(gunfire)
- [Ryan] Now that battle royale games have become legion
the new arms race is to find clever ways for a new game
to set itself apart from the Fortnites and PUBGs
of the world.
In Tencent's winter-themed Ring of Elysium,
which recently launched as a surprisingly polished
early-access with cosmetic-only microtransactions,
there's more than a little inspiration
from those two behemoths, but its wintery theme,
clever new ideas around movement,
and exciting final moments make it feel distinct.
Here, a smaller than average group of 60 players
battle it out to escape a deadly blizzard
that ravages remote mountain towns,
but Ring mixes up the way you get from point A to point B
with a map that features ski lifts, snowboards,
hang-gliders, and mountain-climbing gear.
That change injects exciting creativity into the genre
without going quite as far into the off-the-wall fantasy.
Outside of that, the biggest change
that Ring of Elysium introduces
is that there is not just one winner.
Instead, a helicopter flies in to rescue survivors
with four total seats.
So regardless of whether you play as a full squad,
duos, or solo, only four people can leave the match alive.
That gives the last moments a fresh
and completely exhilarating change of pace.
On the other hand, a lot of the moment-to-moment gameplay
feels extremely familiar to anyone
who's spent a fair amount of time with PUBG.
That's largely a good thing.
Characters have a noticeable weight and slowness
with affords a satisfying realism
to the movement and animations.
The pace is relatively slow and deliberate.
There's also a visual resemblance as well
in terms of the art style and even the menus and interface.
As an early-access game,
it's off to an incredibly polished start.
Ring is free to play,
with a robust and option $10 Adventurer Pass
that works just like Fortnite's Battle Pass,
which is a proven and fair model.
It lets you unlock tiers of rewards
that includes new skins and XP boosts,
many of which can only be accessed
if you pay for the season's pass.
There's only a single map right now, but it's a large one.
Disappointingly, instead of dropping from a plane
or a battle bus, you just pick where to spawn on the map
and immediately appear on the ground
with your load out, weapon in hand.
This eliminates the exciting element of randomness
and strategy that happens in other battle royales
as you land.
Instead, it's more about immediately vying for position
and finding the most advantageous point.
On the other hand, gunplay is strong.
In addition to the expected assortment of rifles,
pistols, and shotguns, there are weapon attachments
like new grips, expanded magazines, and scopes
to improve your firepower.
And again, everything from inventory management
to equipping attachments feels almost identical
to PUBG, with some subtle changes.
For example, all attachments auto-equip
to whatever gun you're holding,
you can have two scopes assigned to a gun
for toggling with a single button,
and you can carry any gun you want
in any of your three weapon slots.
That means no pistols required.
It's liberating.
In general, everything is less clunky than in PUBG,
and when you combine the flexibility of movement options
between ski lifts, snowboards, and vehicles,
the monotony of aimlessly running through empty fields
just vanishes.
There's an actual cover system too.
If you're close to a piece of cover,
like a building or a tree,
your character automatically sticks to it
and takes the best position to hide their body,
similar to Rockstar games like Grand Theft Auto V.
This is way better than awkwardly poking your face out.
As a new early-access game,
Ring of Elysium is already more polished and feature-rich
than many of the other battle-royale games out there.
By injecting a fresh take on movement
with creative solutions like snowboards
and streamlined loot management,
in addition to an escape chopper
that creates a last-second rush
to be one of the four survivors,
Tencent has introduced a surprisingly inventive version
of what's become gaming's hottest
and most crowded new genre.
For more battle royale reviews,
check out our takes on Call of Duty: Blackout,
H1Z1, and Battlerite Royale.
And for everything else, keep it right here on IGN.
(gunfire)