The hero shooter Paladins (PS4, Xbox, PC) is getting a battle royale mode where 100 players compete against each other in teams. It’s basically: PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) meets Overwatch – and it’s free. We explain what Paladins: Battlegrounds is all about and how the gameplay works.
At the HiRez Expo 2018, Hi-Rez Studios announced a battle royale mode for their hero shooter Paladins. The mode is called Paladins: Battlegrounds and, just like Paladins itself, is free.
Paladins: Battlegrounds will be the first battle royale mode for hero shooters. The mode is intended to offer a mix of skill-based MOBA and survival gameplay.
Paladins: Battlegrounds is a mode that combines hero shooter and battle royale
Paladins: Battlegrounds is a mode for the free MOBA shooter Paladins from Hi-Rez Studios. It is not a standalone game, but an extension of Paladins.
Paladins distinguishes itself among hero shooters by having a deck system that allows the skills of the heroes to be individually customized. The cards influence aspects like range, damage, or cooldowns. This very card system will also play an important role in Paladins: Battlegrounds.
Paladins: Battlegrounds has been designed so that players must work closely together in teams and fulfill their roles. Supports should do their best to keep tank players alive. Tanks protect the rest of the team and DPS players unleash a hail of bullets. Flankers always look for individual targets they can quickly eliminate.
This is how a round of Paladins: Battlegrounds is structured – step by step explained
In Paladins: Battlegrounds, players fight for survival and need to collect loot that makes their heroes stronger. Here’s how a round in the Paladins battle royale mode looks:
- At the beginning, teams of 2-4 members are formed. A total of 100 players will compete against each other in a round.
- Each player chooses their hero from 8 random champions. All 100 players in a match have the same 8 heroes to choose from. The heroes always include 2 champions of each role: 2 x damage, 2 x support, 2 x flankers, 2 x tank.
- Players now land on a huge map that is about 300 times larger than the typical maps in Paladins.
- Then, everyone rides on a mount to explore the world. Players can dismount and remount at any time to move quickly from point A to point B.
- At more than four dozen outposts, players can look for equipment and keep an eye out for zeppelins that drop legendary gear.
- Once the fog appears, it’s all or nothing, as it is deadly and continuously shrinks the map’s radius. The last surviving team wins.
- If eliminated, players still have a chance to remain in the race. If health points fall to 0, players turn into chickens and can be transformed back by a teammate.
The special thing: The heroes have access to their 4 abilities. The ultimate skill, the strongest one, charges over the match and will only be available to the last survivors.
What impact does the equipment have and what loot is there?
The huge map is divided into various little towns that comprise the “normal” maps in Paladins. Here, players will find loot boxes filled with extremely powerful items.
This equipment consists of armor that provides benefits like more health or damage. These are always strong boosts for the champions! Those who want to win must get to these loot boxes. Players who hide forever and have nothing will be killed by others with items as soon as the fog shrinks the map’s radius.
Additionally, the card system comes to Paladins: Battlegrounds. HiRez announced that they are developing special cards for the champions that can balance weaknesses or strengths in the battle royale mode.
The cards are selected and equipped before the match. There could be cards that give a quick leap forward for champions that are slow and deal most damage at close range. How the cards will be integrated into Paladins: Battlegrounds remains to be seen.
The gameplay of a hero shooter brings a new component to battle royale
Normally, in a battle royale game, everyone is looking for the best weapon and armor.
Given that Paladins: Battlegrounds primarily originated from a hero shooter, the situation here looks a little different. All Paladins champions have a unique weapon that is fixed to them and cannot be changed. The cat flanker Maeve has her daggers and the action sniper Strix wanders around with his sniper.
Furthermore, the abilities of the heroes, of which everyone has access to 4. The fourth ability is particularly strong and is referred to as the ultimate. The ultimate charges slowly while playing. Only the players who make it to the last will be able to use it.
Every player must consider how to utilize the skills of the champs for survival. The tank lady Inara has a skill to summon a stone wall. This can be used to protect herself from enemies or to block their path so that confrontation is impossible. Lady Lian possesses skills with auto-aim and can dodge particularly quickly and easily.
So, in Paladins: Battlegrounds, it’s about cleverly utilizing the heroes and upgrading them with strong items. Their weapons and skills always remain the same.
In an exclusive interview with Paladins head Todd Harris, we talked about the role distribution in Paladins: Battle Royale. In test runs, the studio made the following observation, according to Harris:
Todd Harris: “We saw surprisingly much variety in the 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 just choose the sniper because of the high range. But that wasn’t the case.
We also observed that the most successful teams were the ones that stayed together and in which everyone fulfilled their role. The supports who stayed with their team also had the tendency to heal their group.”
When is the release of Paladins: Battlegrounds on PC, Xbox One, and PS4?
HiRez Studio announced that the release of Paladins: Battlegrounds on PC will be no later than March 2018. Players on PS4 and Xbox One will have to wait a bit longer.
According to Harris, they want to collect feedback from PC players before the battle royale mode comes to consoles. It is easier to implement on PC for technical reasons.
Gameplay video of Paladins: Battlegrounds from the HiRez Expo 2018
At the fan festival HiRez Expo 2018, an early alpha version of the battle royale mode was playable. First gameplay footage emerged here:
Paladins is free-to-play and the new battlegrounds mode will also be free to play for Paladins players. More impressions of the gameplay can be found here: Gameplay from Paladins Battlegrounds looks nothing like a PUBG clone
What do you think of a battle royale mode in a hero shooter? Does the combination of “Overwatch” and “PUBG” fit?
