If you’re unfamiliar, battle royale is a last-man-standing game mode where players are dropped into a massive map and asked to scavenge for weapons and gear to get the upper hand, or simply fend off potential attackers until there’s only one left standing. So yes, this unflattering association is true, but what I did not expect was that the nascent genre is removed enough from the trite survival tropes it grew from that it’s well worth paying attention to for its own merits. The mode got so big in H1Z1 it eclipsed player numbers of the core survival game, and Daybreak eventually made it into its own game, King of the Kill. The genre gained prominence in DayZ – a Perpetual Early Access survival game - before later finding its way into H1Z1. I didn't look at it any closer until I bought PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds on a whim recently, and realised that a lot of my preconceptions weren’t entirely accurate. It’s an exhilarating experience that works unbelievably well, in spite of the unfinished nature of the games themselves. I have, but I always associated it with clunky and boring survival games the kind that flies the Perpetual Early Access banner with pride.Įvery player is constantly both the hunter and the hunted. You’ve no doubt heard the words “battle royale” in one context or another over the past six months.
Battle royale is a relatively new genre that's exploding on Steam and Twitch, but somehow still niche.
