Battle of the Battle Royales.

Chicken dinner, anyone?

You've all heard of Battle Royale's right? Chances are good that you have, afterall the most popular game in the world right now is, in fact, a Battle Royale. Fortnite has held onto the title of most played game for several months now, bordering close to a year, after taking the gaming world by storm when it launched. But what makes the juggernaut so popular? Well, for my money it is the very formula of Battle Royale games. Admittedly Fortnite did help shape that formula, but every game that has followed them since has met with some degree of success, however fleeting, so we know that it works. Let us dive into that formula, how it works and, most importantly, whether or not Battle Royale's will sustain their popularity in the coming years.

Lets start with addressing where the 'Battle Royale' genre comes from. Because if you think this all originated with Fortnite, you are in for a ride. Fortnite copied their game idea from another game that was on track to the fame and success that Fortnite now enjoys: Player Unknown's BattleGrounds or PUBG. Unfortunately being a smaller and less experienced team than Epic, South Korean developer Bluehole struggled to keep the game relevant once their cartoony competition arrived on the scene. PUBG was known for playing very rough, but the developers decided to spend their time in adding new content rather than fix the existing stuff; that is, at the end of the day, where the money is at. So once Epic showed up with a game that was structurally sound from the getgo, marketable to children and free to play, PUBG's death sentence was all but signed. PUBG is still somewhat popular today but they struggle to pull numbers anywhere close to Fortnite, they missed their chance.

But Brendan Greene wasn't the first human being to come with the Battle Royale formulae either. Before PUBG there were a slew of short-lived fad games that cashed off on the genre before fading back into obscurity. Who remembers The Culling? Or H1Z1? Or... Knives Out? Okay, even I don't remember Knives Out; but it just goes to show that these games were everywhere before the genre leaders were even conceived. So where did it all start? For money it all goes back to the real OG: Minecraft: Hunger games. I know, I know. Minecraft? Really!? But just take a look at what Minecraft: Hunger Games had to offer and the hallmarks are all there. One life, scavenged weapons, randomized loot, the works. And seeing as almost every gamer already owns Minecraft, it's popularity was set in stone. All it took was for one enterprising individual to look at the game and figure out how to monetize it and Battle Royale was then born.

But what separates Battle Royale from any other competitive multiplayer modes? Well, that's easy and obvious, the 'one life rule'. Nothing gets the blood pumping and adrenaline racing like telling your player that they only have one chance to prove what they can do. It worked out for 'Search and Destroy' back in the Call of Duty days, pitting players in a small map without respawns. And it has worked out for every Battle Royale to date. This reflection of mortality goes back to the conceptual origins of the genre: Hunger Games (The movie) which in turn borrowed it's premise from 2000's Battle Royale. Which was an adaptation of a Japanese Novel of the same name. Which was based on true events. (Okay that last part is a lie.) All these stories feature a 'Game' or 'Event' where the cost to play is the unacceptable loss of human life in the hundreds. Whatever the warped purpose for it all, that is the emotional crux of the premise that is meant to resonate with the audience. That kind of cost is hard to demonstrate in Video games with our technically infinite chances, so the way it was achieved was by limiting those chances down to one. Like in real life. Or at least until we all become immortal cyborg gods in the inevitable Cyberpunk future.

Then there is the scavenging aspect of the gameplay which is linked with the balancing and monetization. Contestants start each and every match devoid of all the weapons, tools and equipment that they will need to win the match. Only by digging through lootboxes (Not those kinds) and chests can people hoard up enough of an arsenal to slay their enemies and claim that all important: Victory Royale. The affect of this to make sure that all Players are on an equal playing field when they enter into a match so that literally anyone can end up winning. Some of my favourite Battle Royale experiences, Like Nuclear Winter, skewer this slightly by offering players little selectable perks so that they can angle their playstyle a certain way; but proper balancing of these perks is essential to ensuring that this doesn't end up destroying the harmony of your gamemode. This part of the gameplay is also important to the monetization of the game, which is the part that properties like Fortnite are particularly driven to get right. Players hate being put in a scenario where they have to pay in order to win, so developers have to be sure that any microtransactions that they offer do not affect gameplay in any minute fashion. All the successful Battle Royales have stuck to this rule, keeping microtransactions strictly cosmetic, for fear of overstepping their bounds with gamers. Doesn't make their microtransactions good or valuable, but at least they're not necessities.

But Why do people keep playing these games after beating it once, you may ask. This was a problem addressed all the way back in games like Modern Warfare 2, but perfected in the aforementioned, Fortnite. It is common in multiplayer Video games that as you level up you earn items that can then help you down the line. However, in the past those sorts of items used to be things like better weapons, new attachments and sometimes just bragging rights. However we now live in a video gaming age where developers have narrowed down exactly how to tempt recurrent players indefinitely, They know exactly what buttons to push, what emotions to exploit and what things to say. Earning weapons is, afterall, not applicable in a Battle Royale environment as you have to scavenge for those weapons anyway. What about giving players access to weapons that they could maybe loot in a match? Well, no one has gone that far yet, luckily. Instead these Battle Royale games link their progression with a steady stream of cosmetic items that the player can unlock, I'm talking; Weapon skins, Player Skins, Emotes, Dances, etc. Easy to produce content that players instil their own value to, nudging them to keep playing more and more.

There is a deeper level to this kind of system however, and it is the reason why I said that Fornite had mastered this premise, Because they instituted The Battle Pass. The Battle Pass is a system wherein players start accumulating progression towards season specific content. As you play matches, kill enemies and place high in the rankings, players earn EXP. That EXP unlocks them levels in a Battlepass and occasionally cosmetic rewards, however, Fortnite pushed this into Psychological warfare as they offered two types of Battle Passes, the free version and the premium version. Players will unlock levels on the free version whilst being teased with much cooler loot they could be getting in the premium version. Tempting that subscription purchase. This was all heightened by the fact that the rewards were limited to a season (Usually about 4 months) creating that feeling of scarcity. Was that difficult to understand? Because it was difficult to explain, and that is exactly what these companies are hoping for. Their hope is for people to just do ahead and subscribe without fully thinking it through.

The Battle Royale Genre is a unique blend of traditional casual multiplayer reward systems and hardcore gameplay mechanics to create a skill based competitive format. Those who win are made to feel like they are  superior players when in truth they are just the last one standing. A lot of random luck goes into winning a Battle Royale, but that doesn't mean some challenge isn't in the hands of player as well as RNG systems. Somewhere between chance and skill is a the sweetspot in which the genre resides and it is a very profitable sweetspot indeed. For this reason, more and more companies are starting to tip their hat into the Battle Royale ring, hoping to get some of that profit for themselves. Activison has one, Bethesda has one, Ubisoft are likely making one and EA has two (because they just love competing with themselves.) So surely this means that Battle Royales are here to stay.

Well yes and no. Whilst it's true that few can resist the allure of a Battle Royale game and investors are always eager to fund the next Fortnite, not many last the long haul like one might hope for. I mentioned the Culling earlier, they had a pretty rough go of things and shut down this May. They tried to recapture their success by going Free-to-play but just ended up sealing their own fate. Then there was Boss Key's Radical Heights; a 80's themed Battle Royale that crashed horribly and sunk the studio behind it. Despite that studio being founded by video game legend: Cliff Bleszinski. Even proposed 'Fortnite-killer' Apex Legends has lagged in growth, despite incredibly sound controls, due to development difficulties slowing down the creation of new content. Battle Royales are not the guaranteed money maker that they seem to be and can actually be a pretty risky venture. Because of their involved nature, most players don't have the freedom to juggle several Battle Royales and likely just find one that they like to stick with. Eventually, games companies will be forced to admit that the Battle Royale market is not infinite and be forced to find some other trend to beat to death. My prediction: give it until the next console generation has set in. See if Battle Royales are still the top dog then.