The last five years has seen a plethora of Battle Royale games release, with a wave of half-baked, cash-grab titles, and only a handful of genuine attempts to make a worthwhile experience. Thankfully, in the last year or so, developers have started to wind down their frantic attempts to cash-in on the latest gaming trend and have left the genre to those titles that know what they're doing. Now, Call of Duty: Warzone, Apex Legends, and Fortnite are left at the top of the heap.
With years' worth of experience in the genre, these three games battle it out among themselves over who can keep a player invested for the longest time. Warzone offers classic Call of Duty mechanics, but has its fair share of bugs, Apex Legends has a unique hero-based system, but is a bit more complex to get into, and Fortnite is renowned for being the most accessible battle royale, but lacks the complexity of its competition. In a world where players only have limited time to sink into games, there may only be room for one battle royale title.
The Case For Call of Duty: Warzone
For fans of the Call of Duty shooting mechanics, Warzone should be an obvious pick for the battle royale to play in 2022. However, it's not as simple as that, Warzone has had a bit of a fall from grace recently. While it started out well, Warzone has failed to really embrace the live-service model it's using, focusing mainly on selling Call of Duty players more cosmetic skins. In its almost 2-year lifespan, Warzone has only had a handful of live events, each one being more lackluster than the last.
This trend looks like it might continue throughout 2022, as with the developers focused on fixing the new Caldera map, the chance of players seeing many fun live events or meaningful updates seems pretty unlikely. Warzone is having a difficult job of keeping its player-base invested right now, with the new map still causing a variety of bugs and the game being more unbalanced than ever.
Warzone's only saving grace is a sequel that's going to be next-gen exclusive. Though this isn't great news for players on PS4 or Xbox One, those lucky few who own a PS5 or Xbox Series X/S are about to receive a dedicated Warzone experience that actually offers more than the competition, with 120fps gameplay at launch rumored along with other graphical and performance improvements.
The Case For Apex Legends
Carrying similar tactical complexity and tight shooting mechanics to Warzone, Apex Legends isn't perfect, but it does strive to be. With the fairly unique hook of the game's Legends, Apex manages to immediately stand out from the crowd. The hero-based gameplay of Apex adds a whole new layer of complexity to the battle royale experience, and allows for a great deal of satisfying experimentation.
Couple this with the fact that Respawn is constantly updating the game, ensuring that Legends and weapons are balanced and fun to use, and Apex Legends is one of the tightest battle royale experiences out there. Apex Legends also receives a consistent supply of new content, with new maps being added every now and then, and a whole new Legend being added with every season. If a player enjoys hero-based, tactical multiplayer action, then Apex Legends should be at the top of their list this year.
The Case For Fortnite
The battle royale game that's held the crown for five years now, Fortnite isn't at the top for no reason. It may seem simple, with fairly standard shooting and driving mechanics, but it's this high level of accessibility that allows Fortnite to be such a popular game, being played by people of all ages and skills. Those who have never touched a controller before could hop into Fortnite and have a good time, and that should be commended.
Fortnite is updated on a weekly, sometimes daily basis, with the game adding more skins, weapons, and significantly changing the map regularly to ensure that there's always something new to discover. Due to the frequency of these updates, the game is always balanced to perfection, meaning that players don't need to follow a specific meta to be in with a chance to succeed. Fortnite is guaranteed to have an exciting and surprising 2022, and Battle Royale fans of all types should just take a leap and give the game a go.