Battle Royale, the genre that is currently taking the gaming ‘world by storm’. With millions of gamers playing either PUBG, Fortnite or H1Z1 at any given time, the online gaming community hasn’t seen a craze like this since MOBAs first went mainstream with League of Legends and DOTA 2.
The Gaming Moment
Gaming seems to go through what I would call “moments,” every few years. An example of a moment would be when Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was released all the way back in 2007. This game was a sensation and took the gaming world by storm. And, from this sensational game came more rip-offs and copies than I can even begin to count. Every game had to be like Call of Duty in some way or form. Halo 4 added their form of killstreaks, Battlefield added its own form of create of class, Crysis 2 and 3 just took Call of Duty’s multiplayer and put a sci-fi spin on it.
Another gaming “moment” would be a couple of years ago with the MOBA craze. And, just like with Call of Duty, everyone had to be League of Legends or DOTA 2. Shortly after League and DOTA took over a large portion of the gaming community, imitators like SMITE, Legends of the Storm, Paragon, Guardians of Middle Earth started showing up everywhere you looked. They were all trying to get in on the seemingly endless money pit of the MOBA genre.
Do you know what all of these imitators have in common? None of them ever replaced the respective games that they were trying so hard to mimic. League and DOTA are still some of the most played games in the world right now, Call of Duty is still the top selling game every single year. PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale and Brawlout didn’t overthrow Smash Bros. I could go on all day, but if you’re still reading this, then I assume you get my point.
The Battle Royale Trap
This brings us to the Battle Royale genre which is the “moment” of gaming right now. With the success of games like PUBG, Fortnite and H1Z1, there are rumours swirling of AAA games jumping on the Battle Royale bandwagon. Read Dead Redemption 2, the upcoming Battlefield and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 are all rumoured to have some form of a Battle Royale mode within their game. My question for you is: why?
These franchises are popular for a reason, they all have their own individual strengths. Red Dead has an engrossing open world, Battlefield has large-scale warfare and Call of Duty has tight addictive multiplayer. Why do you feel you need to change what isn’t broken?
So developers, just focus on improving what already makes your games great. Don’t try to make your game into something it wasn’t designed around. As I wrote about above, mimicking other games never seems to pan out well. Going this route with your game development seems to only do more damage to your final product than good.
Stop recycling content. If you decide to do something different with your game, make it new and unique. That’s what we like to see. All of the gaming “moments” I mentioned above were successful because they were a new and fresh idea that players hadn’t seen or experienced before… Just some food for thought.
So, readers what do you think? Do you think developers will ever stop mimicking each other? Or are developers going to continue this endless cycle of making the same games in different skins? Let me know in the comments below!
Games have always done this to an extent though. Something becomes the flavour of the month and half a dozen other games doing just that come out. Some of these end up being good because they take the idea and build something great around it while some end up being lazy imitations not worth the effort. Still, all entertainment does this. Books, movies, etc. Once something becomes popular, be prepared for the wave following along behind it.