The battle royale hype is probably over: Tencent, the powerful gaming giant from China, must also realize this. In 2018, their game “Ring of Elysium” launched on Steam in early access as a competitor to games like H1Z1, Fortnite, and PUBG: In December 2018, just a few months after launch, Ring of Elysium reached 63,435 simultaneous players on Steam. Now the lights are going out.
What kind of game is it?
- Ring of Elysium is a free-to-play battle royale shooter developed by Aurora Studio and published by TCH Scarlet Limited. Both companies belong to Tencent, the Chinese mega-corporation, which also has its hands in Riot Games (LoL) and many other studios.
- At the time of Ring of Elysium’s release, the battle royale hype was booming due to Fortnite: The game focused on realistic graphics and heavy storytelling. RoE was considered a hidden gem and a true alternative to PUBG.
- However, with the hype around battle royale, the hype for the game from China also faded. Now Tencent is closing the servers in December 2023.
This is the trailer for Season 15:
PUBG alternative was highly anticipated, quickly forgotten
How has the game evolved? “Ring of Elysium” is one of the games that had its most successful times in early access (via steamcharts):
- In 2018, during early access, the game had peaks of over 50,000 concurrent players on Steam. Western players had to wait about half a year for the Steam launch: In China, the game had been known as “Europa” for a while.
- In 2019, the success declined: The release in July 2019 did not boost the game, as it still had about 19,000 peak players, but the numbers continued to decline steadily.
- In July 2020, Ring of Elysium had 2,500 as the maximum value for concurrent players: This number could be maintained fairly well until October 2021, but then it was over.
In November 2021, Ring of Elysium was for the first time below 2,000 in peak numbers and could not recover from that.
Servers closing on December 1st on Steam
This is happening with the game: The game can no longer be downloaded. The servers close on December 1st.
Players who have the game installed can continue to play on Steam until December and spend the currency they have.
Tencent wanted to ride the PUBG hype
This is behind it: The Chinese gaming giant is known for recognizing when a new game concept catches fire and profiting from it. They made League of Legends very successful in a mobile version (Honor of Kings) in China.
In 2017, Tencent apparently recognized the huge potential in “battle royale” games like PUBG and wanted to get involved.
The Chinese allegedly tried to snag Bluehole, the South Korean developers, in 2017, but that didn’t quite work out.
“Ring of Elysium” was apparently an attempt to develop a similar game to PUBG to benefit from the hype:
- Ultimately, PUBG did not establish itself in the West; the hype surrounding the game faded in 2017 and 2018 with Fortnite.
- Later, most players who played “Ring of Elysium” likely switched to games like Call of Duty: Warzone.
Players have good memories of the shooter, but it is a game from the past
How is this being discussed? The shooter stands with 79% positive Steam reviews solidly.
Many say (via steam): They had a good time with the game, but that eventually came to an end. Especially one map has remained in the good memory of many players: “Dione”.
Most people commenting towards the end of Ring of Elysium sound a bit gloomy, but for many, it is probably a game they played in the past with friends and have good memories of – but for most, the last visit seems to have been a few years ago.
One comment sums it up well: “GG WP you will be missed”.
More about the game:
That’s why Ring of Elysium is considered a hidden gem by many now
