Building comparison
head to head
Quake LivevsUnreal Tournament 2004
Neither is meaningfully harder - they pose close to the same test. The widest gap is execution, and it is a single point.
Quake Live
Execution · Pure Mechanics
Browser-era refinement of Quake III, the benchmark for raw arena FPS skill.
Unreal Tournament 2004
Execution · Pure Mechanics
A fast arena shooter where raw aim and movement meet item-control strategy.
Quake Live leans Execution (Pure Mechanics); Unreal Tournament 2004 leans Execution (Pure Mechanics).
Quake LiveUnreal Tournament 2004
Axis by axis
Execution10 vs 9
Quake Live leans a little harder on execution, though the gap is small.
Quake Live
Rail aim and strafe-jump movement are the purest hand test
Unreal Tournament 2004
Aimbot plus perfect dodging trivializes arena duels
Reads7 vs 6
Quake Live leans a little harder on reads, though the gap is small.
Quake Live
Duels are mind games against an adapting human opponent
Unreal Tournament 2004
Predicting human movement and timing in duels matters
Variance1 vs 2
Unreal Tournament 2004 leans a little harder on variance, though the gap is small.
Quake Live
Symmetric arenas, full information, almost no randomness
Unreal Tournament 2004
Spawns and item timers are knowable, little hidden
Optimization6 vs 5
Quake Live leans a little harder on optimization, though the gap is small.
Quake Live
Item timing and map control are deeply solvable
Unreal Tournament 2004
Item timing, map control, and weapon economy are studied
A matching score does not mean a matching test. Two games can both sit at 10 on execution and demand completely different things of you - which is why the reasoning above matters more than the number beside it.