Quake 3: Arena - Welcome to the Arena, where high-ranking warriors are transformed into spineless mush. Abandoning every ounce of common sense and any trace of doubt, you lunge onto a stage of harrowing landscapes and veiled abysses. Your new environment rejects you with lava pits and atmospheric hazards as legions of foes surround you, testing the gut reaction that brought you here in the first place. Your new mantra: Fight or be finished.

The story of the game is very thin; 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 related to those earlier games as well as some biographical information included on each character in the manual, a familiar mixture of gothic and technological map architecture, and specific equipment; for example, the Quad Damage power-up, the widely used rocket launcher, and the powerful BFG. The game may only be considered partially canon for all the other Quake and Doom games, as the game is based on another dimension, the Arena Eternal.