Battle Royale is one of the most popular game genres in the past few years. H1Z1, developed by Daybreak Game Company, was originally a zombie survival game when it released in 2015 with a large and supportive audience. In early 2017, the developers decided to develop a Battle Royale mode alongside the main game, which evolved into a free-to-play title called Z1 Battle Royale. The same year, Epic Games and People Can Fly developed Fortnite, which quickly popularized the BR genre alongside Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds.
Ever since, the Battle Royale genre has become the most popular for both new and old gamers alike. Not all game developers have cashed in on the idea or at the very least haven’t announced anything official. Here are the top five developers who must make a Battle Royale.
- Capcom
Capcom has gained a good reputation over recent years with successful hits such as Monster Hunter World: Iceborne, Street Fighter V – Champion Edition, Devil May Cry V, and the Resident Evil series. With the different genres of games the company has developed, a BR game mode or additional title wouldn’t hurt.
If a BR game mode could be added to any of their newest games, they would likely be either Monster Hunter World: Iceborne or the Resident Evil remakes. Monster Hunter has large maps, many monsters, and many more weapons. If Capcom were to tweak the combat to better combat players, then this could be possible. Players would have to gather equipment from camps, make new armor and weapons from monsters, and survive the toughest monsters the game can throw at hunters.
Since BR’s are typically shooter-based, Resident Evil 3 Remake with the Resistance mode can do the job. Resistance could work as ammo would be scattered around the city, zombies litter the streets, and a Nemesis or Mr. X can come and ruin the fun. It would work just about the same, except without a player acting as the game director spawning zombies.
- Riot
Riot is mostly known for one of the most well-known multiplayer online battle arenas (MOBA): League of Legends. Along with their MOBA, Legends of Runeterra released in 2020 to create an online card game with League of Legends characters. Additionally, Valorant is their newest FPS, featuring Counter-Strike-like gameplay with gadgets and abilities.
Riot can easily make a BR using the League of Legends characters since they already have a card game along with a rumored fighting game. It can be something like Hi-Rez Studios’ Realm Royale where characters can use a variety of fantasy weapons and abilities in a third-person perspective. There would be many playable characters with their own abilities that would make many of the fights between players unique.
Also, since Valorant is still in early access, there’s nothing stopping Riot from pulling off what Epic did with Fortnite. Valorant’s FPS gameplay can easily be balanced for a BR game, but that’s for Riot to decide.
- Nintendo
Nintendo is a company that’s known to be generally one step behind everyone else. They didn’t even have an official online service until 2018 for the Nintendo Switch. Nintendo needed a good reason to have an online functionality aside from Smash Bros. Ultimate, so the Splatoon series along with the free-to-play Ninjala are two games that would mix well with the BR formula. Inklings would roam big areas filled with many ways to traverse levels such as the ride rails that were mainly seen in the game’s single-player campaign. They would find the huge assortment of weapons strewn around the battlefield to completely ink the competition as the lone squid kid.
Ninjala could also make use of the BR formula with the stylish moves the ninja kids can pull off in a more melee-based royale. Since everyone is a ninja, there would be tons of jumping and platforming while the kids attempt to take out their opponents.
- 343
343 is one of the biggest developers in gaming, as they are the part of Bungie that didn’t wish to split with Microsoft to continue working on the Halo franchise. Their current project is their biggest game yet with Halo Infinite coming to the next-generation console, the Xbox Series X. With the new hardware the Series X will use, such as the console’s SSD to load games significantly faster, the developers could easily use it to create their own Battle Royale.
Halo Infinite would be an easy answer to where the studios would take the game genre. There’s already a foundation for what the map could be as Halo is known for their iconic multiplayer maps along with the variety of UNSC vehicles players can use to traverse them. If Halo’s big 16 vs. 16 player big team battles were chaotic, then Halo Infinite could probably fit more players and become even more tactical with all of the armor abilities and alien weaponry for which Halo is known.
- Blizzard
Blizzard is one of those developers who delve into many types of games and a Battle Royale happens to not be one of them yet. World of Warcraft is a vast and detailed MMO with years’ worth of storytelling and content. Starcraft’s intense and strategic gameplay captured the hearts of RTS fans while still having an eSports scene in South Korea. Overwatch also remains one of the most popular team-based FPS’ to date with ongoing updates and events.
Even though Blizzard hosts Battle.net alongside Activision and hosts Modern Warfare with its Warzone mode, Blizzard just doesn’t have a BR of its own.
World of Warcraft already has massive PvP battles with two teams, so a Royale isn’t out of the realm of possibility. The game would have to somehow balance the different classes and abilities, but otherwise the general picking up the randomized different tiers of armor and weapons can work as World of Warcraft has plenty of equipment. Maybe if the items dropped were unique to the player character’s class it could work.
There have also been reports of a cancelled StarCraft first-person shooter in 2019. If there’s any truth to that, then the resources from that project could be reused again. It would be interesting to play as the units in StarCraft firsthand.
Additionally, if Overwatch 2 were to have their own Battle Royale, it hasn’t been announced yet. There are some possibilities, though, as Overwatch has a workshop custom game which emulates the shrinking arena of the maps fairly well. Unfortunately, the balance to the classes means that everyone plays the same character and the maps are smaller. If Overwatch 2 gets an actual BR game mode, then Blizzard would have to balance the different characters.
While it is purely speculation to whether or not these developers will make their own Battle Royale, the idea of a BR applying to other games and genres is fun to consider. Even if the devs aren’t making a Battle Royale, there is always the possibility.
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