Battle royale games are still riding the popularity wave, with Fortnite, Call of Duty: Warzone, and PUBG still enjoying huge success. Many developers are trying to replicate the formula that makes these games headliners, and traditional shooters like Halo are moving into the battle royale space. It seems like it is just a matter of time before Blizzard enters the battle… royale. We may already have a preview of it in the recently launched Overwatch 2. The sequel introduces some big changes as the game moves to a free-to-play model and 5v5 team battles.
The mode is currently only available in Custom Games and has settings mentioning a ‘Circle’ that closes over time (Battle Royale style) pic.twitter.com/muyjfQktVU — Overwatch Cavalry 🇬🇧 (@OverwatchCaval) October 4, 2022 Players found a survival game mode under the Custom Games menu. The Overwatch Cavalry tweeted a photo of the custom game mode. The custom survival mode looks to be a free-for-all elimination. It features a shrinking circular area where players can fight until only one player or team remains. The survival mode has a circle close start time and a final circle radius setting as it is a custom game. The settings also include a circle close speed multiplier which can be used to increase the speed at which players encounter each other. According to Overwatch Calvary, the game mode does not work properly as there is no circle that appears during gameplay. The mode may still be a work in progress that was accidentally included in the release version of the game.
Blizzard acquires battle royale game developer
Interestingly, Blizzard recently acquired Proletariat, the studio behind the magic-based battle royale game Spell Break. The game had some potential for its unique take on the battle royale genre but did not have a big enough player base for long-term development. The servers for Spell Break are set to shut down in 2023 and most of the developers have been tasked to help develop World of Warcraft: Dragonflight. Blizzard has not confirmed how much work the new studio has done on the latest expansion for WoW. We can assume that Blizzard got some input from former Proletariat devs for the creation of the Survival custom game mode for OW2. Having some expert battle royale developers joining the OW2 team would certainly seem useful.
Overwatch 2 launch issues
Overwatch 2 launched yesterday and players have been reporting issues with the game ever since. Many were unable to log in and encounter “Unexpected Server Errors”, while others were frequently disconnected from the game. Blizzard confirmed that there was a massive distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS) on its servers.
— Mike Ybarra (@Qwik) October 4, 2022 A second DDoS attack was reported a few hours after and Blizzard is hard at work fixing the issue. Hopefully, full access to the server will be restored soon as thousands of players are still waiting to try out the free-to-play team-based shooter. Overwatch 2 is now available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch.
