Chinese tech giant Tencent is set to publish a battle royale game called Europa, which features 100-player battles on an exotic island with a dynamic weather system and destructible cover.
The firm—which is currently trying to buy PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds developer Bluehole and has secured the rights to publish the game in China—released a trailer (above) for Europa today that promises underwater exploration, environmental kills and paragliding.
The Steam page is not available in English and Tencent has not explicitly referred to Europa as a battle royale game, but the Steam tags (Massively Multiplayer, Action, Shooter, Survival) suggest it will be a direct competitor to PUBG. Plus, in the top left corner of the footage in the trailer you can see two sets of numbers: one for kills and one, presumably, for the number of players left alive (that second number is low, but I reckon that's because there were only a few players in a server trying to get clips for the trailer).
And then there's this tweet from Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad, who covers the Chinese market:
Here is a trailer for Tencent's new Battle Royale game called Europa.The game is running on Tencent's QuickSilver X engine. 100 players drop in on an Island, one survives. Real time weather system + cover destruction system. Beta starts late Decemberhttps://t.co/fd4Ec66r7TNovember 26, 2017
The environmental destruction is the thing that immediately sets is apart. In the trailer you can see one player shooting a bundle of metal tubes to send them crashing down on an enemy's head, chest-high concrete walls that disintegrate under a hail of bullets and a player shooting out the lights to send an area into darkness. I'm intrigued.
The equipment looks more high-end than the slightly makeshift gear you get in PUBG, and the island setting more tropical. A dynamic weather system should mean that you have to constantly adapt the way you play, in the same way that you should approach a foggy game of PUBG differently to one in which you're being pelted by rain.
The game is expected to launch next year, although whether it's available outside of China remains to be seen (with the popularity of the battle royale genre, you wouldn't bet against it). What do you make of it?
