Where do battle royales go next
**The Evolution and Future of Battle Royale Games: A Chat Log Analysis**
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### Introduction to the Chat Log
Lauren and Molly kick off the chat log by greeting each other in a lighthearted manner. Lauren humorously teases Molly about her name, while Molly jokes about being "thrown off" due to her introduction. The conversation quickly shifts to their excitement about discussing Battle Royale games with Morgan Park, their staff writer who specializes in FPS and co-op party games.
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### The History of Battle Royale Games
Lauren and Molly delve into the origins of Battle Royale games, recalling how they began with mods like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) mod for Arma 3. Lauren mentions playing the PUBG mod around 2015 or 2014, noting that it laid the groundwork for what would become the Battle Royale genre. Molly shares her experience with PUBG during her teenage years, highlighting how she was turned off by the game initially but later found herself drawn to it as an adult.
They discuss the rise of H1Z1, which many thought would dominate the market before PUBG took over. Lauren jokes about how PUBG’s success overshadowed H1Z1, leaving it in the dust. Molly adds that PUBG brought together both FPS fans and military simulation enthusiasts, making it a crossover hit.
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### The Impact of Fortnite
The conversation turns to Fortnite, which Lauren describes as a game that revolutionized Battle Royale with its build mechanics and vibrant in-game events. She mentions how she struggled with the building aspect but loved the creativity it encouraged. Molly recalls playing Fortnite during its early days and marvels at how it became a cultural phenomenon, even leading some friends to upgrade their PCs just to play it.
Lauren jokes about preferring the "no-build" mode of Fortnite, where players focus solely on combat without constructing shelters. Both agree that Fortnite’s success lies in its ability to blend casual scavenger hunting with competitive shooting.
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### The Rise of Extraction Shooters
Morgan joins the discussion, bringing expertise in FPS and Battle Royale games. He introduces the concept of extraction shooters, a subgenre where players aim to complete objectives rather than survive until the end. Hunt Showdown is highlighted as one of the best examples, with its small map size (12 players on a 1km map) and asymmetrical gameplay.
Morgan explains how extraction shooters differ from traditional Battle Royale games by allowing players to leave matches early if they achieve their goal, such as killing a boss or securing loot. He praises Hunt Showdown for its balance and encourages randomness, making it feel like an MMO experience. Lauren agrees, noting that the lack of randomness in loadouts makes her feel less frustrated when she loses.
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### The Decline of Battle Royale and the Future of Extraction Shooters
Morgan speculates on whether Battle Royale is declining in popularity and if extraction shooters might be its successor. He points to games like Escape from Tarkov and Call of Duty: War Zone’s DMZ mode as evidence that Extraction Shooters are gaining traction.
Lauren questions how non-FPS genres could adapt Battle Royale mechanics, citing examples like Tetris 99 and Super Mario Bros. 35. She marvels at the creativity behind these adaptations but admits she struggles with traditional Battle Royale games due to her lack of FPS skills.
Morgan counters that Battle Royale’s success lies in its social aspect, allowing players to chat and bond during lulls between matches. He emphasizes how Battle Royale created a space for casual and hardcore gamers alike.
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### The Graveyard of Failed Battle Royale Games
The trio reflects on failed Battle Royale games, such as Rumbleverse, which shut down despite its potential. Lauren jokes about the challenges of creating a wrestling-based Battle Royale game, while Morgan laments the lack of server support for these niche titles.
Morgan also mentionsubiFire’s Hyperscape and Fallout 76’s Battle Royale mode, both of which failed to find a lasting audience. He suggests that games like these need a redefinition of what it means to be “dead,” perhaps through community-driven servers or smaller, more sustainable player bases.
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### The Future of Battle Royale and Extraction Shooters
Morgan concludes by discussing the future of Battle Royale and extraction shooters, emphasizing that both genres can coexist. He highlights the importance of experimentation in smaller player counts and shorter matches, citing Hunt Showdown as a model for success.
Lauren expresses her desire to revisit Fortnite’s no-build mode and hopes for more party game-inspired Battle Royale experiences. She also praises Extraction Shooters for their shorter, digestible matches but admits she struggles with FPS games.
Morgan wraps up by thanking Lauren and Molly for their insights, leaving readers with a sense of curiosity about what the future holds for these genres.
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### Final Thoughts
The chat log provides an insightful look into the evolution of Battle Royale games and the emerging trend of extraction shooters. While traditional Battle Royale games show signs of decline, Extraction Shooters like Hunt Showdown offer fresh mechanics and shorter gameplay experiences. As developers continue to experiment with new formats, the future of these genres remains bright, but only time will tell which innovations will truly stick.
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey PC Gamers and welcome back to the PC Gamer chat log I am Lauren and I'm here with hello it's me it's Molly I have realized recently that I always say your name for you I'm like why do I do that yes and then I always go hi everyone so then you just really threw me off there I was like oh my God I was like what do I say hi yes it's me it's Molly your uh co-host on this on this wonderful podcast hello hi hi hi I I figured Molly needed more of a voice in the beginning I I like steamroll over you so anyway I'm gonna continue doing that now that I've let you say your name uh this week you and I are going to be talking with our staff writer Morgan Park about battle Royals because Morgan has been on the podcast a couple times and always seems to be talking about like Co-op like fun party game type stuff but Morgan is like one of our Premier FPS people and I was like Morgan at some point I promise we will let you come and talk about the thing like you actually do most of fortunately we now have that occasion we wanted to catch up on sort of the state of battle Royals because we're at like a moment of transition for the Battle Royale genre right yeah for sure yeah the um like extraction format is starting to show up in more places um battle Royals themselves are like adding extraction so yeah we want wanted to bring in Morgan get him his assessment of the current landscape of though that this like sh sub genre sh genre genre genre this that has uh it was really like a breakout and and we will talk about that some with him how it just sort of came out of nowhere and now it's so established and it's facing the reality of needing to adapt yet again or just fall by the wayside while something else breaks out sort of from its ashes so yeah lots of Battle Royale games of the past present and future question mark to talk about but before that Molly what did you do last week yeah not a lot um I wasn't here uh the you know the magic of doing this podcast means that it's never very obvious when we're gone but I was gone last week I was away celebrating my birthday I turned 28 so I am very close to 30 thank you I'm very close to 30 at this point which is slightly terrifying for me as a concept but so I didn't do a whole lot honestly um I like hit up some arcades as of course yeah the usual you know it's my birthday so I was like I want to do things that I like um and fighting games too you know I played a little bit of Tekken 7 um I'm off to France next month for a te second seven tournament oh wow yeah so I'm trying to get like a tiny bit of practice in here and there I don't actually have the game installed at the minute because I had like a a moment with myself and I uninstalled the game so this wasn't just because all the big games came out and you needed room for a minute no I was just mad I was just mad at the game and I was like I don't want to play with you anymore I had a rage quit moment so the extent of my playing Tekken 7 comes purely through playing on other people's systems right now so I did a little bit of that um and I play some board games too oh yeah uh did you know there a dead by daylight board game that seems like a piece of information I knew at one point for about 24 hours and then proceed to forget yeah well I have never played dead by daylight the video game but I played dead by daylight the board game at a friend's house and he's got like the collector edition as well so it has so many like 3D printed models of stuff like you've got like the hook and you can your little like survivors have a hole in their back so you can like put them on the hook like when yeah it's it's actually really it's really cool it was so much fun um and it made me want to play the video game I've never played the the actual video game but now is a good time for it it is it is that month also I think people play it just like constantly people play so much dead by daylight truthfully mhm it is it is spooky month so maybe maybe now's the best time to get into it so yeah like not not a lot of time at home but still managing to play games of various types here and there while I was uh out and about so yeah that that was that was what I got up to on my wonderful week off how about you Lauren what did you get up to last week uh well I've been here and truthfully I've kind of been snacking I feel like snacking on games um I installed Assassin's Creed Mirage because I do enjoy some stealth and I never did the big open world assassin Creeds from like Odyssey onwards basically and um I I like the stealth bits so I was like okay I should install this and I should try playing it and I did get through like I don't know the first hour or two I got through like the prologue and into the part where he goes off to train with um the the Assassin Brotherhood and whatnot um and I am liking it so far I haven't put in like a lot of time clearly but I I do want to continue just nibbling at that I think which is how I played Hitman 3 also I wrote about at one point the fact that I started Hitman 3 like years late and I played it in the obsessive fashion of like I need to do one level and then get like all of the achievements that I possibly can for that level before I move on and like some people I feel like I maybe a bunch of people relate to that because everybody was like that's how you're meant to play and I'm like no I'm telling you I still haven't played the last two levels of the game because I do not move on to the next one until I am done finished put it in a box on the Shelf with each of the levels so anyway we'll see how that translates to going back to a proper stealth Assassin's Creed um and then as we know I've been uh dabbling in Sky Children of the light the like Journey alike uh online live service game they've just rolled over to a new season so I'm going in collecting my little candles and like looking at all the outfits I want to get this season and then I loaded up an updated Pia to check out what they're doing for their first like uh Halloween season and um they added a new romance with the uh the minor guy who has a daughter he's like single dad hodari apparently everybody was thirsty for hodari so I guess his romance just got added and people are quite excited about that um the only weird thing about the like bottom event for them is they have decorated with like pumpkins there's pumpkins everywhere and like piles of like orange leaves everywhere very nice but if you remember Pia doesn't have seasons in the like Earth Sense um I I think that might be something they're thinking about in the future I think that might be true don't hold me to that or them because I'm speaking off the top of my head um but it it is like a life Sim game like you and I play usually they have seasons I think that might be on the table at some point anyway it doesn't currently so the world is very green there's many green trees and then pumpkins and piles of orange leaves I'm like where did the orange leaves come from from whence could they have possibly come not not off the green trees not off these green trees um so it's it's cute it's a little you know it's very much still in Early Access um which we know but enjoying hopping back into that for a minute to see what's going on so yeah that's I've just been I've just been snacking on games for the past week and we'll see what sort of uh takes me uh entirely next but yeah that's what I've been up to so now uh we can go grab Morgan our FPS uh man of the hour and talk about Battle Royal extraction games all all the shooting type stuff the things that like Molly and I only get into sometimes but occasionally occasionally and and we'll get into that as well so uh we'll take a short break and we will bring Morgan back okay Morgan so I did promise you that at some point we were going to get you on here and let you talk about FPS games instead of continuing to talk about like party games and co-op games uh because this is also definitely your area um we wanted to talk about the the big giant size of um you know Battle Royale games kind of in our lives starting around like 2016 or something like that and then just like really blew up into like the fortnite territory um but before we get into like a bunch of examples and where we think we're going um I guess like for either you or Molly whoever wants to go first uh where did you guys actually start with things that then became Battle Royale like the genre that that it later became yeah I can start I first battle royale I played um was just this Armor 3 mod that just sounded like the coolest thing when I heard it it was like um well it was basically Battlegrounds because it was literally made by the guy who made player unknown's Battlegrounds this modder named player unkknown had this 3 mod out there that just like it sounded like something that wasn't really possible like having 100 people or something like that uh just sort of like Drop in to armor 3's Island um and go at it and I played that for like a couple months here and there I didn't really have a PC that could run it very well um but like all the bones of Battle Royale as we know it were there except I'm not sure it was as focused on looting at the time um but like yeah dropping in from a plane um choosing like your Hot Zone and all that stuff was like it it worked remarkably similarly to how pubg would eventually feel um even like H1Z1 but uh yeah and that was like that was probably 2015 or 14 that I was playing that um so yeah there was like I remember when pubg came around everyone was like you know this is a completely new thinge but I was like yeah guys we do remember that Arma 3 mod right like no no one remembers Arma 3 my no was no one was really modding Arma 3 in our circles that's that's a really pretty Niche thing um but it was obviously a great idea because it took off Molly what was your what was your first experience ah I think like actually playing it must have been playing pubg on my then boyfriend friend's PC because he was like super into it it was like it was it was like the peak of like rust and pubg and it was just those two games in a constant rotation so I remember I remember I ended up playing like a little bit of pubg on his PC and I thought it was okay but I'm not very good at Shooters so um I never really kept with it and also I feel like the Advent of like Battle Royale is kind of came along at a time where I did not have a PC like I had a PC when I was a kid and then I had a PC as an adult now but when I was sort of in my teenage years and I was a child of divorce you know I this is the excuse I always use I was a child of divorce and the constant like fying between like each house every week I would like split my week and a half and it was so much easier to just take like a PS2 or a PS3 between two houses than it was to take like a PC so for a long time I didn't have a PC and it was around when battle Royals were really coming in uh but I did watch a butt turnon of Minecraft Hunger Games uh on YouTube when I was a kid which I guess like was sort of one of the things that really brought the Battle Royale style of game kind of like didn't invent but it certainly helped shape what the genre would become um and I watched a lot of that as a kid that took up like a lot of my a lot of my time and I definitely feel like like my points I had a point with the PC thing I feel like a lot of these battle Roy were born from like like you say Morgan like modding scenes like the Minecraft Hunger Game stuff that was that was like a custom server on PC the the Armor 3 mod I feel like so much of this battle royale stuff how it got started was through modding and PC stuff and all that really all that cool stuff that you just didn't get on Console so I kind of like missed it its Inception yeah yeah it really really does feel like a PC gaming you know product uh a product of people getting to actually modify their games and and try new things um I'm like completely unfamiliar with Minecraft hunter games I've heard the name uh but I have no idea what that game mode entailed compared to like a true traditional Battle Royale yeah so that's the angle that I came at it from like the other weird unexpected precursor was yeah Minecraft Hunger Games which as you say Morgan So Hunger Games definitely had the Looting aspect to it because you would drop into an arena with I feel like it was like 60 people usually on as you say Molly a modded server um like some of the really big ones like uh Mineplex or Hypixel or whatever would have um Hunger Games Rooms and you would like go loot the chest at the center and then you would run off and like go loot other areas to get get like good armor and like healing items and then you would fight people um it truly was like a battle royale right before um H1Z1 came around and that was the next one I did and then on to pubg pretty much um but yeah that that was the it was like you said Morgan uh people thought that like H1 or whatever else invented this and you were like I watched this coming like I saw the train coming for the last like however many months or like a couple years even potentially um because like oh yeah suddenly here's this other thing and like you Molly I've never been a big FPS person I'm not like I mean I played a lot of Halo 3 in like high school but like I'm not going to pretend like I've ever been particularly like effective at FPS games but something about H1 and then like soon after pubg just totally took me like it took over our friend group heavily like I've talked to the two of you about how like that's how I got my partner into like actually building his first gaming PC was so he could play pubg with the rest of us because his PC like yours Morgan did not run it very well initially um yeah are you saying you did you saying you did play H1Z1 yeah okay because that's that's you know that came before pubg it came after the mod but it was like the first to Market basically traditional Battle Royale game and and it and it was popular I remember even before pubg came out I was I saw like a new story about there even being like a televised H1Z1 tournament yes so the first year of twitchcon um they did a p a uh an H1Z1 tournament I had a friend who played in it like we went to twitchcon and he was in this tournament to play against like other big FPS people um yeah it it was like really big and then pubg just kind of like came in and stomped it I would like 12 months later less than that potentially yeah and that's fascinating cuz like like for all intensive purposes it was a pretty good game H1Z1 um and it was reasonably popular uh but then pubg came out and so that was just the one that everyone chose to actually get into battle Roy with and and like H1Z1 like basically never recovered like it it kind of like only got less popular after that and while all the other bad oral took off and I wonder if they're salty about that almost certainly I would be yeah yeah uh there's been like a clear trajectory too of like the next big thing in Battle Royale like starting in basically with H1Z1 and then pubg and then you get fortnite relatively soon on its heels in like 2017 I think and then I would say the next big thing after fortnite wound up being like when war zone went and did um a battle royale M wouldn't you say Apex was like one year before war zone yeah oh it did yeah I forgot about that I for some reason Apex I always categorize in my head more as like some kind of hero shooter thing like I put it beside OverWatch for whatever reason and I know that's not actually correct like it is a battle royale but it occupies a similar place in my brain uh but yeah you're right it's like these Milestones of like you could chart Battle Royale by the games that have actually survived uh like H1Z1 I mean technically it's still up but the big ones are obviously pubg and Apex and War Zone fortnite those are like yeah I was gonna say fortnite people are still interested in fortnite's still getting very very strong fortnite is like one of the first games that I distantly recall like my friends going out of their way to get PCS for really well like yeah I remember because I was at University when fortnite came out or I was at least at University when like the Battle Royale mode came out and I remember my friends using their like they're like loan they're like they're like loan that they're supposed to live on for like three months and they were just building PCS with that and they were playing they were playing like fortnite and League of Legends but I remember fortnite being like a big one among uh among my my friend group that really took off in in such a big way I think do you think all these like big games that have like as you say charted the progress of Battle Royale for the last six plus years do you think they've all like left a tangible mark on that genre and like brought something of their own to it like you start with H1Z1 and then pubg I don't remember how distinct they were and if there was something about pubg that like um made it like an addition but then you certainly get to fortnite and you have the build mode and that really characterized fortnite for a long time um until they did the no build mode and like everybody came back to it for that which is hilarious and then war zone I I'm not super sure what war zone added on top of it but Morgan you may know better off the top of your head like what made it so distinct from some of our other options when it when it came out yeah I don't I don't think there's much to distinct um H1Z1 and and pubg honestly honestly H1Z1 it might still had zombies at that point which is kind of weird for one of these games it was like more like rust or Day Z or whatever before they did the Battle Royale mode right CU H1Z1 itself was was really a dayy era game not not really a battle royale and they sort of like uh pivoted which is smart um but yeah like pubg it it it brought in like it really bridged um normal FPS fans and like milsim fans because that um that game plays very similarly to Arma uh but it just is faster and has fewer um controls to learn basically like but there's so much of that game that that still feels like it was based on an Arma mod despite running on unreal like just how it's like animation priority like if you hit a vault you're going to watch your guy Vault for like a solid two seconds which is just a rule uh that nobody breaks in in normal fpss um and so yeah it just like has a a rhythm and the vehicles are a big deal in that game there's not really another FPS with good vehicles other than war zone um I guess fortnite has them here and there they're not not really important but they're like pretty crucial to to pubg um but I would agree that like fortnite was distinct for one being free at the time it was a pretty it's a pretty big deal like fortnite literally as most people know was a wave based Zombie Survival game um where you built forts that's why there's a build mode yeah um and you know there's stories out there about how they threw together Battle Royale uh in just a matter of months it only been a few months since the normal game launched um the world I think it was cool right save the world yeah save the world mode um and that cost like you know 40 50 bucks or something but like that was around the same time fortnite was coming out pubg was also blowing up and like it was only like four months after that they had a prototype of Battle Royale and fortnite running so they just released it as a freet toplay thing just like let people try it out and yeah obviously that just became what fortnite is but like yeah the build mode we could go on about fortnite like they've they really revolutionized what like in-game events look like what a service game is like supposed to deliver um for for years after that um and I still think even in no build which is the best way to play fortnite if you ask me just I don't I think the I think the build mode is like obnoxious and people making windows in front of you and then taking them away and shooting you is just I don't I'll never get it um um but like I think the best part of fortnite is just that it Battle Royale is like is just a thing you're doing while enjoying the map you know like um it almost feels like a side activity to just seeing what the map has to offer because there's just so many little side stuff it's almost like a it's almost like a scavenger hunt game if you want to play it that way um and then you know you can get competitive with with the shooting if you want like I I do play with some friends here and there and like I just get distracted like there's a city in that on that map right now that just has these rails going around the different buildings oh yeah um yeah it's like a a Ratchet and Clank you know rails system where you like hop between them and I just got so distracted by just the fun of of speeding up on those and hopping between rails that we spent like half the match sitting in the same place and and just like yeah I I think fortnite's awesome for basically everything other than the actual Battle Royale part because that part is just like whatever um but yeah I don't want to I don't want to keep going but there's you know Apex you're right like it is a hero shooter um it's a hero shooter combined with a battle royale like that is its Innovation it it it totally pulls that off and um you know hates all hates what people liked about Titanfall minus the free the wall running and um did something totally new with it and I think there was you know I had some fear that that was like going to be one of the first ones to die um because I was like all right now EA is getting into Battle Royale 2 like how many of these are are able to exist at once yeah um but yeah it turns out like Apex like blew up in Japan of all places and and it's pretty big there now and it's only gotten more popular here too um I just can't I can't play that game like the the the what stands out to me about Apex is not actually the heroes but just how hard the shooting is um because it's the only Battle Royale that has crazy movement in first person like to fight in that game is to hop around uh jump over people try to get higher than them and and it is wild to try to keep up I'm just not used to it like takes a lot of practice and and that's part of why I think war zone is a great alternative to Apex if you want like an FPS Battle Royale because you're basically just playing Call of Duty you know there's mobility in terms of sprinting um but not really you know uh jump pads or or rails to grind or anything like that like it is pretty grounded and I think the best part best thing war zone really has going for it is that if plays like Call of Duty which which is just one of the smoothest Shooters around and like it really complements the Cod ecosystem if you're already embedded in like you know leveling up your account every year with a new game and stuff like that like I think in general Battle Royale is like I don't know maybe on the decline as far as popularity goes but like if there's you know two games that I think are going to survive at all it'll probably be fortnite some out and War Zone somehow just because those are like built on such sturdy foundations of of doing the things other than just ble roale now that you're saying all that Morgan it's making me think that pubg is actually like the one or one of very few among that big set that did not pivot into battle royale it landed and was just a battle royale everybody else H1Z1 like you said pivoted from that like zombies like more rust like Daisy like thing uh fortnite pivoted war zone was already Call of Duty like um yeah it's very and and as you say Molly it's a very PC very modded um type of like game mode that just sort of like collectively I don't know I don't want to say Grassroots because then yeah you had like you had fortnite and Call of Duty and whoever else EA getting into the game but like but initially very like modded Grassroots type thing um that that showed that it was really popular and it could be done like all of these people on one map like until you get a final winner and like okay it works uh now expand on it and like as we're like looking into the teeth of like Battle Royale is being on the decline like you said Morgan like do we think that extraction is the next thing or is that like is extraction part of the death throws of the Battle Royale or is it the next thing in its own Merit and the next like thing thing is totally separate yeah yeah just for people who don't know like exraction Shooters are are an offshoot kind of of Battle Royale um you know put people on a map usually around like 30 or 40 sometimes 100 um and uh yeah you can find each other and you can kill each other but there's no Circle that's sort of constricting the environment and forcing people into fights and also the goal the winner isn't just the last person standing um they often these games usually have like um asymmetrical goals like you can be there just to like find some good loot and then leave or you can be there in case of some games to like kill the boss take its Bounty as like a as like a reward and then leave you know like your your match can end in half the time of someone else's and that's uh that's a success depending on what you came there to do you know it's almost like instancing into these little MMO experiences you know you're like joining a an instance with other players that you might not have the same goal but but if you Clash you Clash um and yeah like I become a big fan of this format in the past couple years really just with one game hunt Showdown um the the cowboy FPS um I think it's currently the best implementation of that idea um and it's also one of the smallest you know 12 players on a one kilometer map you know was really really small stuff compared to to pubg or something like that but like it is so effective um and like really encourages like really challenges the concept of balance with its with its guns because like another thing about stratch and shooters that you buy your load out before you even enter the match um using iname currency and um so yeah like if I go into a match with like a budget load out because I didn't want to spend you know my my Indian dollars for whatever reason and um I get like one kill but I get totally clobbered by this guy that had like a much better gun you know I don't actually feel bad because I went into that that match knowing that I was like on on the back foot yeah um so it really plays with like what balance is for and and like but it also balances guns in a way where like uh every gun is basically a One-Shot head shot so you might have technically the worst the worst gun against this guy but if you are just the better shot you can totally beat them um and then you can take their stuff and then you've you've basically left the match with a profit of of this much better gun than you had when you came in so it's like it feels like often feels like a battle Royale because once the fights actually start they have very similar dynamics of like you know wanting to start fights from good cover not trying to get third partied by like a different group while you're trying to fight someone else like all these same Concepts apply um but I think they're stronger when there isn't an element of Randomness in what loot you find because everyone comes in already geared up with what they want to fight with and um the circle basically like being the judge of who gets to have the favorable start to a fight by like yeah we just we're already in the circle that's sweet we just get to take this big hill and sit here against the people that have to you know run straight into them you know like I think that Randomness Works um for a lot of people but it's kind of always frustrated me in those games when I when I actually want to take them seriously so um that is like the argument for extraction Shooters as like the future of Battle Royal um and I don't think one really going to replace the other overall but I do think we've already seen games and Studios that probably would have otherwise been making Battle Royal uh try extraction Shooters instead the other big one is escape from tarov and that you know that's as Lauren mentioned that's a game that just started as an extraction shooter it's not didn't pivot from anything it's it's it's the model that a lot of these games are working from um and you know tarov is the reason why there's a mode in war zone now called DMZ which you know is what I've been describing it is the Battle Royale map without a circle that closes you can just enter the map with other players fight them or don't you know talk to them proximity chat squat up even um and just complete goals and like I don't have numbers for war zone but like the way Activision talks about it it's like very popular you know maybe probably not as popular as Battle Royale but like has a real audience uh and and I just think that's like a fascinating maturation of of Battle Royale I think to a degree like there should always be a casual version of this kind of gam because I think stratch and Shooters are inherently more hardcore because you just have to put more thought into them before you even enter a match and like Battle Royale you sort of like press play and and it might be a great match might not be yeah but I'm curious what you guys think how much experience he had with those with extraction Shooters and stuff Molly I want to know what it would take to get you into one of these whether it's an extraction shooter or just like back into a like a regular Battle Royale as we know it because I feel like the the next big thing like whatever is next as Morgan is describing is going to take um like as you're saying like a more casual component right it has to be like a approachable to a wide selection of people who don't normally consider themselves PVP um FPS people like those are not neither of those things are me but I loved pubg like even though I was not winning I was having a great time so like what what do you think is it like a particular gameplay element or is it a setting or is it a combat type Molly that like you feel like could get you into that because you're a competitive person like you do play competitively it's just not these yeah so cuz I've never played an extraction shooter I have seen my friends play hunt Showdown plenty of times I have you know some of my like Final Fantasy Guild mates are very into hunt Showdown that's like they like they're like off game almost it's like okay I don't want to play Final Fantasy anymore I'm going to play hunt Showdown and that's what they that's what they end up playing and yeah the concept of like a like an extraction shooter scares me because like you say Morgan that seems a lot lot more like it's a lot it's a lot more like careful and thoughtful in how you approach it right like he said rather than just being able to be like okay I'm going to drop in this area pick up whatever's there and hope for the best kind of thing and yeah there's a comfort in Randomness too right so it's random but that also partially means like if it goes totally uh badly it's not all not completely my fault you know yeah yeah exactly and it's random for like the other however many people will end up in that lobby with you as well right so even though it's not fair it is fair I don't know but um I like I really enjoy watching extraction Shooters I think the thing with battle Royals that sort of ended up putting me off cuz I I will admit I haven't played like a quote unquote traditional Battle Royale for a while now I think the problem is is because I'm not very good at FPS games right I'm not very good at Shooters um I'm okay at them but I'm by no means like great at them I think my problem is is like it's such a long setup for an encounter that can be over within seconds right like you spend five minutes maybe like waiting for a match getting into that match dropping down into a location you spend another few minutes like trying to get some resources and you could be be you could be killed within like 30 like within like a minute of you dropping and then you've got to repeat that process yeah all over again right I will I will say like that's one thing I liked about hun Showdown um that I don't like about battle Roy because I do hate that matches can end very quickly they can end that quickly in Hunt as well the one difference is I hate looting um I really hate starting with no gun um and trying to to find a good gun um and I think it takes too much time and then like it can be right at the point in which I finally have the attachments I like and a gun that I like that the match just suddenly ends right and like one thing I'll say about Hunt is that at least you already have that part done by the time you enter the match um so you can kind of like have the firefight that you want um at least with with the stuff you wanted and then if it does end very suddenly and it will um at least you can set that back up very quickly and just go into another one if you want you know but yeah like even with even with those that convenience um it is an adjustment if you're used to uh more normal multiplayer games with like with with reasonable session times like these are 30 minute matches that can be 15minute matches but can also be five minute matches like it is it is a whiplash uh often and you just just no no game really prepares you for that like it's most games are like very very segmented like this is a 20-minute game every time and that's good you have to get used to that I guess definitely I think it's something you have to be prepared for and someone of my skill I was not prepared I was not prepared to be like diving in kind of being like a like a deer in headlights and then just immediately getting killed and being like Oh okay so now I go back and I do this all over again and yeah I think that that was kind of maybe I just didn't give it enough of a chance right especially cuz I I never went back to fortnite was the one that I probably played the most out of all of the big ones but I never went back when they did the no build mode and a few of my friends have been getting back into it lately and I feel like that as well like seeing how fast people can build structures and like get height on you and get cover and then you're just like out in the open with your pants down basically like being invited to be shot at so maybe I should go back and and try the the no build mode but I will say I do really love like the non FPS Battle Royale that like Nintendo have been doing are we are you are you wanting to are you waned to talk about this Lauren no no go ahead Molly you're just answering a question before I can ask it of you so go on and then I'll ask you like another related thing yeah I say like nontraditional cuz you know when we think of Battle Royale it's a shooter right it's an FPS MH um but I really love Tetris 99 tetris99 is my favorite Battle Royale um I forget when that came out but I remember when it was announced I was like this is the stupidest thing that I have like ever come across in my entire life I'm like this is a stupid idea it's going to suck and then I because it was free to play so I downloaded it and I was like this is so much fun I'm just playing Tetris but it almost kind of gave me a purpose to play it I guess because it was nice kind of going against a bunch of other people and a game that I enjoyed very much already on its own and I guess that's the thing right I don't always necessarily enjoy Shooters but being able to play a game that I already really enjoyed and then add a sort of competitive element into it I really enjoyed that so I you basic play you play Tetris and you can like see all these other people's games playing out next to you right and and you if you do well you're sort of like sending problems to other people's boards to like try to get them out faster it is pretty ingenious I I never tried it just I'm a terrible Tetris player but it is it is cool so it is very very good like along those lines what I was thinking is like as you and I have identified Molly like neither you or I are like particularly good FPS players Morgan is like Morgan comes from FPS games battle Royals are like have definitely started as FPS games they don't need to be that's just sort of like where they were birthed so what I was going to ask you is do you think like whatever you consider your home genre and I'm thinking of fighting games because they're already competitive but if you have a different one that you think would work better but like do you think it could exist as a battle royale if we got still like we've passed the big like bell curve of Battle Royale but we might be entering into like the weird Niche things that can still be successful if they're like weird and interesting enough iow Tetris 99 but like something else that's a good question I genuinely don't know because I know they did Pac-Man 99 which is if it hasn't already closed down it is closing down very soon and they did they did Super Mario Bros 35 as well as well which was that like limited time I don't even hear yeah so for for the 35th Anniversary this was like in 2020 I think like 2020 or 2021 for like the 35th anniversary of Mario they did like a like a Super Mario Bros Battle Royale where it was just it was just Super Mario Bros but it but like in a battle royale format so I do I do think maybe maybe something like Platformers or puzzle games I think they do lend themselves very well beinged yeah yeah fu is a battle roale of its own that's more of like a round based elimination thing yeah yeah yeah another one that stands out to me is like a because I think you guys are right like there's no reason non Shooters can be really awesome ble royans and and it's already happened um but I think branching out from Shooters which is like one of the most popular multiplayer genres um is hard because if you're if you're setting it up like a service game where like it can only exist if people are like engaging with it every single season all the time like you start to see the cracks of like okay maybe there's not that many people that want to play Tetris 99 every single day or in the case of a game that I thought like was pretty cool and had potential but just clearly didn't find an audience like Rumble verse that shut down earlier this year that was a very unique Battle Royale with a big beautiful fortnite looking map um but no guns it was a wrestling game you had a very unique sort of fighting game combo system and like your loot was basically finding moves that that you could like upgrade throughout the match and had like really cool traversal like very like cartoonish sort of Parkour just running straight up buildings and jump in between stuff it was it was cool as hell and and it shut down in a matter of months just because it immediately didn't have that many players uh and yeah that stands out to me as like this totally deserves to exist obviously because it was wellmade and um actually Innovative um but like turns out games multiplayer games don't get to be huge right now unless they're am MOA or a shooter or you know one of the one of the big ones yeah I was thinking about like my own home genre of like uh which is not even a genre as a setting or a style but uh sword and sourcy RPG type stuff and that's dark and darker has been that right like it's not an FPS it's uh it's magic and swords and like closer to something like chivalry nearly right but in Battle Royale or well extraction format really is what darker and darker is that one's not a fight to the winner it's a it's a get out with the loot that you can situation but thinking of that and so like that that concept certainly can work I hope it continues to work we'll see they've been having a rough year clearly um and then uh what was the other I was thinking of oh Path of Exile speaking of a different style of RPG Path of Exile did one season where they did a battle royale mode um I don't remember how it went over I never tried it I don't know if it's still ongoing frankly I know nothing other than that it definitely happened at one point but I'm thinking to myself man like I don't know that I really trust blizzard to do it with Diablo but I kind of hope the um The Path of Exile too maybe they like mess around in that territory again because that like you said the word MOA Morgan and that's sort of what it reminds me of like you know league is it's it's not the same type of game but it's the same speed and the same like type of interaction style in a PVP format already that something like a Path of Exile Battle Royale would wind up being it involves like head down lots of clicking skill bar kind of thing like it it's got it shares some elements kind of like it could freaking work too absolutely if they really wanted to potentially and Path of Exile is free you got the install base there that's right yeah another one that stands out to me is like a battle royale that shouldn't work but absolutely does I think it might come up when we talked about party games um geog deser Geer has a battle royale um it's a like the they'll throw 100 players and it's basically like a process of elimination trivia almost except you're playing geoguesser so it's just who's best who's best at Geer and used to eliminated if you're bad um but uh it totally works you'd like see people locked in their answers which makes you wonder like oh crap should I have recognized this immediately am I stupid like is this clearly Norway and I just don't play this game enough or um and then like you just eliminated in The locations you did harder over time and yeah there's a there's a one winner and you can like watch it play out even if you get eliminated and that's kind of fun too so like people this is not this is not a crazy concept it is it is playing a game with a lot of people at once which is exciting um and that can be implemented in so many ways yeah I forgot about G guess so I think I think you are right though Morgan like ultimately you know like Shooters are just so popular on their own anyway right and I and I feel like you know you look at fortnite versus Tetris 99 you know just as a comparison fortnite you're teaming up with your friends and you know Shooters are they're not they're not the easiest games to to become good at but they're very easy to just be like oh okay I shoot and I run around right and you could play on your own or you can play with friends whereas I feel like you know something like Tetris 99 when you're adapting something like that into a battle royale format it's a very like singular experience right you're not really playing with friends you're playing on your own and I think that is one of the appeals of of a Battle Royale as well is playing with your friends and like teaming up and you know I know our former our former video editor Graham he plays Apex on his own which is is crazy quite frankly like he he will he will do Duos but he will queue up on his own I think um and I don't know how he does that because I I think half the fun of that is is being able to be with your buddies I think you're right you kind of touched on something that's unique to Battle Royale and attration Shooters in that like they are very social games and to a lot of people um something that might be annoying to some which is like the lawn gaps between encounters and like the parts where you're just sort of like running to the next Circle or run into the compound where the bosses like these are these are boring moments except you know if you're with the right people they're not they're like the moment you guys are just shooting the and and talking about your day yeah and like it can be fun to be in the middle of a completely unrelated conversation and then just a fight breaks out and you're just telling everyone to shut up shut up shut we need to four to the north four the north yeah exactly like they are they end up being these social games it's almost like you're the greatest parts of of getting really into an MMO um in a much more like truncated formats and different kind of game it's really cool yeah that that is the social aspect is huge you're so right because that's what my friends and I did when pubg got huge was yeah you're just you're just hanging out during the Looting Parts where like yeah you loot five different areas and like you're trading ammo or whatever but also just kind of talking about other stuff until you finally get into your firefight and like ah you didn't win but you know let's drop into another one um have there been any like uh battle Royals that have gone under or failed or just like not stuck around that you really wish had had made more of an impression on a larger group of people yeah I think um Rumble vers I mentioned like that definitely deserved to survive um and a lot of these like you you sort of feel guilty you're like you know I didn't oh this was this was so cool but like I didn't play him like that's it is something I think about a lot I've written about before like this multiplayer games should be allowed to just be games that you play sometimes um like there's nothing wrong with with having a game that you played for 20 hours online and you're like all right I got my fill um but like the way games are are made now to be services like they have to survive they have to keep players yeah it's it's bad frankly for like a lot of types of games it's just not compatible with this system or like you know the the dodgeball game that I like not a battle royale sorry but it's like the the the dodgeball game the wrestling game these are games that like clear clearly like it was never going to be a game that someone that like millions of people put hundreds of hours into it is it's not Apex right it's like a game you can get 40 great hours out of online or something like that and then maybe play again next year something for a bit like that that should that used to be a game a successful game but now it's one that was successful for a bit and then died so like there's something broken here with how with how these games are like sort of ideated from the start right because you end up with a a a large graveyard of games that if they had been set up differently or like you know everything didn't have to be a service game might have just like made some money if they sold if they were sold for like 40 bucks and when interest died out they just go make another game you know like but yeah like uh even the battlefield 1 Firestorm mode I think that was a pretty strong early Battle Royale mode that that did Inspire some good ideas like uh War Zone's armor system where you put in ballistic plates it's like a very big part of that game is ripped straight from that ripped straight from that Battlefield mode um that didn't really survive uh Lauren or any other Fallout nowh did this Fallout 76 mode ever actually come out remember when they announced Battle Royale for Fallout 76 I had an acquaintance who played a lot of it in fact like I and it seemed reasonably popular like like I never played any of it because I'm not great at fpss I do enjoy fallout Fallout is not a great FPS so I just felt like a bad mix of things frankly like it was just never going to work for me but I think it was reasonably popular and I did know people who enjoyed it um and that it did eventually get shut down I don't remember when that happened but it was around for like a couple years um Morgan didn't you enjoy the vampire the Masquerade one didn't you play that I mean that's another one where I played it for like a week week right and I was like oh this is pretty good and then apparently wasn't good enough for to play more than a week but yeah um but yeah like that was a that's a third person Battle Royale which there weren't a ton of those coming out anymore you know but it's it was like a big dense City had a Cool vibe you could like find vampire powers throughout the game like the shooting's actually pretty darn good um and like and it looked amazing it looked like a a very high budget game compared to other games and it it just sort of Tanked after its first couple months um and and yeah like that definitely deserves to exist in some form like even even if these even if multiplayer games like that like clearly don't have an audience to like have hundreds of people online 247 um these games need to learn how to die basically right like a game like this should have servers that like players can can start up their own like it should have real server support for its for its post death um if you even want to call it that like it but really they just we just need to like redefine or find the old definition of what a dead game is because yeah like Battle Royale is currently the epicenter of games that are dying that shouldn't be um and I'd love to see that change because yeah there there's a big graveyard of cool games here that we've listed out like spellbreak do you guys play spell break that was like a really cool really cool spell bre and I should have I I wanted spell to exist yeah Morgan what you're talking about is something I've thought about a lot recently because of the like I I've been asking for stranger MMOs and like more like sideways experiences like offshoots of MMOs and the problem is as you say you can't get the install base they can't live on forever and or not just that they can't live on forever but not at the scale that they are like designed for it's like there needs to be a draw Down plan if you're not going to be wow so you need to figure out how you're going to survive at a size that's like sustainable smaller than wow because it's not going to be what you are um and I think some are figuring out how to do that but it's like it's like a painful process for like a genre to go through and for like a bunch of developers separately to all kind of go through and like muddle through separately it like yeah spell break I didn't play and then um oh what was the other one I was thinking oh ring of elisium I don't know if any played anybody played of alium it was like in the fortnite territory but it was like all snowy and I like a snowy environment it had lots of zip lines on it as well um was there like snowboards yeah like it was kind of cool the traversal was cool on that one um I don't remember if the if the particulars of the shooting was actually any good like if it like held a candle to Call of Duty I don't know that it did but like the traversal stuff was really neat on it and I was like and I I looked it up I think it's shutting down like this December like they just recently announced shutting down this December I was like oh bummer I didn't I didn't play it really even though I thought it was cool so yeah as you say Morgan it's a yeah it's a big list you know Ubisoft did its big effort with hyperscape um yeah and it's and its biggest claim to fame there was just having a big dense Urban environment where like most of the gameplay was on rooftops um that totally bombed I mean that one isn't one that I wish was still around as I think that one was was kind of mediocre and was never was even at its height didn't really offer anything better than like Apex so like it was kind of the same thing um but yeah like I'm glad Tetris 99 is still kicking I'm not surprised Pac-Man 99 didn't you know like just trying to apply that same format to other classic games that you know one like Pacman that's not as competitive or replayable frankly like not not surprising there um but yeah I don't know I think I think battle royale's like Shake Shak out like a lot of genres do or like everyone jumps on it everyone tries to make their mark on it and it turns out there's room for like four four or five really successful ones to stick around I think what I had meant to ask sort of at the end of this conversation was like is extraction like the only way forward but I clearly we've identified it's not like it's not the only way forward we're just waiting to find out what like the next thing big thing is but like I guess for either of you what do you want next from games like this whether it's battle royale's like purely or extraction stuff or like a different offshoot that would like get you invested in sticking around or trying them or like in mol's case that's a good question um I don't really know I think you know about extraction I think like you said Morgan I think think you know there I don't think one will end up beating out the other I think the two serve very different purposes for different audiences right I I I very much think that they're they're two kind of sides of the same coin they can coexist I think that will continue in terms of what I want from a battle royale that's a very good question um I guess I just want something like that I don't have to think too hard about right like maybe I should try fortnite again I really think I should go back and try fortnite's no build mode because I think if I was to play a battle royale I think like the fortnite no build mode would be it but I would like to see more like party game Battle Royale as well I'd be totally down with something that like like another four guys yeah but I feel like that game is sort of holding on for dear life at the minute itself so who knows what I want from Battle Royale is is basically just more experimentation like yeah I I I don't I think you know trying trying to whittled down like being the last person standing is a fun goal to have I just don't think the whole circle thing has ever really been good um so like I think there's maybe some wiggle room to like try a blend of Battle Royale and exraction Shooters where like instead of forcing people to come together um with a circle you can just create these points of interest that naturally bring people together to fight uh which and with the ultimate goal of um having one left uh like world events kind of yeah ex little events that occur right like hunt Showdown doesn't force you to go find anyone but it but it does make its main goal these bosses that everyone goes for so you end up fighting in the periphery of those points of interest um and that works really well so like I also want battle rails to just experiment with smaller player counts like 99 99 people on a map is exciting but it's it's not always a good idea uh like first of all it can just be unwieldy and like create too much Randomness you know arguably but like it's also just completely unsustainable for for games that aren't the biggest that like you don't you don't want to uh end up in a spot where like you can't create a full game because there's only like a few people playing that's only four possible matches that can be going so like you know hunt Showdown has like a small fraction of the players of of war zone or fortnite daily but it you wouldn't really know it just launching it because it only takes 12 players to make a match that's like that's more like Call of Duty sized um but you still get all the same Thrills of a battle royale it's just on a smaller scale you know and and that's good creates shorter more more digestible matches and uh I think war zone and Apex and fortnite they've all just sort of sat Still For Years on this on this concept of having to have a 100 players on a big map and they should try out other stuff yeah I think for me it's going to be the like the chatting moments that you were talking about Morgan of like the the thing that got me really into pubg was I mean I I enjoyed like the weird PVP stealth aspects of it like I really liked being a weird book crawler who was like stealing all the way to the end Circle but like truthfully I really loved that like the group chat's logging on to play pubg tonight like and whether we're all playing solos or like a couple people like someone's doing squads and someone else is not like everybody can jump in kind of doing the same thing and there's that space that it creates for like the intense moments of combat but you have the downtime where you're still achieving a goal together and like working towards a thing um but you have the space for you know for it to be the hangout game it still has to provide that space and not be just like action action action constantly um yeah I think I think that's what I need to keep seeing from them to like get really invested in one again probably yeah cool thank you both for coming and and hashing out the the Battle Royale history with me I appreciate it I do want to keep seeing like more of this stuff we're just kind of see where it develops what happens next but yeah thank you Mor for being our our expert on the subject our enjoyer of many many FPS and battle Roy yeah no problem happy to come on anytime what\n"