Quake Rooftops Jam: 19 Free Maps Take the Fight to the Sky

Quake Rooftops Jam adds 19 free maps all about rooftop combat, a rare sight in id's classic shooter. Download it now from Slipseer and start skittering across virtual skylines.

Ever wondered what Quake would look like if you traded dark corridors for open rooftops? The Quake community just answered that with Quake Rooftops Jam, a massive free map pack that adds 19 custom levels all about the part of your house that stops the rain falling in.

2026 has already been a wild year for Quake mapping. We've had Quake Brutalist Jam 3, numerous map packs celebrating Quake's 30th anniversary, and even a new official campaign called Dawn of the Machine. You'd think the community would be out of ideas by now, but if anything, it's only growing bolder. On Friday, it released one of its most ambitious packs yet—a level design extravaganza all about rooftops.

Why rooftops? In a corridor shooter like Quake, they're rarely glimpsed. Skittering across a virtual skyline is more the domain of games like Thief: The Dark Project and its spiritual successor Dishonored. So creating Quake maps where rooftops are the primary play-space is an interesting challenge. And the community has run with it, producing wildly different designs.

Take Robert Yang's Mermaids in the Basement, a sun-soaked nonlinear map set in a Mediterranean coastal village semi-submerged in water. Or Once, But No More, a sprawling cityscape with multiple architectural styles stuffed with platforming sequences. Then there's City of Traitors, a maze of gothic spires set in a misty purple void. Each map offers a fresh take on vertical combat and exploration.

If you fancy giving Quake Rooftops Jam a whirl, you can download it from Slipseer. It's designed to be used with a Quake sourceport like Ironwail or vkQuake, so you'll need a copy of those too. Once you've got both, all you need to do is extract the Rooftops Jam files into your Quake folder (in a new folder titled 'qrtjam'), create a shortcut to your Quake sourceport with the additional command line "-game qrtjam", and boot it up from there.

While Quake itself is thriving three decades on from its release, the future of the series more generally is difficult to discern. There were rumours a while back that Machine Games might be working on Quake 6, but all signs point to the studio's next game being Wolfenstein 3. Meanwhile, multiplayer spinoff Quake Champions recently ceased its live-service updates, though it's still playable as a one-off, paid title.

So whether you're a longtime Quake fan or just looking for a fresh challenge, Quake Rooftops Jam offers 19 reasons to jump back in. The community's creativity shows no signs of slowing down, and this pack is a testament to that. Will you be picking this up? Let us know in the comments!