Battle Royale games like Apex Legends have particularly captivated our author Jürgen. Read here why Battle Royale is the best genre among online games for him.
I have been in love with the Battle Royale genre since my first moments in PUBG. Since then, I have tried many other BR games and went first to Fortnite and then to Apex Legends, my current favorite Battle Royale game.
And that’s exactly where I experienced once more in a nearly perfect round why the Battle Royale genre is simply one of the best there is in online games right now.
Battle Royale can be really frustrating …
This is how the perfect round came about: Every round of Battle Royale is a huge gamble. It can go extremely well, or you can just have bad luck, lousy teammates, or both. Then the round quickly goes down the drain, and you’re left with frustration.
That’s why I actually didn’t want to keep playing on the evening of the perfect round. Currently, I barely have time for private gaming due to my still young fatherhood. At most, I might get 1-2 hours at night after my wife and the little one finally sleep.
Then it’s even more annoying when you find yourself back in the lobby shortly after and haven’t accomplished anything. “Oh, screw it, one more!” was nevertheless my motto, because who knows when I’ll get to play again.
So I quickly started one last round at midnight and hoped for the best.
The perfect round of Battle Royale!
I seriously didn’t expect to have a good round. At that time, I would has been glad if I had made it to mid-game and gotten one or two kills. And indeed, the start was really terrible.
This is how badly the start went: We landed at Skull Town and there was nothing! Not even a shabby Mozambique piece of junk was lying around. Instead, I immediately came under fire after landing because some lousy enemy dog had of course found a weapon and was shooting cheerfully.
I was just running around like a startled chicken and couldn’t do much except ping opponents. Fortunately, my team was quick and took out the enemies I marked quickly.
I picked up a Peacekeeper shotgun from the corpses and soon got lucky and found the (extremely cool) upgrade for tighter spread. Too bad I shortly thereafter got killed by a Caustic from the until then still unrecognized second enemy team. But my teammates were really on the ball, killed the Caustic, and brought me back up.
From then on, our victory march was unstoppable!
This is how the top round continued: My team and I used nonverbal communication in Apex exemplary and methodically slaughtered our way through several enemy teams. The following highlights were particularly intense:
- During the 3rd ring, there was a brutal slaughter when we quickly wanted to find safety in the zone and encountered an entire team that was also fleeing. The scene resembled a stampede of wild animals fleeing from a forest fire. Since I was providing enough healing as Lifeline, we were able to win that brutal grueling fight.
- Shortly thereafter, we were surprised by a well-fortified enemy at a choke point. He completely killed one of our teammates and could barely be defeated by us. But his buddies were still there and were firing back fiercely. Fortunately, my remaining comrade threw a smoke grenade, I grabbed the banner from the dead guy, and ran like crazy to the nearby respawn beacon, rezzed the teammate, and healed him immediately so he could get his gear back from the corpse. In no time, we were back to full strength and won that close fight as well.
- I had gotten so used to my fully equipped shotgun and didn’t want to switch it. But I ran out of shotgun shells, and in the end, I had to defend myself with the sniper in close combat and won a tight fight more through luck than skill.
This is how the round ended: Little by little, the space got tighter, and in the end, there was only one enemy left. He had fortified himself well, but the now really deadly zone forced him quickly out of cover, and we had the superior elevated position.
So the enemy went down like Anakin in Star Wars III, and we blasted him from above like a defenseless rabbit! Victory was ours!
The perfect success experience in a short time
That’s why Battle Royale offers the perfect success experience: The round described above was an absolute rollercoaster of emotions. I’ve only had a similar success experience during epic boss fights in my active MMORPG raid times or when I brought a campaign in my tabletop round to an epic climax after many weeks.
Can a win in Battle Royale top these experiences? Certainly not, but the joy is still very high, and BR has a decisive advantage:
I can theoretically have this awesome experience in 30 minutes. Every single BR round could be as thrilling as described above. This way, Battle Royale not only triggers my desire for satisfying successes but also my penchant for positive surprises.
For the same reason, I also like loot boxes. You don’t know what’s inside, and if it’s something good, you’re happy. If not, you can always open a new box. That’s how Battle Royale works. I start a round, expect nothing, but I’m happy about anything that is better than a total wipe right at the beginning.
These are the temporal advantages of BR: And unlike MMORPG raids, where you often spend the whole week trying to find enough good players who all understand the boss mechanics and don’t rage quit after three wipes or start bickering with each other, I can have a good BR round much faster and more easily.
A few somewhat decent randoms in the team are enough!
That’s why I love Battle Royale: Therefore, for me, Battle Royale is still the ideal online game genre, from which I can extract the maximum fun in the shortest time without needing a lot of preparation. Because leisure time is, at least for me, scarce and too precious to waste it on frustration and annoyance.
But enough of my praise for this BR genre. What do you think? Do you agree with me, or are you itching to contradict me in the comments?
