Xonotic is a free and open-source arena first-person shooter built on the DarkPlaces engine, a heavily modified version of the Quake engine. It began life in 2010 as a community fork of Nexuiz and has been developed in the open ever since by Team Xonotic, with the code, assets and maps all released under copyleft licences. Matches are fast and movement-driven: you collect weapons scattered around compact arenas, fight for armour and health, and try to hold the high ground before your opponent does.

Key Features

• 16 weapons, two fire modes each — nine core weapons and sixteen full weapons in total, each with a distinct primary and secondary attack (the Rocket Launcher’s remote-detonated secondary is a classic).
• Game modes galore — Deathmatch, Capture the Flag and Clan Arena sit alongside Freeze Tag, Nexball and multiplayer Race, with dozens more community-made modes.
• 25 official maps plus community content — classic Nexuiz maps and conversions of Quake III arenas are supported, and NetRadiant, the level editor used to build them, ships with the game.
• Integrated statistics (XonStat) — kill:death ratio, weapon damage and accuracy are tracked opt-in, and no login is required.
• Customisable HUD — a built-in HUD editor lets you rearrange every on-screen widget, from minimalist to full telemetry.
• Casual and competitive in one game — dedicated server configs, spectator mode, demo recording and an anticheat system support organised leagues as readily as a pick-up match.
• Bots and offline play — practise map control and weapon timing against AI opponents before joining a server.
• No installation needed — unzip the download and run. The game needs only OpenGL 2.1 and 4 GB of RAM, and a Flatpak build is available for Linux.

Why Use Xonotic?

Arena shooters that respect your time and your hardware are rare. Xonotic has no account, no store, no advertising and no subscription — the download is the whole game, and the source is yours to modify. It runs on modest laptops, starts in seconds and still supports modern high-resolution displays. Because the project is community-run, balance changes and map pools evolve in public, and running your own server for friends is a documented, supported workflow rather than an afterthought. Version 0.8.6 (June 2023) is the current release, with development continuing in the public repository.

Use Cases

• LAN parties and online duel nights that need nothing more than a download and no logins.
• Running a dedicated community server with custom modes, mutators and maps.
• Practising multiplayer fundamentals — movement, map control and weapon timing — against bots.
• Mapping and modding on a fully open codebase with a bundled level editor.

Platform

Windows · Linux · macOS · other platforms via source build

Licence

Open source — the game’s source files are licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later (GPL-3.0-or-later), and the DarkPlaces engine under GPL v2 or later. Free to play, share and modify.

Alternatives

• 0 A.D. — another free, community-developed multiplayer game (historical real-time strategy) built and maintained entirely in the open

Website

xonotic.org — source code at gitlab.com/xonotic/xonotic

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