The shooter Scavengers mixes various shooter content and has a special idea. It aims to enable battles with a very large number of players. In an initial test, it was already possible for 1,700 players to compete in a match.
What kind of game is this? Scavengers combines elements from classic shooters, battle royale, survival games, and cooperative gameplay into a completely new type of game. You fight against other players, but you cannot win a round alone.
In the current version of Scavengers, which we at MeinMMO have already introduced in detail, up to 60 players compete against each other in teams of three. However, in the future, matches could become even larger.
What’s new? The developers of Scavengers are experimenting with a new multiplayer mode that focuses primarily on massive scaling. In an initial test, 1,700 players from America and Europe could fight against each other and were later even supported by thousands of NPCs.
In the end, over 9,000 characters were able to participate in the battle.
If you want to try Scavengers in its smaller version, you have the chance tomorrow. We at MeinMMO are also giving away keys for early access: New shooter Scavengers starts tomorrow on Steam – Get your key here.
1,700 players in a match and it’s chaotic
What happened in this test? For the test, the 1,700 players were placed on a special map, where traditional battle royale is not played. Instead, admins in the form of giant monsters were present on the map, causing chaos for the players, as editor James Davenport describes in his article (via PC Gamer):
- The admins pushed the players around like a tennis ball
- They made meteors rain down or created deadly red fields
- They threw players down slopes
During the course of the event, additional virtual players were summoned, so that by the end, 9,600 characters were reportedly on the map.
The idea behind it was primarily to stress the servers, which were heavily loaded with 1,700 players, thousands of NPCs, and many effects. Those who want to see images from the event can find them at PC Gamer ((via PC Gamer).
What’s next for the mass battle? What the developers will do with the experiences from the test is not known. A mode with thousands of players has not been announced so far. The test itself is interesting because there are players who want exactly such mass battles.
Dreams of MMOs with huge worlds and battles
Why is the stress test so interesting? Some players wish for huge battles with thousands of participants, which should actually be possible with advancing technology.
However, while in MMOs from the 90s and 2000s hundreds of players could participate in battles simultaneously, the number of players has tended to decrease in recent years. Smaller PvP arenas and dungeons have taken hold instead of huge battlegrounds.
The later hype trends, MOBA (5v5), battle royale (100 to 150 players), and survival games (often with servers for 50 to 100 players) also did not address the topic of mass battles.
What’s the problem? One reason for the adjusted player numbers is often performance. This is drastically limited by increasing graphics and many effects, as can be seen, for example, in the PvP area of Cyrodiil in ESO.
Nevertheless, high promises have been made repeatedly, such as with Amazon, which promised huge armies with hundreds of players in New World. If performance problems occur, new Amazon servers would simply be added. However, many contents have now been instantiated, such as in the battle for fortresses, where only 50v50 is fought.
Where can you experience mass battles today? The two most famous titles for mass battles are currently Planetside 2 and EVE Online:
- In Planetside 2, allegedly up to 2,000 players can participate in a battle. In March 2020, the shooter set a Guinness World Record with 1,283 players in a match. This record applied solely to shooters.
- EVE Online also set a record. With 8,825 players in a battle, they also made it into the Guinness Book, here in the category for the largest video game battle.
Scavengers could theoretically set a new record with its 9,600 players and with completely different and more modern graphics. Battles in EVE Online look more like a series of orange dots and Excel spreadsheets, as you can see in this YouTube video:
What do you think about mass battles in shooters and MMOs? Do you hope to eventually fight with thousands or are you content with small dungeon and PvP groups?
The most interesting new MMOs for 2021 have been introduced in this article: The 8 most promising new MMOs and MMORPGs for 2021.
