The third installment of the Quake series, Arena differs from previous games by excluding a story-based single-player mode and focusing primarily on multiplayer gameplay.

It features music composed by Sonic Mayhem and Front Line Assembly founder Bill Leeb.

[6] The game's story is brief: "the greatest warriors of all time fight for the amusement of a race called the Vadrigar in the Arena Eternal."

Continuity with prior games in the Quake series and even Doom is maintained by the inclusion of player models and biographical information.

[7] A familiar mixture of gothic and technological map architecture as well as specific equipment is included, such as the Quad Damage power-up, the rocket launcher, and the BFG.

The game allows players whose computers are connected by a network or to the internet to play against each other in real time, and incorporates a handicap system.

Quake III Arena's focus on multiplayer gameplay spawned a lively community, similar to QuakeWorld, that is still active as of 2021.

[10] After the IHV leak, id Software released a beta of the game called Quake III Arena Test on April 24, 1999, initially only for Mac OS[11] before expanding to Windows at a later date.

[12] id co-founder and former technical director John Carmack has stated that Quake III Arena is his favorite game he has worked on.

Unlike most other games released at the time, Quake III Arena requires an OpenGL-compliant graphics accelerator to run.

[17] id Tech 3 uses a virtual machine to control object behavior on the server, effects and prediction on the client and the user interface.

Unless operations which require a specific endianness are used, a QVM file will run the same on any platform supported by Quake III Arena.

On August 19, 2005, id Software released the complete source code for Quake III Arena under the GNU General Public License v2.0 or later,[21] as they have for most of their prior engines.

Around 2002, initial speculation pointed to John Carmack as the probable author of the code, but he demurred and suggested it was written by Terje Mathisen, an accomplished assembly programmer who had previously helped id Software with Quake optimization.

[30] In August 2011, the ARM-based Raspberry Pi credit card-sized computer was shown running a specially-compiled ARM version of Quake III on Debian.

[32] In May 2022, an unofficial VR port was released for Meta Quest and Pico virtual reality headsets by a group of modders around Team Beef.

As the game was an early PS2 title, it lacked online play - Sony would not launch their network functionality in North America until August 2002.

[42] The title, jointly developed by id and Pi Studios, was released on Xbox Live Arcade on December 15, 2010.

The expansion focused on team-based gameplay through new game modes, as well as the addition of three new weapons (the Chaingun, Nailgun, and Prox Launcher), and new items and player models.

Quake III: Team Arena was criticized, as its additions were long overdue and had already been implemented by fan modifications.

Quake III: Gold was later released on September 26, 2001, in North America, March 29, 2002, in Japan and August 9 in Europe.

[48] Canadian electro-industrial band Front Line Assembly made the soundtrack for the expansion,[49] the counterpart to Sonic Mayhem's Quake III Arena: Noize.

Mods range from small gameplay adjustments like Rocket Arena 3 and Orange Smoothie Productions to total conversions such as Smokin' Guns, DeFRaG, and Loki's Revenge.

The source code's release has allowed total conversion mods such as Tremulous, World of Padman, OpenArena, and Urban Terror to evolve into free standalone games.

The developers of Q3F eventually abandoned the mod but used it to create the standalone 2003 game Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, which uses the Quake III engine and is still popular with approximately 9,400 active players in 2018.

If you’re yearning for silky-smooth online deathmatches, and crave to push your top-of-the-line PC to the threshold of its performance, then perhaps Quake III Arena is the only game you'll ever need…".

[6] An IGN review felt the game lacked originality but enjoyed the detailed wall textures and outer space jump levels.

The high number of character skins and the artificial intelligence of opponent bots were praised but the weapons were said to be "bland and predictable".

Great graphics, intelligent control, and fast-paced gameplay add up to a topnotch piece of action and one of the best games on the system".

[84] The PlayStation 2 version was a nominee for The Electric Playground's 2001 Blister Awards for "Best Console Shooter Game", but lost to Halo: Combat Evolved for Xbox.