Will Battle Royales Ever Die?
So as a young gun, I played almost entirely single player games; Legend of Zelda: OoT, the Metroid series, and Pokémon for example. Story focused games were practically all I knew. As I aged, I still gravitated towards those single player story games, and spent up until my freshman year of high school playing by myself. My first real experience with multiplayer was Halo 2 that I could only play at my older cousins house, and the first time I jerry rigged an Ethernet cable from 360 to a laptop was in freshman year to play COD4.
From pretty much then on I played exclusively multiplayer games. Halo 3, Gears of War and COD became my main focus. The shift from single player to multiplayer focused games happened due to a ton of reasons. Technology in the modern household allowed me to finally get in on multiplayer being a huge one. Not to mention the fact that in 2009, most video game developers were trying to come up with the next COD or Halo “killer”. The demographic for video game developers changed, and it was for those seeking PvP focused games. There were still absolute fucking gems of single player games being released (Red Dead 2, The Last of Us, GTA, etc.) but multiplayer PvP was what everyone wanted to play, and what every developer wanted to provide.
This leads me to my point (two fucking paragraphs later). Will Battle Royales ever die? Since PUBG and Fortnite dropped their extremely addictive PvE arenas into the video game market, BR has been all the rage. These games influenced an absolute frenzy for more BR experiences, causing developers of COD and even battlefield to provide their own twist on BR. This genre of multiplayer is a titan in today’s market, but in my opinion, it’s just the new “flavor of the week” for video games . Do I see BR’s dying in the near future? Obviously not. However this is just another cycle of life in video games. We’ve experienced every developer trying to make their own Halo and COD “killer” titles, and now we’re seeing everyone trying to compete with Fortnite. This isn’t me saying I hate BRs, or I hate where the industry is currently, but it’s me saying that knowing how quickly the tastes of gamers change, those who are getting bored of the drop, kill, die cycle of BRs shouldn’t worry. Will BR games ever die? Probably. Does it matter right now though? Nope.
It’s a win/win situation really. For those who love BRs and can’t foresee themselves playing any other type of game? You’re probably going to be provided with updates and support from the game you play for years to come. For those wishing to just get their hands on a good story focused game? 2019 has a ton in store for you and it’s just a matter of time before the taste of the masses shift, and the next “flavor of the week” rolls in.
As always, its cha boi Big Lex bringing you the big facts.
