because tim willits, the last of the remaining original id software people, contracted development of quake champions to saber interactive, who butchered the engine with poor performance and awful netcode, then he abandoned id software to get a job as creative director at...saber interactive! quake champions development then went into life support mode, with neutered wagecage slaves syncerror and sponge committing years of bad updates to justify their existences to c-suite diversity hires, including mostly microtransaction-focused cosmetics/vanities updates. additionally, bethesda acquired id software during the development of quake champions, but didn't do much house cleaning.

until recently, that is. syncerror and sponge were shitcanned, the future of quake champions is up in the air, and hopefully bethesda will see that machinegames is like the only company that understands what fun single player quake is, and maybe contract them to work on a quake 1 sequel.