Battle Royale like you’ve never seen it before: mystical setting, classes, weapon crafting and more. Realm Royale is only in Alpha, but it’s already looking quite promising. Can it do what Radical Heights failed to do, and push its way into the conversation between PUBG and Fortnite?

Realm Royale: A Different Take on BR

What started as merely an offshoot Battle Royale mode of Paladins, has blossomed into an early alpha-state gem of the BR world. Cartoony and charming like Fortnite, but with somewhat more refined gun mechanics and a MOBA-esque class / hero system, and you have the simple recipe for an addictive game that is attracting a lot of attention. Big streamers like Summit1G, Ninja, and Shroud have already dived into it and openly admit how fun it is.

Realm Royale has just been a blast, hopefully it sticks around. Assassin for life(F warriors).

— summit1g (@summit1g) June 14, 2018

It’s still early, and many kinks are being worked out, but it’s safe to assume that Realm has the right sauce to stay relevant.

The big three mechanics that people love about the game also give it its unique feel and identity.

• Instead of everyone having access to all weapons and items in the game, there are 5 “classes”, each with its own craftable Legendary Weapon, 4 unique “Abilities,” (also known as Class Skills), unique movement abilities, and their own unique passive skills. These are the Warrior, Engineer, Hunter, Mage, and Assassin.
  
• Every POI has what is called a “Forge.” There, you can craft legendary armor, unique class skills, and class Legendary Weapons using the shards and chicken trophies you pick up from enemies and loot that you can disenchant. When a forge is active, smoke rises from its chimney, signaling to other players in the area that someone is using it. This creates constant pressure and action in the mid-game, as players fight for supremacy of available forges, and to get any potential loot inside.
• Instead of pure gunplay or building being the focus of the game’s skill center, in Realm Royale it’s more about the abilities. Each class lives or dies by quick, efficient use of its abilities in the middle of combat. Chaining abilities and using them at exactly the right time, coupled with decent aim, are what sets good players apart from the potatoes.

When you add solid graphics, music, and gunplay into the mix, you have a satisfying piece of work that is already biting into some of PUBG’s and Fortnite’s playerbase. It’s somewhat rough around the edges, the servers need work, there are a few glaring glitches, and the devs have put out a few tweaks that the community hasn’t exactly agreed with, but for the most part, Realm is doing what Radical Heights failed to do: create hype and show some staying power.

New to Realm Royale? Here’s Some Tips

Don’t let the cartoon graphics or silly chickens running around fool you. This game is downright tough. Super low “time to kill” (TTK) coupled with fast gameplay and mostly projectile weapons, means that players with good aim can literally eliminate you in 3 to 5 seconds even if you are decked out in full Legendary Armor. Early game can be even more ridiculous, as unlike PUBG and Fortnite, there really aren’t any “outskirts” you can land at in this game, and to survive, you really have to land in a POI and get kills. That’s the only way to get a good amount of shards and chicken trophies.

So if you want to get better, you have to mix it up and be prepared for some rage-inducing moments. After all, it’s BR. Follow these tips to improve your game a bit:

• Mage is one of the most forgiving classes to play right now. If you find yourself in a pinch, Soar away and heal with Ice Block. 3rd person peek the enemy as they approach, get off a pop shot or fireball, rinse and repeat.
• Cover is extremely important. Never challenge an enemy if you don’t have access to immediate cover. Even a pile of logs or a rock will do.
• Don’t camp. You can get severely outclassed in Realm Royale if you don’t get good loot and kills early on. Add to the fact that the Assassin and Hunter both have “wall hack” abilities, meaning they can see you through walls. Also, every class has access to a Lightning element variant of their Legendary weapon, which can also let them see you through walls. Between PUBG, Fortnite, and RR, camping is least effective in this game. Don’t rely on it at all.
• Remember to chain attacks. Mage’s Fireball and an immediate shot from a slug rifle or shotgun can be incredible burst damage. Likewise true for the Engineer’s fire bomb or the Warrior’s charge. Execute (and hopefully land) an ability and immediately follow up with a weapon shot. This can be accomplished because unlike other BR’s, your abilities and weapons are seperate. It’s like having two weapons equipped at once. It’s an extremely important mechanic.
• You can use the Assassin and Mage’s movement abilities through windows, where the other classes can’t follow.
• Check to make sure your opponents didn’t drop any legendary armor before crafting some for yourself.
• Win fights by out-maneuvering. Never stand in one place or right in front of the opponent for too long. Use your abilities to leap over them, flank them, reposition, etc. Keep them on their toes otherwise you become far too easy of a target.
• Learn where the good weapon drop locations are. Right now treasure is static in this game. Pick a few drop location you like and learn them inside and out, that way you will have a big advantage over those who just land without really having any knowledge.

Initial Verdict on Realm Royale: Does it Live up to The Hype?

So far it’s looking like Hi-Rez studios has crafted a gem. Whether or not it stands the test of time is the real question. It has a solid formula, but shaky patches this past week have some players on the fence. A recent patch actually did away with the forging of Legendary Weapons, which had the community raging. Thankfully, this was reverted and now the mid-game is healthier than ever, since it takes more shards and chicken trophies to craft these powerful weapons.

With Fortnite’s Season 5 only a couple weeks away, and PUBG’s recent release of the Sanhok map, as well as all of the new BR’s slated for release this fall, Realm Royale has extremely stiff competition. It fills a niche, granted, but that might not be enough.

Right now, there are definitely aspects of the game that need work, but it is undeniably fun and rather polished for an alpha. A battlepass with mount skins and chicken skins was announced and will be coming soon. We’ll have a great judge of how healthy the game is by how popular the battlepass is.

Realm Royale is currently living up to the hype, but we’ll see how it fares once Fortnite’ Season 5 drops, which is almost certainly going to be a massive success and the next era for what is already a cultural phenomenon. Many proponents of Realm Royale are players who don’t mind Fortnite but simply don’t enjoy the building mechanics, so it’s hard to say just how much Fortnite’s popularity will affect Realm. As of right now though, I definitely recommend giving it a shot if you haven’t tried it. Where else you can cluck around as a chicken and ride a horse through a desert in a BR?