5 Innovations to Keep the Battle Royale Formula Fresh

Zombies

Some players believe that zombie mechanics have been done to death in video games, but including a zombie mode in a battle royale game could really shake up the formula. The game would play exactly like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, but players wouldn’t be knocked out of the game upon death. They would respawn after a few seconds as a zombie. As a zombie, they wouldn’t be able to use weapons or items, but they’d have a more powerful bite melee attack that would instantly down unarmored human players. If a player is killed as a zombie, they just keep respawning over and over until the game is done.

So as the game goes on, the dwindling amount of human players are quickly outnumbered by the ever-growing zombie horde. Other human players are still your greatest threat, but you’ll always have to be on the lookout for a shambling mass of zombies. Things would become more stressful as the safe zone shrinks smaller and smaller. Suddenly, it’s not six players crawling through the grass and peeking through windows in hunt of their competitors, it’s six players racing to eliminate the competition as 94 other shambling human-controlled zombies move in for the kill.

The end game is suddenly even more stressful than your average game of PUBG, and campers who hide in corners will be quickly overrun. Adding zombies to a battle royale game suddenly rewards players who are constantly on the move, quick to react, and aware of their bullet count, while punishing players who survive by skirting around the battlefield and keeping to themselves.

A Deeper Melee Combat System

Melee combat in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds isn’t very nuanced. Players can punch and do a running jump punch. A more complex melee system would certainly add a new level of strategy to a the battle royale genre. Guns and grenades would have to be removed and the map would have to be shrunk a bit in size for it to work though.

Games like For Honor and Absolver already utilize a complex assortment of strikes, parries, blocks, dodges, and grapples. They create intimate duels between two players that can erupt into a harrowing battle of multiple opponents at any time. Imagine such a conflict on a massive scale. Players would still spawn in a massive arena where they’d have to scavenge for health items, like bandages or painkillers, and weapons, like brass knuckles or knives. They would then have to seek out challengers to kill, or run and hide to wait for the finale. Fights at the game’s start would become less about who can find the stronger gun first, and more who has the better skill. Even if one player finds a knife, the ability of another player to parry or disarm their opponent could still result in victory.

Fights amongst three or more players would still be hectic and nerve-wracking though, and really test players on how well they can respond to being surrounded. Such an encounter usually results in death when guns are involved, but, as anyone who’s played For Honor can tell you, one player can overcome three other players if they’re patient enough and know what they’re doing.

Hunting and Crafting

There’s no wildlife in any battle royale game at the moment. Adding it, and forcing players to survive against it, would really shake things up. Hearing a flock of birds take off in distress behind you might be nothing, or it could be the first warning signs that a player is sneaking up behind you and they happened to disturb a nesting family of birds by mistake. Making some of the wildlife carnivores, like wolves or a mountain lion, and having them actively hunt players that intrude on their territory, also adds a whole list of things to consider before pursuing another player into a forest of trees.

Include a crafting mechanic and suddenly the battle royale genre becomes a completely different ballgame. Wasting bullets on a rabbit might no longer be a waste if their flesh can be cooked to recover health. Hunting for an alligator might be a worthy endeavor if their hide can be used to craft armor.

This crafting system doesn’t have to be very realistic; it could be just like the one found in recent Far Cry games. This way, it doesn’t become a part of the game that players need to engage in. They can still just scavenge for guns, ammo, medicine, and armor. However, for players who want to get away from the big cities, they can explore the wilderness for the materials to make the items they need. It would also give the crossbow, arguably one of the most worthless firearms in the game, an actual purpose. Silent, retrievable arrows would be perfect for hunting all types of critters.

Changing Weather

Most battle royale games only feature a few different maps. Although they are large enough to promote different types of strategies, the fact remains that there are only so many battlefields the player has to prepare for. Different weather conditions could really mix things up.

If it’s sunny outside, then the player doesn’t have to really worry about much of anything. It’s just a normal battlefield. Windy conditions would affect the trajectory of bullets and arrows though. Rain would diminish the effectiveness of molotov cocktails and make it harder to view other players through a scope. Snow would make it very dangerous to go outside, as footprints would make players easy to track. Hail would make a light plinking noise whenever it hit something metallic, making it harder to discern the sounds of other players in big cities, while also giving away the position of any player who’s lying down prone with a frying pan on their back.

These five weather patterns alone would force players to adopt at least five different ways of playing on only one map. Things could be made even crazier by occasionally changing the weather while the match is going on. Forcing players to react to the weather mid-match in only some of the games would create an interesting start to each battle. For example, a player scavenging for items while it’s still sunny out might grab a red dot sight even if they have a scope on their rifle. If it were to start raining, a red dot sight would prove infinitely easier to use. Players mostly scavenge for things they need at that moment. The possibility of the weather changing at some point would force players to always be thinking ahead to what they might need eventually.

Real-World Injuries

All the actions that a player can take in a battle royale game type suddenly involve new considerations if they incorporate an injury system like the one found in games like DayZ. A common example is fall damage. Currently, anyone playing PUBG who leaps from a building only has to suffer damage. With a real-world injury system, jumping out a third story window would not only take away a chunk of health, it would leave the player with a broken leg that would immediately hamper movement.

With this system, more players would probably fall victim to their wounds instead of the actions of their competitors. Running out of stamina while swimming would cause drowning. Forgetting to eat or drink would cause starvation or dehydration. One gunshot wound would cause a player to bleed out in minutes without some sort of medical care. Currently, the opening minutes of a PUBG game are spent hunting for weapons and armor. With this injury system, things like medicine and food would suddenly become the most valuable items to horde.