Quake Arena Arcade frags XBLA December 15

In September of 2006, id Software's seminal first-person shooter Doom was announced for Xbox Live Arcade, appearing on the Xbox 360 downloadable storefront that same day. The following August, id Software used its QuakeCon 07 keynote address to announce that another of its major FPS franchises would be hitting XBLA in the form of Quake Arena Arcade. Unfortunately, the wait for that title has been considerably longer.

The wait is nearly over, as id Software sister company Bethesda Softworks today announced a December 15 debut for the game on Xbox Live Arcade. In addition to a new single-player campaign, the game will feature 16-player online matches and six play modes, including Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, and Harvester. Quake Arena Arcade will also come with 30 previously released maps, and 12 new arenas exclusive to the Xbox 360 version.

Quake III: Arena debuted to critical praise on the PC in December 1999 and was ported to the Mac and Dreamcast the following year. It was also adapted for the PlayStation 2 in 2001 with Quake III: Revolution--which lacked online play--and most recently served as the inspiration for the free-to-play, browser-based Quake Live, which exited its beta-testing period earlier this year.