The battle royale genre has exploded since PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds released in 2017. Based off of Koushun Takami’s Battle Royale from 1999, battle royale games typically see anywhere between 60 to 100 players competing against one another to achieve the number one spot, often by skydiving into a location, looting areas for weapons and armor, and killing the competition. With such a straightforward formula, it makes sense that the genre expanded so rapidly with PUBG‘s viral success.
This battle royale formula can be compared to following an online recipe in a lot of ways, however. Simply following the recipe line for line doesn’t always guarantee a tasty dish, and adding things to the recipe could make the meal worse if the cook has a different palette than those that are eating. Too much sugar in the recipe could leave diners satisfied temporarily, but still hungry for more within 20 minutes of finishing the meal, whereas too much salt could render the food so vile that someone may never want to return to an establishment ever again. In this sense, the ingredients for a battle royale game could help determine whether or not players come back for a second or even a third helping.
In both video games and food, price is king. Almost half of the world’s population plays video games every day, but with thousands of new games coming to the Steam Store daily, the fight for players’ attention can be difficult.
With this in mind, games like Call of Duty: Warzone and Fortnite seem to have an edge in the battle royale market due to their free-to-play nature. While most battle royale games have adopted this free model, other games like Battlefield 5 and Fallout 76 added battle royale modes to full-priced games post-launch. Locking this mode behind a paywall didn’t seem to sit well with players and possibly limited its potential audience. So, battle roles with a free module supported by cosmetic progressions seem to be the baseline for the recipe.
When deciding on what to cook or eat, one will sometimes consider the long term benefits of the meal for their overall health. It’s the idea of if the person eating the dish is better for having had the dish, or if they should have spent their time and money elsewhere.
For battle royale games, this idea can be compared to out of game progression. Apex Legends rewards players for playing matches with XP to level up their profile, earning both credits to use on the in-game store as well as Apex Packs, the game’s iteration of the loot box. Through this method, Apex Legends seemingly provides more value for players uninterested in engaging with microtransactions or a battle pass. This could be a factor that has helped Apex Legends continue to grow its incredibly large player base.
In most battle royale games, out of game progression has become intrinsically linked with the battle pass. Battle passes for games like Call of Duty: Warzone have players spending real money to gain access to a progression system where they can unlock new cosmetic items. What determines a good battle pass is subjective; however, it seems that some of the factors that players will take into consideration are price, quality of battle pass rewards, as well as the progression of the rewards.
This progression can be crucial for engagement with a battle royale games’ battle pass just as the progression of a meal can be incredibly important for how the diner enjoys their food. If Fortnite‘s battle pass has 100 levels but all of the rewards promised from level 70 to 100 are lackluster, players may stop progressing with the game once they reach level 69. Similarly, serving dessert before appetizers could be confusing and might leave customers dissatisfied with how their meal concluded.
In terms of gameplay, another factor that can play into a player’s continued enjoyment of a battle royale is the time to eliminate or time to kill (TTK). This concept refers to how quickly a player can eliminate another player from the match and is often dependent on factors the player has no control over, such as weapon damage. While games like PUBG have a fairly short TTK that usually allows for quicker eliminations, Apex Legends has a robust armor system giving the game a slightly longer TTK allowing for some drawn-out battles of attrition. There doesn’t seem to be a universally correct answer for how short TTK should be in a battle royale and is usually dependent on player preference.
While this concept is often reliant on factors that are out of players’ hands, this isn’t true of all battle royales. Tetris 99 is a battle royale where 99 Tetris players compete against one another to be the last one standing. While these players may not be able to control what tetromino comes next, the rest of the game’s gameplay is purely dependant on the player’s Tetris skill level.
The market for battle royale games seems to grow more crowded every day, and with every addition, the fight to keep players’ attention grows more difficult. Having an intriguing gimmick or theme seems to have become vital to maintaining an active audience. Fortnite dominated the battle royale scene when Apex Legends released. However, rather than just make a straight forward battle royale, Respawn Entertainment set Apex apart from the competition not only by introducing a character class-based system but also by bringing the concept of respawning to the genre. This respawn idea was so popular that Fortnite ended up adding its own version of the mechanic shortly after.
Fall Guys takes this concept of an intriguing theme or gimmick and runs with it. While most games in the battle royale genre are shooters, Fall Guys is a battle royale that takes place in a Wipeout style obstacle course show, having players compete in various races as well as team-based mini-games. It’s possible that because of this deviation from the typical battle royale recipe that Fall Guys has been able to dominate the topic of conversation since its launch earlier this month.
The battle royale games that manage to stick around past launch and stay in gamers’ daily conversations seem to do a great job of managing these ingredients. Developers could only be scratching the surface of how to be successful in the genre, however, and it will be interesting to see what new flavors could be added to the battle royale dishes of tomorrow.
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