MMORPGs captured the imagination of online players and really led online gaming for a number of years with games like Runescape and World of Warcraft spearheading the movement. After many years and a plethora of MMORPGs, competitive gaming took over with MOBAs and League of Legends. Competitive gamers seek perks and prizes including, but not limited to, special loot, money rewards, a betfair promo code, and much more. However, the big online game genre since around 2017 has been the Battle Royale or Battle Royal. Basically, take your pick on how you want to spell it.
Anybody who has watched pro wrestling for many years should understand the concept of a Battle Royal to understand why it so popular now. Old wrestling Battle Royals in the 80s (long before the Battle Royal book and movie) consisted of 10 to 30 men competing in one or two rings to determine who would be the top dog and win the prize money. Each man would be eliminated when thrown over the top rope. This went on until one man was left standing in the ring. Nevertheless, the 2000 Japanese film Battle Royale usually gets the credit for being the inspiration of this genre. Still, where do you think the overall concept first came from?
Online gaming finally found a way to use this pro wrestling concept to achieve great success. For starters, the Battle Royal games consist of a lot more players and also use survival elements like an ever-shrinking “safe” area and weapons to keep the games interesting. Players can team up or remain solo depending on how they want to play the game. The most fun and success can be had when you form a close squad with a few other communicative players. Of course, this normally gives them advantages over lesser number squads and solo players.
Similar to MOBAs, Battle Royales got their start as mods to bigger games. The game that really lifted the whole genre into the stratosphere was a stand alone game known as Player Unknown Battlegrounds (PUBG). In fact, PUBG won two awards last year at GameOgre.com’s 2017 Online Game Awards including the Online Game of the Year because it was so popular despite carrying a price tag of around $30. That said, it was not long before a free game focused more at the mainstream called Fortnite captured the genre’s leadership role and has not relinquished it since. Only time will tell how the genre does in 2019, but you can guarantee it will be interesting!
Another genre that came from game mods? That’s pretty cool indeed! It’s literally free-for-all under a different name though.
Battle royale is good mode in fps online games .. Especially if you want more hard core surviving sequel
Sure, you can find game modes that have Battle Royale elements in first-person shooters, but I will add that Battle Royale has kind of become its own genre at this point, instead of a subgenre. Battle Royale used to be more like a subgenre of the survival genre and the shooter genre, but games like Fall Guys and the Nintendo Switch Online arcade games (Tetris 99, Mario 35, PACMAN 99) have probably impacted the genre the most, particularly with how the genre should be categorized.
Apex Legends (New Battle Royale Game) just surpassed 50 million players in just about a month’s time.
Battle Royale games are probably one of my fave game types. I’m still loyal to PUBG though.