Apex Legends dropped this week, and proved that there's still plenty of room for innovation in the battle royale genre. Red Dead Redemption 2 proved that you don't have to go modern to make it work either; with the right imagination, mass-scale murder on increasingly smaller maps works just as well with revolvers as it does with rocket launchers. So what does our crew want to see next from the battle royale game? This is the latest in a series of big questions we'll be interrogating our writers with, so share your answers and suggestions for topics with us on Twitter.
Bloodsucker Battle Royale
I'd love horror battle royale, based around the immortal myth of the vampire. The closing circle could be the fiery light of dawn, burning your cursed form, making your hunting ground smaller and smaller. Your superhuman speed and strength would keep the action snappy, and whoever you feed on - we'll ignore the whole rule about vampires not feeding on other vampires for now - would be within your thrall for the next round, unable to damage you. The weapons could have a whole archaic vibe, with stakes for melee attacks (obviously) and the skins could run from sparkly bouffant lover boys to hideous bat creatures. The more I write this, the more I need to play it - anyone have a book on game development for dummies I can borrow? Rachel Weber
Battlefield Royale: Bad Company 3
Given Battlefield 5's limited scale as a sandbox, and all the troubles DICE is currently going through in trying to balance out the game's long suffering multiplayer, I'm not too hopeful about the state of its upcoming battle royale mode, Firestorm. What I would love is a battle royale game set in the Bad Company universe; which is where the series was always at its most carefree and chaotic. Imagine a fight to the death on Wake Island featuring jets, choppers, tanks, destructible environments, Levelution, Behemoths, and (whisper it) elevators, not to mention all the modern weaponry and gadgets we've seen from Battlefield games past. Underscore this with the series' class-based squad system and military sim-inspired gunplay, and you have a winner. Sadly, EA doesn't seem interested in green-lighting Bad Company 3 in the first place, let alone a battle royale mode set in its frantic, light-humored universe. Sigh. Alex Avard
Splatoon: Calamari Supreme
Your squid squad Super Jumps onto the evacuated streets of Inkopolis and you start inking trails into deserted shops. New ink weapons and fashionable, ability-enhancing clothes await you inside. A minute later a distant siren blares: the Salmonid Tide rises once again. As its toxic green waters pour into Inkopolis, only a steadily shrinking portion of the city will remain safe for Inkling habitation. New threads acquired, your team inks and swims toward the safe zone until a gaudy new color catches your eye on the other side of the street. Another squid squad has been through here - and recently, judging by the squelching sounds coming from inside that hip cafe. Inking halted to conceal your presence, you post up around the entrance for an ambush. Soon their trendy sneakers will be yours. Connor Sheridan
Uncharted: Battle Royale
I'm having a lot of fun with Apex Legends at the moment, and I've been playing a fair bit of Destiny 2 PvP lately, but Uncharted 3 is still my favorite multiplayer shooter of all time. I once spent an entire summer playing nothing but Uncharted 3, and I'd do it again if I still had the time and it still had the player base. The climbing, the kill streak-style weapon kickbacks, the high TTK - that game was made for me. I'd love to see Naughty Dog bring the same multiplayer elements to the bustling battle royale genre. I always loved experimenting with loadouts in Uncharted 3, and my favorite part of battle royale games is making the best of whatever gear you find, so I reckon the two would be a perfect match. For the premise, we could be 100 explorers fighting over an ancient treasure hidden on a deserted island, and the encroaching circle could be an army of the series' many monsters (I'm partial to the wraiths in Uncharted 3). Plus it would be a Naughty Dog game, so you know it would be stunning. Austin Wood
Rust Royale
I want a battle royale game that goes on for days, weeks, or possibly months. Nobody has yet to do it, but it reminds me of the game mode in Old School Runescape known as Iron Man, where when you die, you lose absolutely everything. You might not die for weeks or months, but you have most likely put in a lot of hours by then and probably have a lot of good loot, making you an even bigger target. The reason I chose Rust is just due to its friendly neighborhood community vibes that it has going on. Ideally, you would drop in as a squad of 4, craft materials, build your base, survive other enemies, and move into the circle daily in order to not be touched by the radiated storm. You wouldn't know when you'd be attacked as Rust's game type is stealthy and most of the action happens in the middle of night because... you're asleep. So each member of your squad would have to do a night shift in order to protect everyone while you sleep in real life. Making the storm go on for weeks would really make a victory royale just that even bit sweeter. Just imagine that your teammate is on his 'shift' while you're at work (squads work best if you're all in different time zones), and all of a sudden you get a text message with the urgent words "We are being attacked." There would be no feeling like it... and a change of underwear might be necessary. Brandon Saltalamacchia
The Raid Royale
My biggest issue with the battle royale genre is getting shot at - or trying to shoot - from afar. Something about that kind of bullet travel and drop just pulls me out of the experience, and there's nothing worse than dying because you got sniped in the head by someone who's so far off in the distance, they're roughly four pixels big on your screen. But the tense cat-and-mouse games that happen indoors are what I live for in BR games - particularly cowering in an office cubicle in H1Z1 (remember that ol' chestnut?). To force everyone to stay indoors but still keep the action tense and varied, I'm thinking of something akin to The Raid or Dredd, with both films featuring a tenacious hero trapped in a dilapidated skyscraper full of people trying to kill them. Instead of picking a drop point from the air, you'd simply spawn within one of the hundreds of apartments, frantic to find a gun before your neighbors do. You could still go for longshots from across other floors, but you'd never suddenly drop dead in an empty field beneath the open sky. In a similar vein, I think I'd be set for life if a studio opted to make a BR game set in the Kowloon Walled City. Lucas Sullivan
Star Wars: Battle Royale
2017’s Star Wars Battlefront 2 has aged like a fine space wine, but I’ve still not recovered from the loss of a down-and-dirty, boots-on-the-ground Star Wars FPS like the now-defunct First Assault. So let’s go for the next best thing: a battle royale game set in a galaxy far, far away. It’s the perfect setting if you think about it. To begin with, there are more colorful personalities in the Mos Eisley cantina than many games combined. Secondly, the series is famous for extras that are designed to be interesting without any backstory whatsoever (Empire’s bounty hunter lineup, for instance).
There’s also a great in-universe justification for this style of game. Perhaps it’d be an illegal fight-ring established by the Hutt cartels with their captured prisoners. The Hutts’ sadistic nature lends itself to a gradually shrinking battlefield, and it’d allow you to include almost any race you fancied as well. Stormtroopers, droids, rebel spies, maybe even a cheeky Jedi - they’re all fair game. Give us battle royale with an Ewok, you cowards! Benjamin Abbott
Battle Royale: Metro Wastelands
I would definitely play a battle royale game in a map infused with the decay, danger, and risk of Metro. This would be a battle royale where the landscape would be just as much an enemy as the other players you’ll be battling for royales with. The circle would be toxic, radioactive air, in which only the strongest of gas mask filters can buy you some time. Naturally, such a premium item would be a true rarity appearing infrequently across the map - itself a ruined and devastated landscape. Such a battlefield would utilize structures, topography, and landscape features to create loads of hidey-holes to hunker down in, open wasteland fields, hidden sniper spots, and dangerous gauntlets to run. Perhaps there can even be some of those man-eating plants sprouting from places, with mutant bears and Nosalis beasts dropped in randomly too... But with all these risks comes rewards and opportunities: as well as your standard weapon caches, there’ll be ruins galore to loot and salvage through, offering up myriad ways to optimize and adapt your weapons, armor, and ammo on the fly and to gain environmental advantages. Rob Dwiar
