Recent reviews by Steakpuncher

I'm going to start this review by disclosing the fact that I am not very good at this game. This is important for reasons that will be mentioned shortly.

As a game and a concept, this is actually quite fun, and this comes from someone who bought the original Battlerite (Arena) and found it a bit dull.

There is an obvious element of RNG to it, like many other Battleroyale games, and in many ways it's something you expect from these games. In other BattleRoyales you might get a great gun, but it's no good without a great scope. In Battlerite BR, you might get a gap closer to get in melee range of a ranged player, but still not have your shield to protect yourself, or a snare to keep them in range. Various pots, items, hazards, and airdrops appear on the map as well giving you options for strategy etc.

Where the games falls down is the "unobvious" element to the RNG. Rankings. In this game you start off as Bronze, and work your way up to Grand Champion. I beleive the intention is that you face better and better players as you progress, and in each match you have a fairly good chance to win. The problem is this is not how it executes.

First of all, all early ranks are really easy to climb, I'm currently fluctuating between top gold and low platinum. You can achive this by dropping somewhere quiet and just waiting about for everyone who went into the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to die while you farm gear and skills quietly.

Second of all, the ranks are meaningless. As high gold, I have been placed against people who are Grand Champion in rank on quite a few occasions. These experts get dropped in against mediocre players and procieed to wipe the floor with everyone. Two minutes into some games, some guy is "godlike" 15 players are dead, mainly to this one guy, and the match is a foregone conclusion. At best you can hope there is another GC player in there so you watch watch an interesting fight, at worst, you get a quick and painful lesson in how bad you are.

The problem is I bought the game on the basis of the ranking system. I assumed I would be put against players of my calibre, and have a way to track my improvement etc. Instead, I'm getting smashed by experts, and the times when I do play well, I've no idea if it's because I'm actually improving, or maybe I just got lucky and got to be the Platinum fish in the Bronze pond.

I think this is all brought about by the pricing, many people I've told the game about just don't want to pay the price to try it out. I'm only playing because I got it on sale. Something needs to give cost wise because many people are just not paying full price for the game, and without a decent userbase the problems I've highlighted will just get worse as people like me leave. I honestly think the game needs a significant price reduction, or needs to go F2P and I say that as someone who has spent money on it.