At the HiRez Expo, our author Leya conducted an exclusive interview with Paladins Managing Director Todd Harris, who is also a co-founder of the studio. Harris and Leya discussed the new Paladins: Battlegrounds.
At the HiRez Expo, the new battle royale mode for the hero shooter Paladins was presented. Paladins: Battlegrounds will be a 100-player mode where players compete in teams of 4.
As in every battle royale, it’s a fight for life and death. The last team standing wins. There are random loot crates on a huge map that are full of items and provide advantages to players.
I, Leya, am currently in Atlanta, USA, at the HiRez Expo and spoke with Todd Harris about Paladins: Battlegrounds. We discussed the influence of MOBAs and hero shooters on the battle royale genre. I also learned more about the planned release on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
Why a title that will bring clone accusations again?
Mein-MMO: Paladins has long struggled with the accusation of being a copy of Blizzard’s hero shooter Overwatch. Now you have decided on the title Paladins: Battlegrounds for the new battle royale mode. Everyone immediately associates this with PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG). Why did you choose a title that could again bring you clone accusations?
Todd Harris: SMITE had previously been titled “The Battleground of the Gods”, so we actually had the title first. But that’s not the reason we called it Paladins: Battlegrounds. This is merely a mode and we needed a title that is descriptive of this specific mode. Players should know right from the start what they can expect from Paladins: Battlegrounds.
The two most obvious options were “Battle Royale” or “Battlegrounds”. We felt the mode was like an MMO PvP battleground, similar to what you know from games like World of Warcraft. That was basically the main reason we chose to call the new mode “Battlegrounds”.
Mein-MMO: When did you start working on Paladins: Battlegrounds and what was the development process like?
Todd Harris: A long time ago, we had the Survival mode in Paladins, which also had the “Last Man Standing” principle and fog. However, it was removed from the game. The mode was generally well received by players, but there was a problem. It featured 5vs5 teams. Those who died at the very beginning had to wait long to continue playing. It was fun to win this mode, but losing was frustrating.
Then we started working on the core mechanics of Paladins: Battlegrounds and introduced a system where players can jump directly into the next battlegrounds match when they die. That was about 6 months ago.
In the last 3 months, we have invested a lot of resources into the new mode and placed a lot of pressure to get a playable version of Paladins: Battlegrounds out.
Paladins Battlegrounds – Release on PC in Q1 2018 – PS4, Xbox One will take longer
Mein-MMO: Will the release of Paladins: Battlegrounds happen simultaneously for all platforms (PC, PS4, Xbox)?
Todd Harris: No, we will start with PC. Our goal is to release Paladins: Battlegrounds on PC within this quarter, so in the next 2-3 months. Then we will need a bit more time to bring Battlegrounds to consoles.
This is due to two factors. On one hand, there are technical differences between consoles and PC. On the other hand, we want to get feedback from players to refine Battlegrounds together with the community.
Testing with players on PC alone will take about a month.
Paladins Battlegrounds brings 3 new elements to the genre
Mein-MMO: Let’s talk a bit about gameplay. First, you brought MOBA to hero shooter with Paladins, and now you are bringing hero shooter into the “battle royale” genre. What impact will the MOBA elements and teamwork of a hero shooter have on a battlegrounds mode?
Todd Harris:
- The mere fact that players can play a champion with integrated skills instead of just having a weapon will bring a new experience to the “battle royale” mode. That would be the first step of a new element.
- The second step is the teamwork arising from the different roles (damage, tank, support, flanker).
- Thirdly, we have our card system where players can customize their character with a loadout.
These are just the core elements of Paladins. The big difference for Paladins players will be that they can find items (like protective helmets) in random loot boxes. Ultimately, Paladins: Battlegrounds revolves more around the champion and teamwork. That’s a big difference from many survival games.
Mein-MMO: I know that you intensively test your games with the entire team at Hi-Rez. Have you made any specific observations on how players use the different classes in Battlegrounds? Does the tank play the classic protector and does the supporter heal the team?
Todd Harris: That’s right, we have played the new “battle royale” mode a lot. It wasn’t that easy because we always needed at least 100 players to test Paladins: Battlegrounds. This gave us a nice mix of testers as even people from the team who don’t actually work on Paladins played.
We observed surprisingly a lot of variation in roles. We allow in Battlegrounds that everyone on the team can play the same hero. We were concerned that if a sniper like Kinessa was available, everyone would choose the sniper due to the high range. But that wasn’t the case.
We also observed that the most successful teams were those that stayed together and where everyone fulfilled their role. The supporters who stayed with their team also tended to heal their group. I play a lot of support in Paladins as well, and I also tended to play the supporter in Paladins: Battlegrounds. I enjoyed doing my best to keep the team alive and maintain a certain distance from the opponents.
Mein-MMO: So far, Paladins: Battlegrounds only has one, but quite large map. Can we expect to see more maps for this mode?
Todd Harris: We will release more maps, but that will be a slow process. We want to build and improve the existing map first. We have taken many places from the known Paladins maps and integrated them into the Battlegrounds map. We will continue to expand this large map and start with regular updates for it.
Mein-MMO: Finally, one last question about a currently hot topic: The Switch. Do you have plans to bring Paladins to the Switch?
Todd Harris: I can’t confirm anything at the moment. But we are always looking for new platforms, and the Switch is definitely interesting for us.
Mein-MMO: That was a pretty good PR response! But I didn’t miss the huge wink.
A report on the early alpha version will follow, which is already playable here at the HiRez Expo. You can already find a summary of the gameplay here: Gameplay from Paladins Battlegrounds looks nothing like a PUBG clone
