I opened up the news lately and saw that Final Fantasy 14 team had a game mode they wanted to try out, which was like their own battle royale, in which players would only gain new spells as only playing a blue mage. Didn't pan out as a final release, but it got me thinking; everybody wants to be a part of the BR craze, what would the future look like from now?
Plenty of games I think have tried to experiment for the BR genre, namely games that don't even involve shooting enemies in third or first person view. The very definition of battle royale, reaching as a broader term in many video games now.
Sometimes it is easy to confuse one another game as a BR since they share multiple similarities with other multiplayer games out there. So here are the main conditions that must fit to be identified as such:
All these conditions make most battle royale games very similar in nature, so that doesn't sound too appeasing when other games made for different audiences try to recreate the success the same genre brings. But in theory, they're not completely doomed from the start. There are many ways it could work. As time passes, we see game developers finding interesting ways to create different designs for large map areas, that some of them aren't used to. Sometimes it doesn't have to be in large maps, either.
It's ridiculous how far they're going to experiment with this game mode. There have been successes and there have been duds. But there exists so many, different multiplayer games in the indie space, that they have actually started to stand out with a much better formula for attracting players. I want to talk about where the future lies for battle royale games now and how they'll transition the gaming space into the next-generation.
I recalled nearly 2 years ago that a game called Fall Guys came out, and it was a show game where the last man standing right before getting the trophy was the winner. It had many of the BR attributes without weaponry, and just largely skill based play (and maybe a bit of luck). It is a family friendly game that instead hit the jackpot by two factors: 1. In the pandemic lockdown, everybody had way too much time on their hands. 2. It was easily a friendly game for any audience of any age.
A little while later, Epic acquires them, and they are now the only alternative for Fortnite that doesn't involve shooting people across all platforms. This success story inspired other games like Superliminal to have their own unorthodox battle royale mode update added later.
These games have subverted themselves from some criteria mentioned above to be fitted called a battle royale game. Because now the term is being allowed to be more lax and broader without being stuck in the shooter market.
Hero action-adventure online games like Realm Royale, which is based on Hi-Rez's Paladins, is a spin-off game made specifically for BR. The unfortunate part is, they caved in and made a game that involves weapons everywhere with Paladins skin and aesthetic. The spin-off barely has any active player base left and might close off sometime later on.
Most of the games I've mentioned here have garnered some success so far, but so many are trying to experiment on a game genre that has become not only saturated but is being ridiculed because of its prominence and the bad influences that other players have shown over the years (I.E: PUBG, and Freefire). I used to be part of that wagon, but after realizing how far things have changed, I am rooting for people that are trying things very differently.
There was a game called Scavengers that came out as an experiment for maximum player count in one map, and they managed to successfully get over 4K in just one map alone. Mind you, this would alone clog your PC specs, especially CPU and create problems, but here, it went rather well. Of course, same couldn't be said for the quality of the game, which was received poorly, but the experiment proved different things for future BR game modes and games in general.
I can see Fortnite willing to replicate this success, but they're going to take a long time with this one. Meanwhile, they'll squeeze as much as they can on their current game modes, that are also deriving from other games like Apex Legends.
The potential for many games to create their own variants of BR are almost limitless. MOBAs at this point can also have BR of their own. Certain game types you never expected, like Strategy games, can also do the same. In fact, something like this has already been done with Total War's Warhammer III's Immortal Empire mode.
Naraka: Bladepoint being a third person action game with hack n slash mechanics, made primarily as a BR game, relished its success after having over 10 million players in the game. Even virtual reality games have battle royale, now that's trying to push the envelope even further. Provided, said envelope can guarantee its success.
Frankly speaking, I am tired of seeing games like Warzone, and Fortnite taking the top spot all the time. Shooting games are just too many, and a saturated genre like BR needs to step up a bit before it collapses on itself. Most of the innovations that will be done here will help progress other online games further, like higher player count, gameplay variations, creating different skill ceilings, etc.
I don't think I've touched a battle royale game in a long while, but maybe I'll change my mind after this. I'll have to accept that things are different and look up to things that could really make the industry change its course.
For now, I'll check out the Squid Game parody; Crab Game. Which has, funny enough, also added psychological horror elements to a multiplayer game.
