It seems like all MMORPGs have to implement a battle royale mode, as Black Desert Online launched one today.
When will people be tired of the battle royale genre you might ask? Well, from the looks of it, not anytime soon, as Black Desert Online just got its very own battle royale mode. It’s called “Shadow Arena” and it plays exactly how you would expect. Players control a “Black Spirit” that can possess the body of one of the game’s classes. Then you go and look for supplies and then battle the other 49 other players. The formula is pretty known by now, and it’s unfortunate that they didn’t put any interesting spin on it.
There are some MMORPGs that implemented the battle royale mode in a good way, the prime example being Guild Wars 2. That game gave everyone access to the same gear, so the mode turned out to be a pretty fun PvP experience.
The strange thing to us is when MMORPG developers look at games like Fortnite, PUBG, or even Black Ops 4 with its Blackout mode, why do they think that adding that to an MMORPG would be a great idea? If you look at the comments of the Shadow Arena Trailer, the players certainly didn’t ask for this. So, the only logical reason left is that they’re trying to cash in on all the hype that’s surrounding this particular type of gameplay.
Black Desert Online is a sandbox MMORPG with incredible graphics, visually stunning non-targeted combat, and an impressively complex character creator. Did it need a battle royale mode? Probably not, but let’s see what the players think after they’ve played it for a bit.
