PUBG has done for the battle royale genre what Madonna did for costume couture.*
*Before writing this article, I sought to compare PUBG's popularisation of the battle royale genre to a famous trendsetter, despite knowing next to nothing about celebrity culture. Forbes via Google suggested the above. I've committed to this tenuous intro now.
That is to say, battle royale games have been around for quite some time, despite being pushed into the spotlight by the enduring success of Bluehole/PUBG Corp's runaway hit. Darwin Project is among the flurry of newcomers set to make their mark on 2018, and, when it does, its developers hope to create "more or less, The Hunger Games: The Game."
That's according to the game's creative director Simon Darveau who quoted the film and book series in a recent interview. In conversation with The Overpowered Noobs, Darveau suggested a Gamemaker-like director will determine how the game's 10-player matches unfold by gathering votes from players watching on.
"We have something very interesting that is called the Show Director," says Darveau. "We're trying to do, more or less, The Hunger Games: The Game. Remember in The Hunger Games there is the Gamemaker who can control the arena, they can send wolves—and there is a guy that can do this in our game. As a player, he can control a huge drone and is basically god in control of his own reality show."
Darveau adds: "The show director can actually get his community to vote directly on the streaming channel. He can say, for instance, one of the players should be [hunted], who should it be? He'll launch a vote, and basically stream viewers will vote for who is to be hunted and this happens directly in the game."
Darwin Project is expected to enter Early Access in the coming months. If you stepped into its open beta last weekend let us know how you fared in the comments below.
