 8%
matches played

Modes and hosting

Modes
Deathmatch53%
TDM29%
CTF10%
Duel5%
53%
81%
90%
70%
Where servers are hosted
🇩🇪 Germany47%
🇷🇺 Russia20%
🇺🇸 United States16%
🇵🇱 Poland3%
🇨🇿 Czechia3%

Top maps

Share of play-time across 400 maps played. Click a map for its page, or browse every map.
q3dm179.6%
pro-q3dm65.9%
q3dm75%
q3dm143.3%
ztn3tourney13.1%
q3dm82.6%
aedm172.5%
q3dm112.5%
q3dm152.4%
xfort2.2%

Busiest servers this month

By total hours of real-player time. Click a server to find it in the live browser.
1- ! ^-UnFreeZe.fpsclasico.de (Oct 01, 01:59)Quake III Arena 5,674hours 22peak 4now 2▲1 ***2026 FREEQuake III Arena 3,450hours 23peak 8now 3▼1 Q3MSK FREEZEQuake III Arena 3,396hours 25peak 16now 4▲8 ! DM17Quake III Arena 2,364hours 8peak 2now 5▼1 ! ^&FreeFUn.fpsclasico.eu (Oct 01, 01:59)Quake III Arena 2,341hours 22peak 12now 6▲15 ! 2x RAIL FFAQuake III Arena 2,007hours 7peak 0now 7▼1 RETRO|FFAQuake III Arena 1,698hours 20peak 1now 8▼3 Q3RETRO.COM|CTFQuake III Arena 1,627hours 38peak 0now 9▲17 ! 1x RAIL FFAQuake III Arena 1,601hours 6peak 3now 10NEW *A51* FFAQuake III Arena 1,552hours 14peak 3now

Duels

The Duel ZoneBusiest duel servers, top duel maps, the best time to duel, and the tournament calendar for Quake III Arena.→

Twitch

TwitchPeak streams and viewers, the top streamers, and who streamed the most days for Quake III Arena.→

Play Quake III Arena right now

Everything above is real people on real servers - see who's on right now.
How to Play Quake III Arena
  1. Get the game data: Quake III Arena on Steam or GOG, or the original CD.
  2. Install a free modern engine, either ioquake3 or the faster Quake3e, and point it at your baseq3 files. Stock Quake III asks master.quake3arena.com, which lists around 945 servers, so your Steam copy already finds plenty of games. The ports are worth it for being actively maintained, widescreen, and free of the old frame-rate ceiling - and they also query directory.ioquake3.org (about 890 more, heavily overlapping) so you see the union of both.
  3. Staying on the stock game? Open the console with ~ and enter sv_master1 "directory.ioquake3.org", then refresh the Internet list.
  4. Playing CPMA / Promode? That scene uses its own engine, CNQ3.

Joining a server Copy the connect string, open the console with ~, and type /connect ip:port.

ioquake3 ↗Quake3e ↗CNQ3 (CPMA) ↗Quake III on Steam ↗Quake III on GOG ↗

Want this data raw? View September 2026 as JSON · API docs

Real players only - bots filtered on every poll. Recording since August 2026.
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