Many liked the crisp graphics and focus on multiplayer. Quake III Arena has also been used extensively in professional electronic sports tournaments such as QuakeCon, Cyberathlete Professional League, DreamHack, and the Electronic Sports World Cup.

The game was highly praised by reviewers who, for the most part, described the gameplay as fun and engaging. Notable features of Quake III Arena include the minimalist design, lacking rarely used items and features, the extensive customizability of player settings such as field of view, texture detail and enemy model, and advanced movement features such as strafe-jumping and rocket-jumping.

Its engine, known as id Tech 3, supports OpenGL graphics (and specific support for the '3dfx Voodoo' cards, popular at the time). It features music composed by Sonic Mayhem and Front Line Assembly founder Bill Leeb. Quake III Arena (or Quake III: Arena ), often referred as Quake 3, Q3A or simply Q3, is a first-person shooter published by id Software in 1999. The single-player mode is played against computer-controlled bots. It is the third game in the Quake series it differs from previous games by excluding a story-based single-player mode and highly focusing on multiplayer gameplay. Quake III Arena is a 1999 multiplayer-focused first-person shooter developed by id Software. QuakeCon has ended, funds have been raised for charity and Bethesda is keeping its promise – After Quake and Quake 2, Quake 3 Arena is now also free in Bethesda Launcher for 3 days.