Bethesda has announced that the upcoming shooter game Quake Champions will be a "free-to-play" title with premium services. With premium services players will be able to access all Champions.

According to a recent interview, players will be able to play the game for free, but almost all of the Champions will be locked behind a separate paid content pack dubbed as the "Champions Pack".

The Champion characters included in the game each feature their own set of unique abilities, as seen in the first Champion reveal trailer for the Nyx character that was released last week.

Whether the term "free-to-play" is actually applicable to the game is debatable because locking characters with unique abilities behind a paywall seems to make the game lean towards the "freemium" or "pay-to-win" genre.

Players who do not wish to purchase the Champions pack will still be able to play, either with one free Champion called the Ranger or with the other Champions for a limited time by unlocking them with an in-game currency called Favor.

Once players have enough Favor to unlock a Champion they will be able to play as that character for a limited time only. Once their time runs out players will have to purchase access to them again with the in-game currency.

Once the game releases, both free players and paid players will have access to the same maps and compete in the same brackets, with the difference being that winning matches will most definitely be easier when playing with paid Champions.

Earlier this week the game developer also announced the first closed beta test for the game, which is expected to start next month and will give players access to the first Champion and the map Blood Covenant.