Google Stadia continues to be a promising technology that’s worth expanding. Sure, there are some general and justified gripes with Stadia, but so far, it’s still one of the better options for game streaming performance. Game streaming is widely viewed by a lot of people in the gaming industry, whether it’s fans or pundits, as the next technological evolution for video games.
Among all of the promising technologies and potential capabilities of Google Stadia, one aspect that sounded especially promising was the heightened scale of battle royale games. At the moment, Call of Duty: Warzone has the highest battle royale player count per match, yet since it isn’t on Stadia, it may just take the wind out of its sails.
Back during the GDC 2019 Keynote for Google Stadia, it was mentioned that the game streaming platform could potentially support a battle royale game with up to 1,000 players per match. This aspect was just one of many potential benefits of Stadia’s cloud-based gaming platform, but it did pique the interest of battle royale fans looking for grander scale. That being said, Call of Duty: Warzone continues to be the battle royale’s top dog, whilst also boasting the highest player count of any mainstream battle royale game.
At the moment, Call of Duty: Warzone is not only one of the most popular mainstream battle royale games out there, but also boasts the biggest player count for a battle royale game. At minimum, each Warzone match pits up to 150 players together into Verdansk to duke it out, but has previously expanded out to 200 total players as well. So far this has been the biggest battle royale game to release in terms of players-per-match. Adding any more players into the match would likely require Verdansk to be expanded even further beyond its current size.
What’s interesting about Warzone is that the game balances its map design and player count quite well. Depending on how certain squads like to play each Warzone match, overall each game has a solid balance between enemy engagement and loot/exploration time. Regions are spaced out well enough that there’s not a whole lot of crossover and unfair sightlines ruining others’ gunfights by circumstance. Adding any more to that could potentially be problematic, but so far Warzone has handled the highest player count in a battle royale quite well. Adding 1,000 player matches into Verdansk probably wouldn’t work, as Warzone‘s map would just get too crowded and take too long.
Now, Google Stadia can technically support a 1,000 player battle royale game, but too many players could potentially be the opposite of fun. Granted, there’s no benchmark for a 1,000 player battle royale at the moment, so Google’s hypothetical could still fulfill a potential niche in the shooter subgenre. The only 1,000 player battle royale to ever exist was called Mavericks: Proving Grounds, but unfortunately the project was cancelled in beta due to developer Automaton Games falling into financial trouble. At the moment, the only existing battle royale game on Stadia’s lineup is PUBG.
PUBG doesn’t have a player count even close to 1,000, with its cap of 100 players per match. That being said, it would be interesting to see a battle royale game reach the 1,000 players-per-match milestone. Only problem would be justifying the player count with the right gameplay with it. Map size would be a valid concern, although dealing with storage capacity issues like Warzone wouldn’t exist on Stadia. That’s part of the reason why Stadia lends itself more to a large-scale battle royale compared to other platforms, since data centers can theoretically equate to limitless potential. Gameplay issues would also be a big concern, especially dealing with the inherent latency of game streaming.
Warzone‘s balance between player count and environment design makes the battle royale as popular as it is. Granted, it helps that fans are used to the tight gunplay Call of Duty has built its reputation on, but it’s still a testament to the franchise for iterating on Blackout and creating a truly unique battle royale game. As such, Google Stadia having an exclusive or third-party battle royale with a high player count would be a tough sell for battle royale fans. Even with the concern of storage space out of the way, fitting that many players into one match could produce numerous problems.
Any high loot choke points in a 1,000-player battle royale would likely result in hundreds of early round deaths. Then as the circle closes in, squads would consistently run into each other as more and more players converge on the safe zone. That means even less time to loot for better weapons, and more risk for squads to get flanked and killed. Not to mention how long each match would need to take with that many players duking it out. Overall, it’s an interesting concept for the battle royale subgenre, but it’d be hard to convince players to get into a 1,000 player battle royale in general.
Call of Duty: Warzone is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
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