At this year’s E3, many long-awaited game have been announced. And because gaming companies love digging into the same gold mine over and over again, it seems like a good handful of established franchises are now getting a new “battle royale” mode to try and cash in on a booming trend.
For those who don’t know, a “battle royale” game is one in which 100 players are dropped into an open world and are expected to find gear to help them outlast the other 99 players. We have nothing but love for the game mode, seeing as PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is one of our favorite games lately. When it’s done right, it’s spectacular, but shoehorning the mode into any old game might not work.
Shooter games, both first-person and third-, tend to work pretty well, but other games, like Realm Royale, are proving that even in the absence of rifles, the genre is surprisingly fun. Even a game that was focuses more on 1 vs 99 could do well, as proved by the Thanos update to Fortnite.
So, we’ve decided to take a look at games for which a battle royale mode would definitely be a welcome addition.
Quake is the original “git good” game.
(id Software)
Quake Champions
One of the biggest draws of PUBG is the incredibly high skill ceiling. But in our opinion, no game franchise in history has come close to matching the skill required to dominate in Quake.
Currently, nothing in the battle royale scene matches the hyper-fast tempo of Quake. The health, armor, and weapon-spawn systems wouldn’t need to change — Quake Champions is already perfect for the game mode if you simply gave it a massive map for players to traverse.
Pro-tip: If you download the game between now until June 18th, 2018, you get it for free.
Something to think about… Maybe as a multiplayer mode in the RE2 remake.
(Capcom)
Resident Evil
Shy of Minecraft: Hunger Games, there isn’t really any story or plot behind why 100 players are trying to kill each other. If it was set in a zombie-infested hellscape, it’d be a bit more logical.
The Resident Evil franchise would make for a fantastic battle royale because dying wouldn’t mean a game over. It would start out as a 100-player free-for-all. Whoever dies just gets moved to the zombie team and they get another life. In order to win, you’d have to kill all of the zombies as well as the other players — or be a part of the zombie horde that kills all living survivors.
It’ll be like Los Angeles when it rains!
(EA Games)
Burnout
It’s been about ten years since a (good) Burnout game was released and they remastered the best installment of the series just a few months ago.
Burnout has always been about the stupid, awesome fun of destroying vehicles. What better way to make that happen than to have 100 player-driven cars crashing into each other?
If you think about it, Red Dead Redemption’s online mode was basically a free-for-all anyways.
(Rockstar Games)
Red Dead Redemption 2
Grand Theft Auto V tried a battle royale mode and it worked out well enough, but many players felt like winning was a little too reliant on luck rather than skill.
Now, if it were 100 cowboys fighting each other in an open world, it’d be far more fun. One player couldn’t just find a Rhino tank and roll their way to victory.
No items, Foxes only, Final Destination — let’s do this.
(Nintendo)
Super Smash Bros Ultimate
To be fair, Super Smash Bros is the original sumo-wrestling equivalent of a battle royale game. Some game modes allow you to take on an endless onslaught of computer-controlled characters with your single fighter. It might be tough to fit 100 players around a TV, but the groundwork is all there. Just make the Hyrule Temple stage a little bigger and it’d probably fit 100 fighters.
The game is great with 4 players and chaotically awesome with just 16 players — why not go a step further?
“Where are we dropping, boys?”
(Blizzard Entertainment)
World of Warcraft
The makings of a battle royale mode are already established in the lore and game mechanics of World of Warcraft. The greatest thing about the Warlords of Draenor expansion was its inclusion of a 25-man, free-for-all arena called the Highmaul Coliseum. Maybe they could bring that back and up the ante.
There are even four battlegrounds already in the game that would be perfectly suited for a re-purposing to support 100 players: Alterac Valley, Wintergrasp, Tol Barad, and Ashran. Hell, the “drop-in” mechanic that typifies nearly every battle royale game already exists in their newest battleground, Seething Shore.