4 Failed Battle Royale Games:
In the following article I will take a closer(but definitely shorter than usual) look on 4 'Failed' Battle Royale Games, that had to close the servers. I have previously looked at games like The Culling 2 or Radical Heights, that had to close due to financial issues. In the case of the Culling 2 this could easily be explained with the lacking quality of the title (My personal Score 2-3/10), while I felt that Radical Heights was in its core actually a fun game with noticeable flaws (6-7/10).
Today we will try to figure out if the closure of Survival Frenzy, Last Man Standing, Horizon Source and Ark of Horizon were tragedies or reasons for celebration.
1. Survival Frenzy:
Survival Frenzy was a melee focused Battle Royale game, which lasted from April 2019 till June 2020. The game originally released as Buy to Play game, but turned into an F2P model in January 2020. The game's population always remained extremely low (All time peak 110 players at the same time), which the F2P release was supposed to change, but failed at.
There are other Melee focused BR games like Darwin Project or The Culling 1, but the Twist of Survival Frenzy was to use household weapons in a realistic setting.
The game contained 4 maps in total. The default map was a small beach island with a couple of holiday residences. At the release of the game it was the only map and was probably the most played one overall. It was generally a well designed and visually appealing map. Future content updates brought a night map, that played in a small suburb neighbourhood, and a jungle map, containing a couple of tree-houses, cages and ancient ruins. The last map was a desert iteration, that included small fortifications surrounded by wooden huts, palms and rivers. The desert map also got a special environmental element in form of a desert storm, that blurs the vision.
The weaponpool in Survival Frenzy consisted nearly exclusively of melee weapons. Knives, baseball bats, sledgehammers, golf clubs, ladles and brooms were the go to weapons, which could either be used to hit enemies or thrown at them. Players could also use suitcases, chairs, bottles or pepper mills as projectiles or simply engage in fist fights instead (It was also possible to perform a kick attack). Every weapon/fist had the option to either use fast or slow attacks. Slow attacks had to be charged, but did more damage (Like in every other game with this system). There were also some special items like bear traps or gasoline containers to trap other players. Of course the game also included a couple of Healing items to recover from a tough fight or a poorly placed jump.
The target of every match was to either eliminate all other players or to escape the match via a helicopter. After a certain time the chopper would arrive at the map, dropping a rope ladder, players had to climb. Only one player could escape and the climbing process took a long time, giving other players the opportunity to either hit them off the rope or throw some projectile at them. If there were more than 2-3 players left, this could get really tedious. Thankfully there was an alternative in form of the gun lockers. Every map had a couple of key boxes scattered around the place and only one of them contained a key, that opened the locker. The lockers hold either shotguns, snipers or pistols. In any case these weapons were very powerful and allowed the owner to easily kill the majority of the players left. You might even say the fire weapons were quite op and could unbalance the match (If somebody found the key and didn't miss all his shots...).
Players could either unlock some of the clothes via survival points they received for playing the game or getting some login rewards. The fancier outfits could of course only be obtained in the ingame shop for money. This system seemed generally pretty reasonable and will certainly not the reason for the failure of the game.
The biggest problem of the game was its clunky gameplay in general. Movement and attacks felt pretty unprecise and random, which was a huge problem. Frustrating gameplay mixed with the lack of players created a freefall effect, which prevented the game from ever taking off (Only having Korean Servers and none for Europa or North America was also a bad idea, which gave many players very high Pings and made the game near unplayable for them). The idea behind Survival Frenzy to create a wacky melee focused game for players to goof around was generally worth considering, but their gameplay execution left too much to be desired. The maps and the body models were generally quite well designed and with the right gameplay this could have been a smaller, less competitive alternative in the Battle Royale genre.
(4-5/10)
2. Last Man Standing
Last Man Standing was one of the earlier Battle Royale games and released in March 2017 as an F2P alternative to the popular H1Z1. It resembles its inspiration source very much and both gameplay wise and from an art style view doesn't do many things really different.
Something that I did like about the gameplay was the option to switch between First and Third Person Perspective at all times. PUBG and Cuisine Royale also have a feature like this and I believe it is always good to give players options how they want to play their game.
The weapon pool in Last Man Standing was nearly identical to games like H1Z1 and PUBG. If you ever played those or at least saw a bit of gameplay, than you know exactly what to expect. Since they copied it well, i would generally describe this as well done. One thing that this game did a little bit differently are the scopes. Aiming down sight aims a lot closer in this game than in most others. There are scopes in the game, but the standard weapons are already zooming in pretty much, so that they are less important than in other games.
A standout feature of the game was the ability to deploy a barricade in front of the player in order to get some cover. This feature was quite controversial and put many players away from the game. I myself also think it was a cheap way to avoid gunfights and players should rather need to find natural cover in the environment during gunfights, if they choose to do so.
Even more debatable was the usage of Boosts in the game. Those for example allowed players to gain more XP during a match (Nothing unfair so much), but also for example to start with ammunition already equipped or get a shield or medpack from the start. These Boost could either be unlocked with level ups or purchased with money, which made them kind of P2W elements. The advantages of these boosts weren't that large, but still totally unnecessary and I personally find something like this very off putting. (Unbalancing a game to make money, no matter how slightly, is always a bad sign...)
Last Man Standing released with a Solo mode in the beginning and shortly after added Duo, Trio and Squad modes and additional ranked modes. These Duo/Trio/Squad modes however had a twist and could only be played with friends and not random teammates.
The game also had an additional Survival/Free for all mode called 'The Proving Grounds'. This mode can be used to explore the map, familiarize with Last Man Standings gameplay and just have some casual fun. I believe this is actually a good addition to the game.
Last Man Standing has a realistic visual style, but the texture quality is in general just okayish. H1Z1 for example looks better and that game is certainly not the visual benchmark in the BR genre. Sound Effects are also only average. They function, but do sound a bit cheap and often there are nearly no sounds at all hearable.
The Map of Last Man Standing has a very realistic look, clearly being inspired by games like H1Z1 and PUBG. I would nonetheless conclude, that the Last Man Standing map has more environmental objects in terms of grasslands, forests and hillsides and fewer cities. Buildings are also less detailed than in the other games and textures are generally fewer and a bit less detailed. Despite the lower quality, the map still accomplished the look of a decaying nature side. During the course of the game's lifetime the developers have occasionally updated the map without really changing the feel and flow of the map.
There are no Vehicles to traverse the map in Last Man Standing, which is noticeable since the map is still relatively big and comparable to H1Z1 and PUBG, which both offer vehicles. The zone also does a lot of damage in a short time, which I generally like, but in this game it seems to have taken quite a bit of walking to outrun a zone without any vehicle possibilities. The zone is in this game an electric field, that electrocutes all players outside of the playable area. That sounds pretty cool, unfortunately the implementation wasn't done so well. The zone doesn't consistently move, but instead always jumps a few meter ahead and makes some weird noises in the process.
Another point of controversy is the game's decision to randomly spawn players across the map. There are some games that use random starting positions (like Darwin Project, The Culling 1 etc.), but there are also a lot of games that let you jump out of a plane (PUBG, Fortnite, Apex, Warzone etc.) or some Mixtypes (H1Z1). Some players will like this feature, others will not. It is still important to note, that in Last Man Standing loot isn't really scattered equally, which means some spawn points will be a lot worse than others, which could be seen as unfair.
An annoyance rather than a point of controversy was the loading time before a match was going to start. In most other games once the prematch lobby is full, there are about 20 seconds to 1mins till the match starts. In Last Man Standing on the other hand players had to always wait a full 3 mins period after the queuing time. This is honestly just torture and total time waste, which is very difficult to find reasons for.
Many players also complained about the amount of Bugs and Glitches in the game, which is honestly something quite common in F2P early access games. The developers according to their patch notes also tried to resolve the issue, but many players were still under the impression that the developers were unable to cope with the high number of annoying Bugs.
Characters in the Last Man Standing can be customized and this is obviously how most F2P games finance themselves. The skins in my opinion didn't look that impressive, but were at least not as crazy looking as in some other games. The game allowed to both purchase Skins with Credits or Lootboxes. With the credits the player could choose which skin he wants and common ones apparently unlocked pretty fast, while the very rare stuff took a lot of time to grind. Lootboxes had a high chance of containing multiple rare items and could either be unlocked through level ups or purchases with real money. Leveling was pretty slow in the game, which was probably done to incentivize purchases of Lootboxes or Credits. Nonetheless, the Customization system generally seemed pretty fair to me. A bunch of Skins could easily be obtained through simply playing the game and people who were more interested in fancier skins could unlock them with money, but there was no need to do so.
The Developers of Last Man Standing have a very bad reputation. Officially the developers are Free Reign Entertainment, but the publishers behind the game apparently usually create new studios to publish games and have a track record of abandoning at least half a dozen games after just a couple of months. Games can obviously fail, but here milking players short term, while never truly improving their games before closing them down, seem to be a pretty unethical business model. Last Man Standing for example looks practically identical to their previous game 'Falling Skies'. Nearly all their games have already been shutdown. It is very questionable whether they ever wanted to support any of these games. Last Man Standing seems to have been playable till the end of 2018, which already made it one of their longest living games. The publisher also never announced the server shutdown, players could just not login anymore from one day to the other.
Last Man Standing had the potential to be a decent F2P alternative in the early days of the BR genre, where Buy to play was a lot more common than in 2020. The foundation of the gameplay is quite worthwhile, but elements like the Barricades, the Boosts, long queuing times and squads only with friends would put me off this game. Some players might obviously even like the Barricades and for them Boosts and squads only with friends might not be a concern. I just feel that nowadays there are more polished and less controversial alternatives in the F2P area of the BR genre, so that the shutdown of the game was somewhat logical.
(5.5/10)
3. Horizon Source
Horizon Source was a Battle Royale game with Hero abilities and Fortnite like Building aspects, which is why it often got referred to as a Fortnite and Overwatch Rip-off. Being a Chinese game didn't really help to fight the copy accusation, but I would certainly also give it some credit for doing things in their own way. The game released in March 2018, when the BR genre didn't have that many large competitors outside of Fortnite, H1Z1 and PUBG.
Horizon Source has Hero abilities, but they work differently than in Overwatch and I don't see any visual similarities with the game. The Overwatch Comparison therefore seems a bit far-fetched, but they certainly stole the building element from Fortnite. There are certain gameplay elements that all shooters share, but the buildable walls and ramps are not a part of it. The building blocks consisted only of grey metal (there were no wooden or stone alternative like in the role model) and therefore looked a bit artificial and unfitting of the tropical environment of the game. The building animation itself was straight out stolen from Fortnite. This copy paste job was in my opinion unnecessary and gave the game quite a bit of criticism and mockery. (Upon closer inspection I also noticed, that the item bar in this game looks extremely similar to Fortnite...)
The 6 different Hero characters look a bit like they were taken straight out of an Anime, which is personally didn't like that much, because the map actually has realistic visuals and these characters didn't seem to one hundred percent fit in. The abilities of the heroes range from healing to blocking incoming damage for a short time or a more powerful single shot. The abilities seem to freshen things up, but were apparently not such a prominent part of the gameplay, as in Apex Legends for example.
Horizon Source despite some strengths was still lacking optimization in terms of gameplay. Movement and Gunplay were still a bit too clunky. It wasn't as bad as the worst in the genre, but certainly also not as good as the best games in the BR business. The gameplay overall was okay, but not above average.
The weapon pool mostly consisted of the usual suspects, but they were also a couple of interesting additions like Shuriken Stars or electromagnetic traps. There were Solo and Squad modes available, but no Duos. Maybe they were planning to release this later on with some new heroes, but neither ever happened.
I really liked, that you could, similarly to PUBG and Cuisine Royale, switch between First Person and Third Person perspective at all times. This made the game appeal to both audiences and enabled players to choose the right perspective for the appropriate weapon and situation.
Another aspect that I really liked was the tropical/jungle map of the game. This reminded me a lot of games like Far Cry 1 or a pacific Battlefield map. The focus on the map design was clearly on building a beautiful environment instead of a themepark map. The cities and POIs are all very generic and forgettable, even though they don't do anything particularly wrong. Because of the beautiful environment I nonetheless really like the map however.
Horizon Source implements a noticeable amount of Bots in every match, similar to Realm Royale for example. This obviously is a matter of opinion and controversy. I understand the reasoning and if you look at the player numbers, which were never higher than 1000 concurrent players and quickly dropped to 200-300 one month after release, the decision was probably wise. It's certainly better to get matches going with smaller numbers of players, that to be stuck in pregame lobbies for all eternity. The falling player numbers in combination with the death of the developer were the main reasons for the early shutdown of the game.
Horizon Source tried to mix elements from other games like the hero abilities and building tools with the classic BR elements in an admittedly visually appealing map. The reason for its lack of popularity was probably, that it didn't copy anything better than the originals and that the gameplay and gunplay was overall just okay. Horizon Source was not a bad game, but also failed to offer more than short term fun.
(5.75/10)
4. The Ark of Horizon
The Ark of Horizon was a Chinese Battle Royale game with one clear standout feature. It had superhero like Jetpacks, that allowed players to fly through the air like Iron Man.
This was honestly the coolest feature of the game and probably the reason why most players tried it out. The jetpack didn't just temporarily boost the player up for a couple of seconds, like in a lot of other games, but it allowed quick traversing of large areas of the map, in a stylish fashion. The Iron Man comparison therefore seems pretty fitting. The Jetpack could however not be used indefinitely and required fuel. The fuel system in Ark of Horizon worked a lot like a stamina system for running in a couple of other games. After long periods of flying, the players will have to stop using the Jetpack to let it replenish itself.
Ark of Horizon praises itself for having combat on the ground, in the air and even below water. It is true, that the jetpacks enabled players to quickly reach another platform, but it didn't necessarily change the combat itself. The Jetpack could be used to quickly fly towards another player and start a surprise attack on him or to dodge incoming attacks. In air combat however was very rare and difficult to perform. The jetpacks were mostly used to get to another place quicker or to reach a platform in the air, on which combat than took place. The under water areas were actually even a bit disappointing since the water didn't seem to impact movement at all. Combat below water played the same way as on ground, just the environment looked a bit different.
The map in The Ark of Horizon consisted of a couple of islands, that were mostly filled with woods. The unique element were the flying ship-platforms in the air, which gave the game a bit of variety and something to differentiate it from the rest. The visuals overall were alright, but also not as good as the most polished games in the genre. The Ark of Horizon however definitely looked better than all of those mobile BR games, which usually have pretty hideous PC versions.
The soundeffects were also just okay, but often a bit too quiet and footsteps for example sounded pretty reverberating.
The weapon pool in the game is very comparable to most other BR-Games and consists of all classics like Shotguns, Assault Rifles, Snipers and Pistols.
Every player also got two abilities, that they could select before every match. One was a passive ability like to regenerate Health, Fuel or Armor and the other ability was an active one, like to create a dome shield or use invisibility for a short time.
Another nice feature of the game was the last stand mode. When players lost all their health, they would enter this mode, where they could only use melee weapons anymore. If they managed to quickly kill an opponent with the melee weapons, they would regain the active health status. During last stand, their new life bar would however constantly deplete. This prevented the last stand feature from being unbalanced and required players to really fight for their survival.
Same as Horizon Source, Realm Royale or Radical Heights this game also used Bots to fill up lobbies. Some players recorded, that the Bots unfortunately took over a couple of months after release and they rarely encountered real opponents anymore. This was probably one of the main reasons for the game's downfall. The game had Solo and Duo modes, but no squad option. A nice feature was, that players could before the match test all weapons in the pregame lobby.
Ark of Horizon was at the end a very short lived game, which was probably due to its low player count (Peak player count never higher than around 250, which for a Battle Royale game is very low). The game was released in January 2019 and the permanent server shutdown followed in May of the same year. Supposedly the shutdown was due to technical issues, but I assume that is just a different way of saying the game didn't accumulate enough money with the lack of players.
The Ark of Horizon was a pretty unknown game within the BR genre and I believe that it would have deserved a bit more recognition, at least if you compare it to the armada of mobile games like Creative Destruction or Cyber Hunter, which had/have a much bigger population. The biggest problems of Ark of Horizon probably were, that apart from flying and the last stand mode, it didn't have any standout features or over-average gameplay elements. The lack of promotion and players outside of Asia was what finally determined the games fate. Despite this I would still like to see the implementation of the flying ability to some other game, because Ark of Horizon did this one well and for that alone the game was worth giving a try.
(5.75/10)
