KO Royale was the Battle Royale LTM in the dodgeball game 'Knockout City'. It was first introduced in the Royal Rumble LTM during Season 3 and featured a Solo mode with up to 8 participants. In Season 5 the mode returned with some different variants, which switched up the Ball selection during the matches. Season 6 on the other hand mixed things up by offering a Duo mode for 4 Teams, named Team Royale.
You may ask yourself why we are even talking about this gamemode. The most simple answer is, because I am a Battle Royale fan and like to talk about the good, the bad and the ugly.
KO Royale's greatest strength was the fantastic Knockout City gameplay. Knockout City is a Dodgeball Shooter, in which you pick up balls from the ground and use them as weapons. The 'catch' is, that you can also snatch these balls and throw them back at your opponents with a variety of techniques.
KO Royale took the classic Knockout City maps, but gave them a shrinking zone around them (the true BR style) and removed the respawn ability from the contestants. Players got points for Knockouts and Survival, but the all determining aspects were the crowns. The last man standing in every round got a crown and the player, who first received a second crown would ultimately win the Battle Royale match.
The shrinking zone, the lack of respawns, the limited amount of Balls available and the prospect of the crown, turned this gamemode into a 'hunt or be hunted' situation. Being too offensive could lead to an early exit and multiple dodgeballs in the back. The Zone damage in KO Royale didn't immediately kill players, but instead took partial health points of them (which was unique to this gamemode). Elbow attacks therefore became an effective way off eliminating other players by knocking them out of the zone.
I really appreciated this twist on the classic KO City gameplay and in my opinion it proved that you don't always need a fully fledged standalone game to get a compelling Battle Royale experience.
The only downside was the 8 Player limitation. I would have loved to see how KO Royale would have played out with 16 players and perhaps slightly enhanced maps. But I guess that would have been a bit too much to ask from a LTM event.
The official Knockout City servers shutdown on the 6th of June 2023, but Knockout City and KO Royale can still be played with the private servers, which got set up by the developers. (https://www.knockoutcity.com/updates/knockout-city-private-hosted-server-edition). There is also an unofficial community launcher, which makes it easier to play and setup servers. (https://kocity.xyz). Unfortunately the private servers are only accesible on PC and not on Console.
7/10
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