Battle Royale frenzy is in full swing, with Fortnite and Call of Duty: Warzone headlining a genre that keeps adding more and more titles to its stable of offerings for gamers around the world.
Following the recent release of Hyper Scape from Ubisoft, it seems apparent all the big players in the industry are jumping on board. And with interesting spin-offs for the genre coming in titles like Fall Guys, it really shows the flexible nature of this blueprint.
Nintendo has yet to offer anything from the Battle Royale genre in a major way (outside of Tetris 99), and you have to believe at some point they will take the plunge, especially considering the recent Pokemon MOBA announcement, Pokemon Unite.
With that being said, a Pokemon Battle Royale would totally be sick. Like, imagine all the possibilities! It would take all of the ideations of a completely open-world Pokemon game and form a close second to that, with a Safari-Zone-esque twist.
As odd as it may sound, Pokemon could make so much sense entering this genre. Obviously without the guns and hardcore violence, but through more traditional Pokemon battle mechanics.
Even if you held onto the turn-based nature of the original games, we could see a tournament-mode that takes 100 or more players into a group and randomizes the battle pairings in order to let the best trainer take it to the top.
At a minimum, some sort of semi-Battle-Royale mode could easily make its way into the next mainline Pokemon title, where surging through a set of several battles in a row is the name of the game. You can already experience sequences like this, at times, during normal gameplay sequences in the traditional Pokemon titles.
With the world’s move to bigger and more impressive multiplayer offerings, this is a no-brainer, but what if we got a little crazier with it?
What about a full-on, real-time action brawler title? Something in the vein of the already-released Pokken Tournament, but instead of being in a small arena, you fight it out through an entire open map.
No humans involved at all, just Pokemon duking it out for gladiatorial dominance.
The only issue I see is that you would have to limit the Pokemon available in order to keep things balanced, but even with a dozen or so characters, but this could work similarly to Apex Legends’ character format.
Let’s go a step further and say that you are operating as a trainer. You could have drops and treasure chests holding the Pokeballs you grab, allowing the chance of getting any of the 800+ Pokemon to be at your disposal through semi-balanced (RNG-based) means.
Pokemon Centers could be used to heal up your crew, with Potions and Super Potions already at your disposal for quick heals. TMs and HMs could be found around the map to give your Pokemon better move-sets.
Rare Candy could level your Pocket Monsters, even resulting in evolution to stronger forms. And the locations and references available from decades worth of games and anime shows could seriously boost the love and care put into the world map.
Due to Pokemon’s turn-based, strategic style, the pieces are all there to offer items, healing, and a power structure to the entire experience.
Heck, you could even include an Agar.io or Slither.io-based “King of the Hill” system, where the locations of powerful trainers could be presented to make things fairer.
Fortnite has already played with that system during things like their Thanos event.
Admit it, all of this sounds pretty sick, am I right? At the end of the day, a Pokemon Battle Royale could be an easy spin-off for the brand, and based on The Pokemon Company’s current partnerships and spin-off frenzy, this might be something already in the works.
Pokemon is already built on being the best there ever was. Tournaments, like the Elite Four fights, are part of its DNA.
Battle Royale, in some way, shape, or form, will make its way into Pokemon’s plans at some point. How far they go with it is anyone’s best guess, but the crazier you start thinking with it, the cooler it sounds.
