Many multiplayer games with ongoing development pipelines, particularly shooters, will rotate in limited-time modes (LTMs) to keep fans engaged over time. For instance, Halo Infinite's open beta included the Fracture: Tenrai event with a chaotic Fiesta Slayer playlist, set to return on multiple occassions through April 2022. Battle royale games like Apex Legends and Fortnite have many such activities, and Pixile Studios' Super Animal Royale is no exception.
Super Animal Royale stands out as a 2D battle royale, one that eschews the gritty realism of a game like Call of Duty: Warzone in favor of cute, yet bloodthirsty "Super Animals" on an island full of abandoned theme park attractions and research labs. It first released in spring 2018 before coming out of Early Access this June alongside a seasonal battle pass. Season 2 began on December 14; with it came an official Google Stadia version and the winter "CRISPRmas" event headlined by "The Bwoking Dead" LTM, which is a unique take on Super Animal Royale's formula.
How The Bwoking Dead Shakes up Super Animal Royale
Average rounds of Super Animal Royale are what fans of the genre would expect. Players can choose solo, duo, or four-player squad lobbies, and all 64 players choose where to drop based on pre-determined flights over the former Super Animal World island. Fom there it's a test of survival; guns of varying rarities that use different ammo types are scattered, and players have to track their health and equipment like armor in order to make it out on top. One big twist is its "fog of war" that obscures the player's vision past all objects around them, replacing the limited range in typical first-person shooters.
The game's map continuously evolves, with Season 2 focused around a beaver construction company, but a few LTMs over its history have shaken up the gameplay. "S.A.W. vs Rebellion" sorted players into teams of 32, and then incorporated both elimination and capture-the-flag win conditions. "Mystery Mode" set up unique modifiers in each match, from limiting available weapon types to initiating one-hit kills or faster bullets.
The Bwoking Dead is more than just a clever riff on Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead comics and their popular television adaptation. All 40 players in each round spawn randomly across the island and must survive until help arrives. A small number of players are infected with "Cluckles" after the match begins, turning them into Zombie Joes (a corruption a chicken NPC who's part of the in-universe television network documenting each deathmatch).
Once infected players turn they can no longer hold weapons, but their movement speed increases and they have a chance to infect survivors even through armor. Zombie Joes can even survive in the skunk gas that forms a constricting ring around the playable arena - Super Animal Royale's take on the circle in games like Fortnite. A stroke of genius is that infected players know when they're about to turn, and zombies can see who is infected, but regular survivors are blind to all of it.
Most players are in the dark at the start of a match, unsure whether their teammates will turn on them when everyone is the least prepared. However, the suspense of this unknown doesn't dissipate over time, as survivors are forced to group up while the skunk gas closes in, and it's impossible to know when someone in the middle of a collective is about to turn and sew chaos.
It's a simple but effective conceit, one that made perfect sense for Pixile's October 2021 "Super Howloween" event. It's perhaps less fitting for CRISPRmas when players are collecting candy canes instead of candy corn to unlock limited-time cosmetics, but the gameplay is satisfying enough to make the re-introduction worthwhile. There's also nothing that says The Nightmare Before Christmas has exclusive rights to the "Halloween during Christmas time" schtick.
Super Animal Royale is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.