Magnificent 5 is a Wild West Battle Royale, which sounds pretty cool in concept. The gameplay is also decent, but like some of the other less known BR games it lacks a player base. Occasionally there are a handful of players online, but most of the time it is either 0 or 1. The game is the Battle Royale version of the PVE Survival game New Frontier, which itself is the renamed version of Wild West Online (There are a lot of controversies behind the developer Free Reign Entertainment and especially their founder Sergey Titov. Titov was involved in creating games like The WarZ, Falling Skies, Last Man Standing and Wild West Online. These games are mostly not even really terrible, but they all have in common that they get pushed out way too early, they include clear P2W elements and they all get abandoned without warning, after they milked their playerbase dry. In some cases these games even got re-released without any changes as 'new' games under different names. The WarZ turned to Infestation Survivor Stories and Wild West Online to The New Frontier).
As I mentioned the gameplay of Magnificent 5 is pretty decent and is the closest to something like a BR version of Red Dead Redemption we are gonna get (Apparently a BR mode named Gun Rush has been added to Red Dead Redemption 2, but it seems to be much smaller scale and without a real BR map). That being said, it is still a very large gap to the gameplay of the Red Dead games. The game can be played in either third or first person view. By default, weapons are being used in first person and riding is being handled in third person, but players can freely switch between both.
The weapons (Rifles and Revolvers) fit the setting well. So far I only saw Pistols, Shotguns and Repeater-Rifles (semi Snipers) in the game, but there are also supposed to be real Snipers. Weapon variety isn't so large, but the setting certainly also limits this (SMGs or ARs would simply be unrealistic and unfair in the Wild West). The gunplay is slower in this game than most others, but that is somewhat accurate for the weapon technology of the time. Gameplay in general/movement is also a bit slower than in most BRs (except for Mortal Royale of course). Downed players will actually lie on the ground like they have been eliminated (they can still be revived by teammates at this point), but you actually need to shoot their corpse again, so that it turns into a gravestone. This is certainly something to get used to, since in others games there is clear visual difference between being downed and being eliminated, not so in Magnificent 5.
Every player starts the match with a horse, which seems appropriate for a Cowboy. Mounted combat is possible and certainly makes the hunt for other players more thrilling. The riding works well in general. Players will also need their horses, if they want to explore the huge map. (The western cities, Saloons, Sheriff offices etc. look nice) Apart from killing players, the main goal is to explore the beautiful map and find some treasure chests to collect. The map is really one of the highlights and porting it over from The new Frontier was good move. There are many different places to explore and a good variety of different elements, that represent the setting well.
There are no Solo or Duo modes, but instead only a 5 people Squad mode (hence the name Magnificent 5) with up to 100 players (good luck with that!). To start a match there are at least 5 Squads required (they however don't have to be filled up completely, so 5 players could theoretically be enough). Most times you will not find anybody and sit for hours in queues. The first time I actually managed to find a lobby my game crashed after the loading screen... Thankfully there are still some dedicated players out there, who occasionally queue in. With their help I got into some matches (Still important to note, that some of them just play for grinding and not to play competitively). If you want to play, than you should definitely either check the Steam Charts or a Discord-channel, because you will otherwise very likely only waste your time.
The visuals of Magnificent 5 are totally okay. They are not comparable to those of the best games in the genre, but they certainly look better than that of most of the trashier BR games out there. Sound effects are decent and fit the setting.
Pro:
- Beautiful and large Wild West map
- Setting has been captured well (horses, cities, weapons etc.)
- Gameplay is overall decent
(- Riding works well)
(- Choice between First and Third person perspective)
Contra:
- Slow gameplay
- Lack of a playerbase
(- Smaller weaponselection)
(- Squads only)
(- Controversial developer)
Result:
Magnificent 5 is special in the sense, that is the only real Wild West Battle Royale game worth talking about (we are simply going to pretend, that Red West Royale doesn't exist). It captures the atmosphere of the scenario pretty well and it has a gorgeous prairie map. While the gameplay may be realistic, it still fells to slow and heavy in comparison to others. Furthermore, it is difficult to even play the game, because there are so few players out there. I would still recommend trying out the game, because it is definitely not a bad game and it has a cool Wild West atmosphere to offer.
5.5/10
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