Rumbleverse Is A Battle Royale With No Guns, And I Suck At It

Image: Epic Games/Iron Galaxy

Rumbleverse is the latest entry in a seemingly endless list of free battle royale games. However, this latest twist on the aging format is more creative and interesting than I expected, as Rumbleverse ditches the usual SMGs, shotguns, and grenades for grappling grapples, melee combos, and high elbows. flight. The real secret here is that it really is a fighting game, which might explain why I suck. But as proof of the pleasure I have, I want to improve.

Rumbleverse will be released on consoles and PC on August 11 after a few rounds of beta testing. Although published by Fortnite developers Epic Games, Rumbleverse is developed by iron galaxy, a studio with a long and respected history of creating great fighting games like Dive Kick and Killer Instinct. And with that in mind, it makes perfect sense that Iron Galaxy’s take on a cartoon battle royale would choose punches and kicks over sniper rifles and RPGs.

On paper, it all seemed a bit odd, like a weird experiment that might not work. But after playing Rumbleverse on and off for the past few weeks since launch, I’ve grown to really love the game, even though I still haven’t won a single match.

Epic / Iron Galaxy

The base setup should be familiar to anyone who has played another battle royale. A large number of players (in this case 40) stumble upon an island covered in buildings, tunnels, open areas, and loot. Then they scavenge for supplies while battling other players to survive and ultimately be the last one standing.

The big difference in Rumbleverse is that you’re not looking for guns, armor, or ammo. Instead, you find new moves to equip while searching for melee items like chairs and stat-boosting potions that allow you to do more damage, take more damage, or run faster and longer. .

When you finally bump (or jump) into another player, the game’s combat shines, even if it has a longer learning curve than most shooters. In Rumbleverse, you can block, kick, punch, grab, counter, charge, and dive. All of these moves have a priority, and higher priority maneuvers will win against lower priority ones. For example, if you catch someone and land a special, and they cut your chest with a basic slap, then they will win that fight. But if they try to block and you take that special hold back, you’ll break their block and knock them into the air or into a wall.

You have to master this unusual dance of punching, dodging, blocking to get good at Rumbleverse, and while I’m able to win flights, I’ve not been able to stay alive long enough to win. (My best match result so far was second place, which was nice, but still not a win!)

Screenshot: Epic Games / Iron Galaxy / Kotaku

Your instinct will be to immediately try to spam attacks or specials, but don’t do that. The key is to treat fights like wrestling matches that you might see on TV. There will be pauses as both enemies reevaluate the situation and decide what to do next. In these moments, the combat mechanics of Rumbleverse shine, and feel both really good and really different from what you find in Fortnite or PUBG.

Where Rumbleverse currently stumbles is in the bits surrounding the action. Dropping into a match, grabbing a chair, and slamming it down on someone from the top of a skyscraper is awesome. That part works wonderfully. But outside of matches, menus are a bit confusing and annoying to use, and the challenge system feels woefully slim compared to Fortnite. And while it seems unfair to compare a brand new game with one of the genre’s behemoths, it’s clear that Rumbleverse draws heavily from Fortnite in many ways. So hopefully, as the game finds an audience and grows, its challenges and missions will also improve and give players more to do during matches beyond basic things like “climb a lot” or ” cure a certain amount”.

Even though I’m a bit of a sucker at Rumbleverse and find its challenge system a bit anemic at the moment, I’m always happy to load it up and play some more. There are so many good (and bad) battle royale shooters in 2022. But a really good, colorful and exciting wrestling-themed battle royale – with a diversity of solid body shapes, no less – is a good thing to have. I hope the game sticks around and has future seasons with more content, quests, and challenges that can help make the game even more enjoyable, even for shitty fighters like me.