Everyone seems to have their own idea of what the burgeoning battle royale genre needs. Cartoonish art and absurdly fast base building! No, no, it's all about the gritty realism. No, you're both fools, we need bigger maps with more players! Wrong again: short, goofy matches are the future.
Quite frankly, I have no idea what battle royale needs. Luckily, the folks at Endless Loop Studios are working on just the game to figure that out: Battle Royale Tycoon. Soon—and by soon I mean late 2018—everyone will be able to try their cockamamy battle royale ideas for themselves and see how they pan out.
Battle Royale Tycoon is a management sim about running your own battle royale business. As Endless Loop explains on Steam, as the battle royale head honcho you "design and build arenas for your guests to fight in, keep them happy, your workers paid and make a profit!" The studio also stresses that the game is very early in development and currently using placeholder assets, hence its, shall we say, rough appearance.
Historically, battle royale games are irresponsibly profitable, so I'm not doubting the "make a profit" part of that proposal. That being said, battle royale players are impossible to please, so I reckon keeping guests happy is going to take some work. In Battle Royale Tycoon, work boils down to building a park, filling it with combat arenas, and filling those arenas with weapons and obstacles. Think of it as Rollercoaster Tycoon but with gun fights instead of rides and blood instead of vomit.
Importantly, your arenas aren't necessarily locked to the traditional battle royale free-for-all: team deathmatch and capture the flag modes are also available. Can't fill your park with a bunch of the same ride, now can you? And funnily enough, you have to clean your arenas before each round begins, so I imagine the bulk of your employees will be janitors. Hey, maybe a janitorial sim is what battle royale needs? I can see it now: Battle Royale Cleanup Detail, a cathartic first-person sim where you sweep discarded guns into incinerators and replant bushes that have been shot to shit. Hang on, I'm gonna write this down.
