Death of a Game: Battlerite (& Battlerite: Royale)

[@tripplejaz]

The saddest part is that Battlerite was the antidote to everything people dislike about MOBAs but they completely shot themselves in the foot, kneecaps and elbows with items, lack of tournaments and neglect for the core audience. Just overall, felt like they lost the vision for their game and got completely sidetracked.

[@luizcastro5246]

maybe the fact that it was intentionally different from very popular products made it so it attracted all the flaws these games never had. maybe having longer matches is more engaging. fighting for permanent buffs adds more points of interest and varied gameplay to a fight, stuff like that

[@tiagodarkpeasant]

@@luizcastro5246 nah, they didn't failed because they had a bad formula, they failed because they didn't knew what they had, if you want longer matches and buffs you play the other games, i was more interested in playing mobas as a fighting game than a strategy game, that is why i liked hots quick match, you pick the hero you want and play a map where the fight that matters is the next one and you can always catch up, but also finish the game fast if your team is doing good, some games are designed for a small audience, but everyone wants to be the BEST game, not the best game for their audience i once had a 2 hours match in Dota, it wasn't engaging, we just couldn't finish the game after having destroyed all the towers because 4 of them were turtling while a PL splited, the enemy team basically watched pl farm for 2 hours until he could win alone, losing or winning faster i think is more engaging and 15 minutes is perfect when you only have a few hours to play

[@luizcastro5246]

@@tiagodarkpeasant presentation is part of the formula. i played 80 minutes dota matches and those were the most fun i had in that game. I like longer matches.

[@litapd311]

my friends and i were all huge league fans and we played a decent amount of battlerite. we even played a few games a few weeks ago. it just sucks because the gameplay itself was good...but unlike a single player game you still need other people to play. we still found matches on NA without too much wait

[@arctodus1]

It is a shame. I didn't play Battlerite regularly, every time I did I found myself having a great time with it

[@oicmorez4129]

I have to say that stopping development for a year to develop a title that splits your already small community in half wasn't the smartest idea they had

[@michaelluck5577]

nobody asked for it either. and the monetization was the final nail in the coffin

[@SquaulDuNeant]

True but it wasn't a bad experience tho lbh . But they shouldn't have done that and not like that.

[@relikpL]

the movement in this game was so so fluid and was a high skill cap and style element as well

[@owenlee7146]

Everytime I see a new esposide of this series I feel sad about the wasted potential of these titles. Maybe a new series about those endangered title that are worth saving might prevent them from dying?

[@eryalmario5299]

I think this died because they separated the battle royale and battlerite

[@chucklesdeclown8819]

THATS WHAT WE NEED!!!!! NERDSLAYER, GET ON THIS NOW XD

[@SquaulDuNeant]

@@eryalmario5299 No that's just the symptom not the disease. Also wich is sad is that battlerite in BR mode wasn't bad.

[@Archive385]

Can't save a title from developers who don't know what they're doing. As pointed out in this video, the weird investment in the Observer mode and BR: Royale, was a huge risk and waste of resources that could have gone elsewhere.

[@campernocamping1]

So I've went from Dawngate > Gigantic > Battlerite. I swear it's feels like I'm cursed man, I just want a satisfying game with a thriving community.

[@bayraktarx1386]

Why you pick trash games then? 😂 I played Battlerite for 30 min was super bored and had feeling it won't be popular for long.

[@choppakonga552]

PC playerbsse always dwindle when it comes to PC games. People only played popular games titles. I bet if they added cross played all the games multiplayer will be thriving.

[@LazymanCreations]

YoungerOstrich9 damn man I’ve gone through the same shit :( just depressing

[@jaguartony]

Gigantic was so good :(

[@kyotheman69]

problem is this type of game is very niche, why they weren't successful, Dawngate wasn't that closed because of EA though, that didnt even come out of beta so it never thrived at all. Dawngate was still Moba, unlike this game whole arena style is "meh" rather just stick to moba or play diablo

[@joehughey6129]

As someone who has played MOBAS for going on 8 years, Battlerite gave me everything i wanted and it only lacked the playerbase. This game still deserves alot of love and i frequently return to it because god damn it ill give it that love.

[@JKPrimetime]

This channel has literally comprised of 99% of my knowledge on any MMOs. And now, it has gifted me with a good reason to stay up until 3 AM

[@cristophermartinez6707]

JK Primetime for me it’s 2am

[@richanddarksbane1439]

Very nice to help me sleep

[@kaobasa]

Before Xander came out it was already clear that this game was probably going to fail. Updates were slow and communication from the dev's was lacking. Unless it was squirrelled away on the discord. Maps were boring. A big open middle area with a few walls that had a different coat of paint. It wasn't until much later they bothered spicing it up with those launch pads. Content wasn't just lacking, it was almost nonexistent. From alpha to the time of its demise there was a very small handful of new maps and champions. Content came in the form of skins and they were a hell of a grind. They didn't even have taunts, which was something BLC had. Instead we got poses which you could only see at the end of a match for like 5 seconds. Lame. They were supposed to be porting this game to the xbox as well. There was an E3 one year where they touted their indie line up and BR was in there. Nothing was ever mentioned after that though. They toyed around with game modes as well. Solos were terrible and there was a game mode where you had to kill the opposing teams guardian. It was shallow but it was more fun than their take on Royale... There were so many misteps... Putting all their eggs into the esports scene and catering to the most hardcore was probably the biggest one though. Oh, they probably blew a sizable chunk of their finances advertising their game through popular twitch streamers and youtubers also. All of whom could not have given less of a shit a out this game. Just felt like they all had this "Okay I played it for 8 hours now where's my check" mentality.

[@Broockle]

If a Moba completely focuses on team fights like BRite did then does the top down perspective even make sense? I feel like this game would work better as a 3rd or 1st person Game. Traditionally the top down perspective is used for an objective view where a lot of multitasking and map awareness is going on, but in BRite the maps are static and all that moves are 6 players. There should be some map hazards, some changing walls, different objectives or even neutral creeps to warrant this perspective. That's really what confused me the most with both Bloodline and BRite.

[@juanitoburrito2825]

Well said

[@SquaulDuNeant]

@@Broockle Don't agree with that point of view.

[@SquaulDuNeant]

But sure more content was needed but the core was solid tho.

[@Hoppitot]

Every streamer I have heard talking about battlerite said they really liked liked it. I think poke said that he even went under his normal sponsorship rates for battlerite.

[@ChromaticRed]

The game's community dropped really quick between 2018 - 2019, I remember playing it at that year then coming back with almost no players online.

[@MefoWho]

I bought the game before it went f2p, then checked it when the battle royale came out and got slapped with a 20$ deal. Didnt hear anything from it since

[@tigerfalco]

Same actually

[@Justissier]

Well right now it has a good population of about 2000 players

[@charbelharb4879]

yes Currently i think there's no one online

[@TheLamestCloud]

Few days ago I was like: "I used to play this. It was fun. I want to play this." *few minutes later* "It's dead. Why it's dead?" Thanks for answering xD

[@goodnaturedgamer8181]

This is the first video with a game I was invested in :( It was a lot of fun :(

[@alexisbrin518]

Everytime i see the game i wanna go play again ! But yeah i nevrr had more than 2 hours sessions...

[@darrouse1789]

I feel you man..

[@nickyinprogress4873]

I've felt looots of heartache in this channel. Batttlerite... WildStar... Gigantic...

[@saul94923]

I feel ya

[@rorschachozymandias2821]

this comment made me feel old ahahahaah

[@sieyk]

You nailed the core reason the game failed. The burnout after such a short time was huge. No idea why it was though.

[@azrazelhananto]

I know its been 2 years, but it was most def 100% because everything was a skillshot and no downtime in the gameplay. The game required an immense amount of focus and skill every single second, leading to no gameplay downtime, and as such the teamfights got boring. Mobas have laning phases, and walking around the map, with fights sparingly as rewards and high-points of the match. When everything is the high-point and everything is a teamfight, it doesn't feel as satisfying as sparingly teamfighting throughout a match, the pace is always fighting nvr stopping to rest, which is like a rollercoaster where the only attraction are high drops over and over again without buildup to the highdrops. pure high octane actionscenes non-stop. Sure its fun for the first few times, but we need a break, and most ppl just get burned out and nvr try again, as opposed to rollercoasters with buildup and 1 highdrop where customers will keep coming back to chase that single thrill.

[@fivws]

@@azrazelhananto facts i loved this game, it's very clean and well made but it was exhausting to play

[@KaztenStudios]

That feeling when another game you loved ends up on Death of a Game. RIP what a unique title that I wish more people have a chance

[@bayraktarx1386]

It was trash game just wasted time playing it.

[@shuwan4games]

I mean they did it themselves with the br portion taking up time meaning battlerite didnt get content

[@sheepainu]

@@bayraktarx1386 found the silver

[@sheepainu]

You can still play it

[@Marinealver]

Not to mention that burn at 7:08

[@SyclairLoc]

Honestly one of my favorite games looking back, had an incredible ranked experience. Hope to one day return.

[@Rufiy0]

Oh man I've heard about this game couple of years ago through total biscuit, it had so much potential

[@Seethie]

Same here and i played it. Loved it but got old quickly. I miss TB.

[@OverDoseVapes]

Losing Total Biscuit truly hurt esports, PC gaming and the game industry in general. I miss that guy.

[@faustoc.pereira7082]

May he rest in heaven

[@hoppityhop9630]

Favourite games

[@TheCostimen]

everytime i play planetside 2 i remember TB

[@PeripheriAe]

I will always have a soft spot for this game in my heart, I remember playing it back when it first released as EA with a friend of mine. It hurts so much to say that this friend passed away 2 years ago. Seeing this hurts, but also makes me remember all the good fun I had with him in this game and many others. I really wanted BR to succeed.

[@juanitoburrito2825]

Im sorry scrotie

[@starvosxant4348]

Money hunger of devs made this game die. Why, just why, release a stand alone br game, and CHARGE for it? Greed.

[@jasondads9509]

@@starvosxant4348 devs need to eat and have families to feed. Thus was a small studio no a AAA developer

[@starvosxant4348]

@@jasondads9509 well, this was their ruin. In the end, was it worthy? I followed this game its whole lifetime, i can tell, Battlerite Royale was the killing blow. I hope they learned something and with this new game they are releasing they dont make the same mistakes.

[@jasondads9509]

@@starvosxant4348 They were low on funds and made a gamble that a battle royale game will bring them some funding. Didn't work out but the game was already on a downward trajectory. Battle Royale just sped it up.

[@Youtubin20]

I put an embarrassing amount of time into this game, chugging to the top of ranked constantly. The core game play was so fun, but when the battle royale got announced I dropped it hard. All those resources devoted into a garbage genre instead of just focusing on problems the game had was beyond upsetting. RIP Battlerite, I'll miss my boy Pestilus

[@Fabianationx123]

I was a Pestilus main too :(

[@129das]

As long as you had fun

[@TheManofyes]

top rank isn't really that impressive when all the good players left in the first months this game was out don't flatter yourself. t. gm

[@ThatPianoNoob]

yea i dont get how it seemed like almost a sidenote within this video.. Hopping onto the BR bandwagon and making all their users pay for it was a double fuck you to anyone supporting Battlerite. The game died with that decision, it mightve died anyway but at least with dignity.

[@bibbayeet8007]

@@TheManofyes I've been playing this game on and off since beta and I can tell you that the "top players" of the first few months of the game's life are not at all good. For the most part that is. A few days ago I was playing with a friend who has 1000+ hours and we fought a season 2 #3 player. He didn't stand a chance againt us. This is the case for almost every early timeline top player. I've been in the top 20, but I don't consider myself amazing at the game; I do however think Im quite a bit better than the top players of the early seasons. They are average at the game, but due to them having a little more skill and experience than the new players they faced, they seemed a lot better than they really were. What really mattered was consistently placing high, and you were only truly "good" at the game when you could rival pro teams (when the game had those). So what am I getting at? You obviously don't know anything about the community of this game or the game itself, so don't go and put down people when you know nothing about the subject.

[@ThrillSeekerVR]

another good video in a great series. Good job

[@medijate]

I came too late to the party to play this game, sadly. I would've loved it, but unfortunately it just wasn't worth getting invested in by the time I found out about it. Rest in Peace, Battlerite. Hopefully new MOBAs in the future will capture my attention the same way that Battlerite did.

[@lbaxel9122]

You can still play some matches, nothing to lose.

[@lbaxel9122]

@@egemenozan5641 No, you can find matches easily. And it's really fun.

[@SolManDude]

battlerite isnt a moba its a top down action game. its more of a fighting game honestly.

[@lbaxel9122]

@@SolManDude You could say it is a moba. Maybe it isn't the standard mobas are nowadays, but it is multiplayer online battle arena. There is no way around it. I understand what you meant but fighting games have a whole scheme of fundamentals and it's nowhere close to Battlerite.

[@SolManDude]

@@lbaxel9122 fucking call of duty is a multiplayer online battle arena. that term is absolute bullshit and is indicative of nothing. it plays nothing like the genre. it doesnt feel like it. it never had any items (and adding them was a mistake) abilities always do the exact same damage. resistances dont exist. scaling and leveling doesnt exist. no macro . no farming. no bringing down towers. the only thing it has in common with games like league and dota is the top down camera. they dont even control in a similar way! how are they the same genre? according to that logic minecraft is a first person shooter.

[@PokeWeekly]

4:01 "Shelved Indefinitely" should be the subtitle for the entire dead island franchise.

[@spinyslasher6586]

Isn't Dying light the spiritual successor to Dead Island?

[@Decay611]

Yo I honestly loved this game, had over 200 hours play time, i honestly wished there was more to it because it had alot of potential, but it just sort of died down.

[@JYMBO]

It's weird how you can love a game so you kinda hope it doesn't to make it into a DOAG video but at the same time really wanting to see DOAG video on it haha thats how it felt with this one, looking forward to videos on Deathgarden & The Darwain Project!

[@DanoLefourbe]

Battlerite is really awesome. All the fun of Mobas without the tedium. I played quite a bit of it with a friend. Too bad the devs got so distracted on the way, completely lost focus, and then tried to fix things with tape and shit when it was way too late.

[@Wuzzamachuck]

13:03 hey that's me, essay incoming. Being involved in Battlerite as a player in the pro league as well as a caster was one of the most fun opportunities of my life and has introduced me to some of the most talented and driven competitors and personalities that I have ever met that I believe will be lifelong friends, and I will always be disappointed that it was never taken as far as I felt it could have been. However, at no point was I ever surprised by its decline or the way in which the developer kicked the chair out from under the competitive scene after the first and only LAN tournament at Dreamhack summer. I feel you were spot on with your characterization of the developers and their consistent misread on what their community wanted and what their goals should have been. Game design and community management are fickle beasts, and Battlerite is a testament to how even great games with excellent mechanics and fun gameplay loops can fail. As someone who actually sat in a room with developers from Stunlock and who is still close friends with many of the ex pros from Battlerite's short competitive run, what I tell anyone who asks is that my impression of SLS was that they were a group of mostly passionate and talented individuals who seemed to really lack direction or leadership to steer them. I also witnessed talented people working at the company who were wearing hats that were completely outside of their areas of expertise; designers turned community mangers, community managers taking very personal and public offense to pro players' complaints about game balance, the list goes on. The gameplay of Battlerite was so strong, and scratched a competitive itch for a lot of people that doesn't exist elsewhere in gaming right now. However, at many points the developers seemed completely out of touch with what their community (both casual and hardcore) wanted. The royale mode especially is a testament to something that nobody wanted and nobody asked for. And on top of that, it missed the royale boom almost completely, coming to the party far too late to get anyone interested. When we were shown an early prototype of the game while in Sweden before the global finals, I remember specifically asking a friend of mine "why would anyone who is currently playing Fortnite, PUBG, etc drop that game to play this?" It also continued to have so many of the same problems that arena had, a lack of new content and promised modes, as well as SLS's infuriating refusal to double down with work when it needed to be done. We had a widespread meme in the competitive community about them taking "vacations" right after big playerbase booms or content patches which I believe contributed to the constant feeling of being left out in the cold that myself and many others experienced. There is more shit on the shoe that you didn't touch on in your video as the competitive scene for the game was very small and information was kept close to the chest among those participating in the pro league and the high level community at large. The pro league was also fraught with payment issues and what I believe to this day to be extremely infuriating, hypocritical, and unprofessional behavior by a few SLS employees who interfaced with league players and the high level competitive community. As both a player and on camera talent I can tell you that there were many times interfacing with this company where I not only felt ignored and disregarded but also felt belittled and completely disrespected by people who I believe should never have gotten anywhere near the jobs they had at the time. But stories for a different time. There is truly nothing else like Battlerite in the competitive gaming space right now, and it makes me sad to see what it has become. I jumped ship for good shortly after the announcement that SLS would not be holding a season 3 LAN event despite their promises to the competitive community. Seeing the game in it's current state of purgatory saddens me somewhat, especially when I think of what it could have been and what a unique edge it once had.

[@lip3gate]

Hi @crooks. So after being impacted with V: Rising advertisement on every single Battlerite platform I follow, I desired to to play Battlerite again (played as Taya, so much fun!). Reading your comment fills my heart with nostalgia, back when I was so hyped to watch some pro games and cheer for you guys. It's so sad that SLS choosed to pursue another trend because some bad decisions with BR Royale :(

[@Utrilus]

They lucked out with their next game. Or maybe learned a few life lessons from the previous games. Cause V rising sold well for some time.

[@J.Applejuice]

Supported this studio since Bloodline Champions. Battlerite was so incredible. I bought the highest tier founder pack, I participated in their art contests. I hit the highest rank, I got the stupid mount. I climbed that mountain and all I got was longer queue times and a dead game. I truly loved this game. If the fuckin battle royale trend didn't show its ugly head I truly believe this game could've been huge. They had so much momentum and they ruined it by splitting their focus. I suffered through their neglect, their terrible champion and balance patches. Their garbage e-sports scene. The stupid Dab emote for croak. The terrible skin events. All of it. This game and its studio will forever be the biggest flop of a game in my opinion. Thanks for the 5k hours combined, but I cant respect SLS anymore.

[@Bananenbauer123]

wowow, now you are going a little too far. terrible champion and balance patches? The game needed more champions. And skins are 100% necessary for a game like this, though I would've strongly prefered being able to just buy skins directly instead of shitty lootboxes that are filled with mostly junk. Also, it's very difficult to complain about a game that's given you this much entertainment. Many 60$ triple A titles (like doom eternal) you can play through in like 12 hours. Yes, there is some replay value, but it doesn't compare. These games are designed to be a blast, but the novelty also wears off pretty quickly and you move on to the next game. Battlerite on the other hand let's you unlock lots of its content completely for free if you play enough. The only reason to spend money on it is if A: Being too impatient to unlock a character or skin by playing or B: you wanna do it to support the dev team. You spent the time playing the game because you enjoyed yourself, there is no trickery or betrayal going on here. Is it wasted potential? Yes it is. They definitely made two grave mistakes. (namely esports and battle royale) But I won't ever regret having played the game and enjoying it. The devs are probably in as much pain as you are if not even more. Imagine making your own game and... then watching it die because you made the wrong calls now slowly watching the player numbers dwindle month by month no matter what you do. Meanwhile your financial pillow is also shrinking. Games aren't really made to last forever anyway. You gotta move on at some point. At least you got to play it when it was still great. I'm definitely looking forward to the next game they release.

[@kyriketasmr]

God I'm getting my Dawngate nam flashbacks reading this. Rip

[@flameofanor1415]

Weird complaint from someone who got 5000 hours playtime... but I agree on the Battle Royal part.

[@J.Applejuice]

@@kyriketasmr Dawngate. Damn I've not heard that name in years. It's always the shitty games I fall in love with. Such a shame, truly.

[@J.Applejuice]

Granted my complaints are a bit exaggerated. But you'd think with the amount of time I sunk into both Bloodline and Battlerite I'd have valid grounds to complain lmao.

[@Arkman968]

My friends and I really loved this game, we kept coming back after short breaks and every time a new mechanic was added in. When the items came in we all agreed we didn't want to learn it all, we enjoyed it because how simple it was to hop in and play and figure out your combos

[@anthonyrodriguez9232]

To me battlerite reminded me of playing fighting games. I'm a super competitive fighting game player and it gave me a lot of the same feelings playing it as I do playing Guilty Gear or Blazblue, high octane, fast, skill based combat. The problem is that, like fighting games, there's a niche playerbase for that kind of game. Not everyone wants to play a game that pretty much says "hey you are going to lose a lot until you learn the game" and it turns a lot of people off to it. Had a friend that I showed the game quit because he lost his first 20 or so games and never won. Overall it was a super fun game but it was niche and it felt like Stunlock was trying to hard to make it not one and the game suffered for it.

[@Biouke]

Yeah and when people started to quit you could encounter the same team every two or three matches and it was just like a fighting game, you started to learn their patterns, adapt your own... It wasn't perfectly balanced but in most cases you knew that when you lost a match it was because you did some errors and you could still improve.

[@tiagodarkpeasant]

yeah, i wish game studios just accept that some games will not dominate the market and it is fine, fighting games are never the most played games, but the people who play are really into it and keep playing for years

[@129das]

Fighting games are not a market dominate game type anyway but the good thing about most fighting games have a fun single player mode a long with the PvP and local PvP. So the top names do well.

[@Toxihex]

The game not being beginner friendly doesn't even scrape the surface of what went wrong. People absolutely want a competitive game that's as skill based as possible without the individual having to be too held back by their team. It's true it has absolutely nothing to draw you in with other than the promise of the aforementioned, but people surprisingly still wanted to play it. I got an open beta key from a random dude on discord and played like 3 games. I saw how visually lacking the game is and how unimaginative the designs are, and didn't bother exploring any of the ugly ass champions with designs strikingly similar to League or DotA (but worse), so learning how to get good at it wasn't really inspired in me. When I first played it, I also died a lot and didn't win anything, but a few months ago I was bored and tried again, actually doing quite okay, but me and the friend I was playing with got bored of it within like 5 games. We won most, at that. The game has no identity and nothing to make it stand out. If they had added 1v1 rounds and various event rounds (not to mention more maps) to keep things intriguing and spam worthy, this would've helped a lot, but they didn't focus on the right things. It's really not hard to make maps for such a visually simple game, but they both didn't do that and instead of taking advantage of the simplicity had to also make it generic and kill any potential vibe they have ever had. You have one clunky looking Udyr skin with Twitch's bow that all make up about 10 pixels and then you have a skinny lady that should be 5 pixels because of her figure alone but is detailed in a way that makes her look like she belongs in Overwatch. Then you have Fizz and Nami's bastard toddler and Soraka's failed abortion alongside a dude who couldn't decide if he wanted to cosplay Garen or Tryndamere, and from these descriptions alone there's no mistaking who I'm talking about. It's no surprise they kept trying to copy trends and failed miserably, there's talent in there but not nearly enough imagination and adequacy to have a successful game.

[@ArmadaX96]

@@Toxihex To be fair, LoL started out with an incredibly uninspired design with a lot of early champs being incredibly derivative of Warcraft characters. The big thing that kept Riot afloat early on wasn't it's visual identity, but their ability to rapidly shit out content and consistently doling out balance patches. That being said, Battlerite had neither. Their designs were uninspired and all over the place thematically AND they weren't even putting out content at a sufficient pace to compensate for that. Brawl Stars, although a mobile game, is a pretty good example of what Battlerite could have been; an arena brawler with consistent updates, map rotations, new characters, and just enough RNG in their modes to make Brawl Stars' gameplay loop more interesting while still allowing for skilled players to feel skilled. If Battlerite had borrowed from that formula while also adding in the mechanical depth of their gameplay I think they could have had something really fucking good on their hands.

[@emmalynnpacks3796]

so crazy being there while all this happened and now watching stunlock get a big win in vrising, i loved battlerite and its a tragic death but im happy with what came from the ashes

[@nerdSlayerstudioss]

same

[@darkaleksboy1548]

Oh I love that now you cover more recent games, and that means you cover games that I have tried out myself. Feels amazing and sad to see a game I loved (or love), on this channel

[@bounidadada4057]

I was so freakin' mad when they announced the battle royale... I remember commenting the anouncement video on youtube and maintaining to other fans that IT HAD to be a joke regarding the flood of battle royales going out at the time, because no one in their sound mind would dedicate resources to such a stupid standalone mod when the fanbase had already been asking for features that would implement a long term progression (besides skillcap increase ofc). Well, look at where we are now. I fucking hate the studio for it even to this day. The gameplay was as beautifully designed as the environment for it and business decisions were poor...

[@jamarslice9085]

uhuh unlucky bud but we're all playing that new game LOL

[@AzizTheGazele552]

idk why yall hate it so much, but to this day it was 100x better than the base game, it was just so much more exciting than playing round after round of the exact same thing, I really think the battleroyale version was their best decision, because it might have been a bad decision in the long run, it was an extremely, extremely, enjoyable moment of the game, and I sure did pay for it to get all that fun. it felt so much exciting and had so many more highs and lows to the standard battle rite which is surface level gameplay at best, imagine if at least the armory was enabled on public matches and balanced to fit the game?

[@snatcher8517]

​@@AzizTheGazele552 >hates repetitive arena fight >prefers running around a giant empty map looking for gears just to die to some guy with better rng 10 minutes later lol.

[@boom-toby]

"Maintenance Mode" a term so dreadful, it sends shivers down the spine of even the most fearless players.

[@tedricdabored4689]

I would rather have some games in maintence mode rather than dying completely. Every few days I think about Marvel Heroes and I get sad.

[@boom-toby]

@@tedricdabored4689 RIP :(

[@ThatPianoNoob]

I think that mostly applies to pvp titles, unless they are RTS maybe because that genre wasnt getting new games for so long.. There are however some surprisingly sturdy pve communities from old, unmaintained games. Hell even many of the ones who did get shut down for good ended up living on with private servers.

[@R4v3N007]

Cries in gigantic😭

[@ayukuro1019]

You know it is time to let a game go, when a video "Deah of a Game" comes out for it. RIP Battlerite.

[@RakuenAram]

Can devs stop trying to do the "Dota-move" and not trying to force an esport scene ?! If you don't have the resources and a carefully planned schedule for the development of the game, be it new content and such, you can't force a scene that needs players to keep running ....

[@jeevaan6965]

Why do you call it the Dota move? Dota esports is quite successful, albeit not as much as League. Other esport scenes like Hearthstone have flopped much harder.

[@GameControlYT]

They are doing this to get initial sales and money. that's it.

[@RakuenAram]

@@jeevaan6965 i did not mean it as in "it was a failure", it was more like "you are not valve, you can't pull this shit out of nowhere", and don't worry ik it worked for Dota, cuz that's how i was, and many others, were introduced to Dota2, and i've been playing since 2012

[@RakuenAram]

@@QuintaFeira12 yeah but that was Dota 1's esports, even at TI1 the Dota 1 players didn't compete cuz they were uncomfortable with the game, that's what contributed to Na'vi winning TI1

[@Projolo]

@@RakuenAram dota 2 carried dota 1 e sport scene so it was already pre established. Like someone said earlier hots was forced by blizzard.

[@T2NWasTaken]

For me the game was fun but the character prices were hilarious and i gave up on it after seeing it

[@trublu5925]

U can just buy all the champs for like 10 bucks

[@ugo979]

Yeah because it's summer, but before that, it was around 35£

[@rbdel]

Its 1.99$ now

[@Snake66874]

This is one of the bad things they have

[@sidneyasiegbu]

@@trublu5925 and why would anyone spend money on a game that was bound to die?

[@hazelieee]

I still remember when I first played BloodLine Champions, that game is such a refreshing air to the moba genre of the time. The only moba people knows back then was dota 1, HON, and LOL. They really invented the hero battle arena sub genre of moba.

[@JoFknLines]

This game was great, i bought the early access and played about 200h before its f2p release. I had big hopes for the game but the playerbase was never growing enough... when the f2p release it was all over in a week again so could never get a chance to really get back to it. I even have a few videos of Battlerite that i uploaded in my channel. Sad to see it go, hope it comes back soon as a new and better title!

[@flurinjenal374]

What did you most like about the game?

[@Gkowi]

Battlerite Royale is actually really solid. My Bro and I got top 10 in ranked a couple months ago, but the low player base definitely helped with that

[@MegaDodongo]

I think when we hit top 10 there were still 1-2k players too. Only 312 people now? Time to get number 1!

[@svenge_]

I had about 2k hrs in arena when Royale came out. I think I speak for many long time players who stopped playing when the big patch later incorporated the Royale content into arena- items, map hazards, and champion tweaks ruined the arena gameplay I loved so much. This also explains the increase in recent player counts- on top of COVID-19, SLS reverted many of the Royale changes they brought to arena.

[@Yefen]

Let me guess, they tried to make it an esports without having a proper audience yet

[@flurinjenal374]

What's wrong with it? I understand you can never force a specific use case to any audience (in that case the esports use case), but at some point it makes sense from the developers to steer it in that direction by starting organizing the first tournaments, test how it goes and learn from it?

[@Yefen]

@@flurinjenal374 Don't make games just because you want to follow trends if it is already too casual to be considered an esports. Analize the scope of your game and what public does it appel to, otherwise you will end up with candy crush royale world championships.

[@flurinjenal374]

@@Yefen Ok, yes!

[@Gardelain]

Would love to see something over Dawngate someday. I remember that game having a fair bit of stuff being made for it before EA just pulled the plug on it before it got it's proper release.

[@Evan-xm7yz]

I used to play this so much and was and then one day, the q times were so long and no players and everyone started leaving all the games if they lost 1 round :(!

[@zenks5883]

Btw i honestly dont know how this works but steam charts show me 100-200 active players YET i almost always find a match in like 30 seconds to 5-8 minutes, battlerite arena still lives on if someone is missing it, just frozen in time with no updates, evn tho the game itself is pretty well balanced so its no big deal!

[@AdrasAdraki]

For me battlerite felt like it lacked some of the depth mobas had, you didnt have the macro, the awareness and map control aspects from mobas. What it had was the teamfights you'd find in mobas and that composed 90% of any given match. For that was both a good and a bad thing. I too had the mind set of "farming mobs and laning? ewww" but teamfighting straight for multiple minutes, in a game with exceptiojally high skill combat due to wasd movement and skillshot based combat... After 3 or 4 matches i felt i needed to play something else to cool off. Its a shame more devs didnt pay attention to this game, i feel its movement and combat has no competition and could EASILY find its place in top down mmos (like corepunk) and arpgs.

[@jmoa5758]

It's basically fuxking aram with no minions lol

[@maason1379]

I think you mean the game lacked breadth. The game had plenty of depth; each hero had something like 6 abilities, 2 EX abilites, and an Ultimate. But you're right when you say it's basically just teamfighting all the time, there was no variety to the gameplay, as solid and fun as it was.

[@khurelbatbayanbat7913]

it was as deep as a well but had the breadth of that well.

[@pushertune4285]

didnt have the macro lmao

[@furgel7717]

@@maason1379 Well the problem was the content drought, and the game didn't get enough new characters and the ones which were new were always borken and didn't feel like they belonged in the game, I'm looking at you Destiny and Ulrich.

[@bennozin7845]

Here comes a long comment, from a guy with almost 450 hours poured into Battlerite. They could never hold onto their players. Why did they have an influx of new players almost every month? Because they added some form of new content to the game. And new content will always bring a casual player back to a game they kind of liked. So they add new skins, and boom 2000 players playing the game. Problem with Battlerite is, it isnt for the casual player. Yea, you have fun playing it with your friends once in a while. 3 of you enjoy playing together. But only one of you stay after an hour of gameplay, because it's a niche competitive game. Only a few amount of people will want to play the game solo. So now you have a problem. You have a small, but dedicated playerbase, who will play the game all the time because they enjoy it, and you have another playerbase who will only play for an hour a time. So what do you do? Do you appeal to the niche players or the casual players? If you appeal to the niche players, you will have a small, but successful game. You will never compete with League or Dota or CounterStrike, but you will have a game that a small playerbase will play. If you appeal to the casual players, you COULD make your game bigger. You COULD grow to compete with the big bois. Or you could lose even more players, because the game isnt what is used to be. Esports.. Forcing esports was one the worst decisions they made. Why make it an esport when you cant even hold 2000 players on your game? Who is going to watch the esports scene? And who the hell were these "pro players" and "commentators"? They were nobodys! Because the game was not ready for esports! Trust me, I WATCHED IT. IT WAS AWFUL. You dont go and turn your, barely alive game at that point, into an esport. You know when you can make it an esport? When the game is ready. When the game organiclly makes it self big enough for it. When there are players willing to put in so many hours, because they want to be the best. But they didnt have that. They had nothing. Ok, but if not esports, then what? Simple. Constant upgrading of your game. Make people want to play it. Create some lore for the game, give the champions some life. Update the champions, update the game. Keep making it better and better! Appeal to the people who actually play it! The core of Battlerite was always the gameplay. So why not make the gameplay better all the time, while adding all the extra stuff on the side? Why was the solution esports?! Royale. There really isnt much to talk about here. You hit it pretty well. Why the hell are you splitting up your already low playerbase? Why? Why why why why? This was the nail in the coffin for most people. I simply just ignored Royale and kept playing the real Battlerite. We can all agree that Battlerite Royale should've never happend. So sad.. Banning. This is what broke it for me. Imagine that your game is in the shithole. No players on Royale, only a small amount of hardcore fans left on the original game, even with some silly changes, like the armoury? What a dumb idea. Your game is almost dead, so you do live streams. Talking about the game to your players. Then people start asking questions in your chat. Things like; "what are your thoughts on losing a lot of players?" "Why do you think Royale was such a massive falliure?" "Why do you think the game never got off?" All great and honest questions. They replied to these things, by banning. the. people. who. asked. in. their. Twitch. chat. I was there, inside the stream watching them play and ignoring these questions. Getting their mods to ban those who asked. What the heck? Why would you do that? You lost your niche playerbase by trying to expand and appeal to the casuals. You lost money by doing esports when the game wasnt ready. You split up your community by making Royale. And now. With the utmost hardcore fans. The people who still thinks there is a chance for the game. The people who are begging you to listen to them. You banned them. You banned them for speaking their minds. You banned them for giving you a last chance. Sorry for the long comment, I've really wanted to speak my mind on Battlerite for a while, and I thought your video was the perfect opportunity for it. Great video dude!

[@juanitoburrito2825]

Beautiful

[@yanshi4807]

Banning is nothing new for twitch lol

[@johnx140]

Man. Just... man. The banning part. Holy jesus.

[@Richard-sy1ej]

I tried Battlerite a bit, and I thought it seemed like it could be fun. However, the biggest problem was that due to the number of players in the game, the skill curve of playing against other players wasn't so much of a skill curve as a skill brick wall. I bashed my head up against it for hours, trying the handful of different heroes I could play. It was an exercise of mostly getting slaughtered over and over again by players who had played for many more hours than I had. In an experience that's so short and so skill dependent, having only the most trivial of bot-based introductions meant that there was no scope to improve by any other method than getting killed repeatedly. In Dota you can at least feel like you're contributing to something by being pushing, defending, killing creeps, jungling, and in teamfights you're trying to coordinate with your teammates without the same ridiculous speed as in Battlerite. Even when you lose in Dota, you can feel like you achieved something. When they are starting off in Battlerite, it feels like you achieve nothing, and add nothing to the experience for your teammates. You are essentially a handicap for them, meaning there's very little incentive to return to the game. I would posit this was the *biggest* reason for players not sticking around. The game made you feel bad for losing.

[@deadlyk1tten]

what you listed are mostly minor issues, the core problem is taht this is just not a viable game formula, it is fun on paper and really fun when you first try it but there just isnt enough depth or gratification for it to stand on its own as a game genre, LOL tried the game mode dominion and failed, its almost exactly the same reason, it's also why 3v3 maps of all the mobas (liek league or the likes of Vainglory) never took off, The reasons could be many but for me, for this kind of top down view game you need depth in strategy rather than pure skill shoot, otherwise its like the simple game of rock scissor and paper, yeah cool and unique, but gets tedious really fast

[@permavirgin3595]

Battlerite was too pure. It needed more customization of the heroes themselves for more depth and therefore more longevity. Yeah, Arena shooters are the pinnacle of fairness and e-sport suitability but they died.

[@stephenvp]

And now here we are again playing their new project again, Vrising, for their new update and once again numbers will likely drop shortly after major content like it did on launch.

[@GamerGameBR]

Good luck for them trying to keep a PVE focused game alive with just one major update every year. The PVP in VRising is grindy and atrociously unbalanced, the game will probably die if they dont hurry up and start pumping some decent content out there, wake up devs, the game has pottential, dont mess it up by putting the game asleep.

[@snatcher8517]

sounds like a vtuber unit

[@NotsoNick]

Oof, as someone who has about 350 hours into the game, this stings.

[@UnheardPope]

I feel you. may only have 150 but still i miss the peak times

[@jmoa5758]

Wow what an idiot lol 350hr into this garbage Bet you were part of the dummies who defended the game and flamed people like me when we said "this game is fun in short burst but it's not going to last, no long term appeal"... AND WHAT DO YOU KNOW? WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT...

[@Beautifulconnyxime]

Bro it hurts when the truth atacks you and you wanna disagree but you know its true

[@slicedpie]

@@jmoa5758 someones cranky

[@Igneeka]

@@jmoa5758 That's a high amount of salt right here

[@LokiWeekend]

Why this channel has only near 200k? you deserve more, your Death of a Game videos are really good and informative. PD: I would love to see a Death of a Game: The Amazing Eternals (Keystone). Greetings from Uruguay.

[@Galloglaoch]

It's really sad, Battlerite was incredible! At the time I was really bored of the long LoL games and needed a fresh moba, one where I can play for 20 minutes ad go my way. This was a gift from heaven and I enjoyed every minute I put in this game. But then as described in the vide...I just maybe burned out. I spend enough day playing for hours for my will to keep loging in to start fading. It was not that I wasn't enjoying the game, I was just playing it too much. My firends also got tired of it and went back to LoL. I kept playing Battlerite here and there but then a second road block appeared. Now playing a bit here and there kept me interested in loging in, but my skill was no longe rimproving since I barely played enough to polish anything. Coupled with my desire to play diferent champions it just lead to me starting to not have fun because I wa snot good enough for the place where I got myself to. So I dropped out but kept an eye on the gamenhoping to find something to bring me back. The new Paladin champion and the Royale mode got me interested again but sadly for a short ammount of time. I fell off the game so hard that I wasn't even aware it was dead. Maybe I intentionally ignored it so I can think in my mind that this great game is still alive and kicking and some day I can return for a game....but alas that ain't the case. Rest in piece you gem of a game!

[@adrianvargas2495]

Come back! We need more players who enjoy battlerite:p

[@eryalmario5299]

This game was so fun

[@spinyslasher6586]

LoL is not long it's short af.

[@awest3749]

I honestly never knew that I was paying for early access when I joined, until this video. I thought the game was already done and I was just paying because it was a pay-to-play title, that suddenly became free one-day lmaooo. And even then the fact that I had all champions free (while free to play players didn't) while having access to new ones in the future made me think "it was worth paying." So yeah the fact that I paid for early-access was news to me lololol.

[@MarioDuarteMD19]

I never even played this game, just here cause your content is straight fire. XD

[@Moshpitti]

Same, I've barely heard of most of the games but I love the videos

[@iFave]

Nice to see some of my clips in the Video 👍 Apparently you can still play Arena rankeds with low queue times. Thanks to Corona.

[@PeaceBuny]

Playing batllerite was in a way lonely experience. If there would be a hub where players would wait for games and chat it would add social behavior and maybe ppl would buy More skins

[@alexisbrin518]

Yea there was really no interaction of anysort with other player. You try to play and coordinate together during a 5 minutes game then... well that's all...

[@Tinkerbellball852]

Some players made a discord group.

[@CLR438]

Back in the day we had these things called private servers. You could actually have persistent server communities and the game would stay playable even with a niche audience. I know it is too much to ask developers to implement basic multiplayer features that were bog standard in the 90's, but one can always dream.

[@aaronbasham6554]

@@CLR438 and people wonder why TF2 is still one of the most popular games.

[@vuivraalbastra]

Yeah, the matches are too short and intense for players to really interact and make friends. Unless you have friends interested in this game already, it really felt lonely to play Battlerite. There was nothing to do while waiting for a match either, which isn't always a problem, but in these circumstances it did hurt my experience with this game.

[@EliK-u1p]

>"next case" stinger music >something in the back of my mind stirs immediately >definitely heard that one >takes me a few seconds and a couple rewinds for it to finally dawn on me Oh shit, this gon b gud. I still remember with 100% clarity where I left my character and what I was doing last time logged into that game. And that was 8 years ago.

[@juanolotgn]

The gameplay loop wasn't good enough to keep players interested. Both me and friends of mine played it, each formed the same opinion on their own - Battlerite got stale quickly. Maybe it's precisely because you're directly thrown into the action without build up and therefore care less about your character. Maybe it was something else, perhaps that players do want moments of low action and to focus on macro play.

[@dennismaberry7128]

im probably the minority here....but i loved the game because it cut out all the fluff and was all action....i actually binged the fuck out of this game and i wish they didnt waste so much resources on battle royale as its own game and didnt force esports so early....the game was unique relatively balanced and addicting in my humble opinion

[@jlegolas-YT]

@@DivinityOfBLaze I agree with Dennis game had potential. I hoped for a tournament mode similar to BLC. I have to disagree with you, in battlerite you didn't have time to juggle things. Games was exhausting after an hour or 2, comparatively league or Dota are just boring 5 minutes in. Not sure if there exists a sweet balance.

[@tHeWasTeDYouTh]

holy crap this is the same studio that did V Rising and made a ton of money. good for them they actually made it

[@CssHDmonster]

its crazy, battlerite felt good to play but there was nothing to keep u playing or at least it felt like that

[@CssHDmonster]

@Ronnyqt dunno honestly, like i have over 4k hours in dota2 so i clearly dont play for simple progression like unlocking shit

[@dj_koen1265]

A little late but I think its about chasing a high In league what motivates you to keep playing is the chance to do well early and become really powerful That high of power is like a drug and we play league partially to chase thst high of a game where we do really well Battlerite doesn’t have those highs based on power Since its a pure skill game the only highs in battlerite is if you outplay your opponent or win a close match and those highs last very shortly compared to a moba where you can feel powerful for quite a while when you are having a good game On top of that battlerite has quite linear gameplay, there aren’t any alternative objectives A lot of the maps are also uninspired That’s probably not all of it but its what came to mind thinking about it at the moment

[@dj_koen1265]

One simple thing that could help make the game more engaging Is that you choose one of 3 random battlerites at the start of every round and you keep those across rounds Having players making decisions in between rounds would help them to feel less monotone and insert some more feeling of variety through randomness but also the flow of the game For ranked i would still keep it as the current system but for casual queue i think this system would improve engagement for little cost For example the way augments work in league and tft accomplishes the same thing, without them The games would more quickly become monotonous And br did have a system like this (except not random) and i think it actually felt more engaging because you had decisions to make in between rounds, added a unique flow to The game and made the result of future rounds less predictable

[@ShadowmarkReturns]

I absolutely adored this game. It was the first competitive game that I had truely gotten invested in for it's competitive nature. I grinded ladder so hard and every match was extremely satisfying. I was happy with what was there to begin with and Battlerite Royale was a unique spin on the genre of BR games that I hoped would take off. I got so mad at the playerbase for leaving due to a lack of new content when, to me, the content that was there was all I needed. I am sad my favorite PVP game of all time lost it's playerbase, but I can't wait to see what Stunlock Studios makes next and gives me hope for the future.

[@milkymoo3999]

“Who’s gonna be stupid enough to wait for an upload at 2 AM?” “Oh boy, 2 AM!”

[@Metroidf4n]

Could you do a Death of a game on "Dawngate" I miss that game so goddamn much, it still hurts

[@mravicchio1]

Dawngate never actually released though. Shutdown in beta.

[@rixx0s]

It was a simple case of EA didn't make enough money from it so they cut their losses.

[@Someoneman-Doot]

11:49 you accidentally wrote "Battleborn" instead of "Battlerite"

[@adriac1291]

Just wanted to say again how nice of a guy this man is, sent in a video editor application and he sent me to an indie game studio instead of just ignoring me. Thanks man !

[@aTypicalMushroom]

I loved this game when it came out, I played thorny boy but they not only nerfed him pretty hard they kept other things OP and then also well. Yah killed the game.

[@doldre5432]

I played this game before the Battlerite update, it used to be called Bloodline Champions not sure if this is addressed in the vid or not, I'm about to watch it. This game was dead before it even came out :D

[@SuperKratosgamer]

Thorn is still great.

[@dogshithandle111]

Thorn was straight up busted with that energy generation. One of the two champions which forced me to stop playing the game. Disgusting kit, which was absolutely imbalanced for months.

[@SCVM45]

Thorn is still crazy good, he's just not OP as shit now.

[@Unpixelt]

Battlerite Royale: *exists* Spuzie: "It's free real estate!"

[@kesos8626]

WHOEVER IS WATHING THIS VIDEO , JUST DOWNLOAD THE GAME , LETS REVIVE IT , IT DESERVES IT

[@mecawl]

So I started playing this game since quite literally day 1 in open beta, I think. Back before Rook was added. It was absolutely incredible, and I think the demand for the genre is DEFINITELY there, but as you said there're some core issues that keep it from being a game that people can continuously play without burning out. I would hope that they can make another game and iron out all the mistakes, finally making the One True MOBA-Esque Battle Arena Game(tm), but Tencent being onboard is quite worrying, so I'm not sure if I can keep my hopes up.

[@ShadowVghost]

Damn, I loved this game so much that it's litteraly too painful to watch Battlerite as Death of a Game subject :(

[@MrAdrien914]

Same dude ...

[@Oncus2]

Loved the concept since Bloodline Champions. It's disheartening to see such a great concept not appealing to larger audiences that was required to sustain the game.

[@megetmindresukker]

happy you put some focus on the issue of the BPL, in BLC we created community rather early to allow a scene, but i never felt i happen on the same scale for battlerite, and with a league who gonna make it impossible for any grassroot tourneys to be able to run on the weekend window, we never managed to stabilize an enviroment invested enough into competetive gaming outside of the top players. also shoutout to my roadmap boys, tournament system coming out in 2018 ! woop woop! also, tournament system wouldnt have worked when the game doesnt even have a functioning general chat system ingame... Also for those who still crave BLC, we do have inhouse discords for that, we still once in a while get a few lobbies up and running.

[@sovsouth]

Damn I loved bloodline champions, wondered why the game just died and there were no other games like it, literally never knew this game even existed despite constant searching for this type of thing. RIP.

[@Projolo]

Most of game like battlerite are dead or in the maintance mode.

[@nikospyridis9579]

I think that Battlerite ended up like this because well... it was TOO competitive and very hard to teach. Losing in Battlerite feels really bad when you get outplayed and due to VERY high time-to-kill (which is part of the whole arena brawler genre, it's not a shooter 3v3 elimination mode) and the lack of casual mechanics (as in what happens in Fortnite for example, where items get added to bridge the gap between a good and a bad player, allowing the bad player to have a chance) meant that you would almost never beat a player better than you. It sounds good but remember how bad it feels to lose to said better player, while also feeling like you have no chance whatsoever (which you don't). The game as I said is very hard to teach. It's really hard to introduce my friends to this game. It really isn't as simple as "When they do this, do that or counter that". The game has a lot of mind games in it that take hours on hours to understand and play around properly and adapt. I don't remeber who said this, but someone said that the game just takes too much skill and it's too hard to be popular, which I find to be true. I mean, think about it, there is NO guaranteed value whatsoever in the game. Everything is a skillshot or a timing ability, except from some shields and stuff I guess, but other than that, even healing is a skillshot. Lots of them actually. There are no clear "combos" usually but it's "try to react to your opponent's response to what you are doing the best way possible". But that's really hard and not simple by any means, as it depends on your approach, your cooldowns and your opponent's cooldowns. You can go a whole round and hit only counters, shields and deal damage that gets healed immediately. For example in League of Legends though, in most cases I know "I will execute my combo which will leave them and this health and this is how they can retaliate". They will fight back, but not heal to full while fighting back (usually). There is a form of guaranteed value, value that will stick. In Battlerite you can play an entire round and be useless, which as I said before, will feel completely miserable.

[@hurpdurpgaming]

the death of bloodline champions and battlerite makes me so sad

[@joethespectre]

This hits me so hard because it was the only moba esque game I enjoyed and I thought it was one of the best refinements of the genre. I hope they somehow come back with another one someday to revolutionize the battle area genre once again. With vr being as huge as it is now, maybe they could find a new audience within the community of vr enthusiasts.

[@clemens5740]

I was actzally diamond in this game and was so proud but then these changes : c and my boy thorn i miss him

[@bobjeezorham7658]

Man I remember I was actually getting into this game when I was first playing it, but then it started to die.

[@LeeAmNiesen]

All I know is I won't give the stunlock another chance.

[@fariskapo8365]

I played a lot of Blc when it was popular. The favorite aspects of the game for me was the account progression and in game daily turnaments which were so sick. You had a guild in your client and you would try to find someone to go play a turney with. You go into the turney win a few rounds often get dropped at one point or not. It tends to be that people you have won against would specatate you in the next round, and if you make it to the finals you have 60+ spectators which for 2010 was amazing and made you feel like such a badass. Coming to battlerite and finding they did not implement the turney system was a massive disappointment for me

[@dj_koen1265]

The game needed it so badly imo Would have been a great feature

[@AndruSouls]

I remember spending a lot of time with this game. It looked cool at first, but some match-ups weren't just "favorable". Once you learn all the characters, the game turned into rock paper scissors pretty much. Only like 3 characters were viable in the BR mode

[@michaelluck5577]

rock paper scissors? we arent talking about the arena mode right? sure nowwadays with no updates some heroes stayed overtuned with minor balance issues and there are some that are a bit better matchup wise into certain heroes than others but man, it still is one of the most balanced pvp games ive played. you can learn any hero and rip with him/her

[@TheZadMo]

Thank you, as always, for the tremendous amount of work put into this video! I like to chip in with my point of view from time to time, when I played the dead game featured in the video. This is mostly a rant about gaming in general but hear me out (it’s a long one, brace yourselves!) On the topic of the game itself, Battlerite had a steep and unforgiving learning curve. I usually enjoy this type of punishing gameplay, up to a certain point. I think the arena battler genre is full of potential, but I just can’t see myself play this type of game for more than a few weeks at a time, as I’ growing tired of the free rotation and other gimmicks that are symptoms of monetization. In such a high skillcap game, it feels counterintuitive to have to relearn other heroes every week. Whenever I felt like I got the hang of one, it got swapped out for another and I got sent back to square one. This is also true for other similar games, maybe I’m just a slow learner that likes to deep dive into specific members of the cast. It feels like Stunlock studios is filled with passionate people that maybe asked the wrong questions. Wondering if they could pull off a Battle Royale, I think they did not really assess if they should. We see this too often in failing titles: company having ideas that try and emulate what is currently working in the market without polishing enough prior to publishing. I never downloaded the title, as I thought it was an out of season April’s Fool. The gameplay in your video did not make me want to play it either, unfortunately. I just don’t see the appeal of blending genres together to fit the “meta”, especially these two. Some games did it better in their own niche (Borderlands series come to mind, blending FPS with ARPG). I think the key point here is to focus on the gameplay and not the current market expectations. The Esports flops have showed up in a lot of titles recently. Company see the potential money and flock to esports like it’s a pot of gold waiting at the end of a rainbow. You worded it great in the video by saying the product and the genre itself were not proven to be Esports ready. It’s such a shame when developers have delusions of grandeur and think of their game as the new “professional competitive go to”. Blizzard with Heroes of the Storm and Mythic Dungeon International are great examples of a “3A” company trying to infuse hype in something that probably should remain on the casual side. Not everything has to become a league of some sort. Here, it seems like Stunlock bit more that they could chew. A company of 45 employees offering a title to 13-40k people is a big accomplishment and they should be proud! I can never justify buying multiple battle passes from different games at the same time. The time I can devote to gaming has diminished over the years. As I like to play many games at the same time, short blitz of 2-3 games at a time, I can’t see myself spending 20-40$ per game every 3 months just to enjoy some cosmetics or progression boosts. Once again, trying to emulate the bigger games, indie developers fall in the trap of putting most or all of the good cosmetics into the passes, forcing players to either binge and commit to playing the game for the duration of the pass or buy boosts to finish them and not feel like they’ve missed out. Even when I feel like the price of the pass is just right, some progression systems are so greedy on players’ time that it just feels like I’ve been cheated out of my money. Dead by Daylight, with their recent Archives system, comes to mind here. If you weren’t playing 60+ hours a week, there was no way you could complete the pass without paying extra. In this case, the gameplay being so broken and buggy at times, combined with the extra slow pass progression, it has deterred me from ever buying one again. I’ll show my support once they address the issues the game has. Maybe I’m just not the target audience for the passes and need to come to terms with it. It just feels bad from a consumer perspective to look at my 400+ STEAM library and tell myself that I MUST play this game or else I will miss out on finishing the pass. Finally, I’m not against companies needing money to continue development of their games. Recently, it feels like game studios have shifted from a money-centered metric to a game time-centered metric. Every game is engineered to require a tremendous amount of time and effort. Content is time-gated or locked behind more paywalls. Early releases as high as 50-60$ for an unfinished product that then integrate a pre-pass battle pass on top of that. It is getting ridiculous and I do not enjoy the gaming era we have entered in the past years. As much as I love multiplayer games, I think I will shift my focus towards story-based or single player titles, as I feel I get more bang out my buck. I won’t keep running on the cosmetics treadmill that multiplayer games offer due to lack of other content. Are you planning on exploring the pros and cons of the battle pass system? I’d be interested in your take on the subject. Great work as always, will be there for the next one. TL;DR: Stunlock Studios were passionate people that tried to emulate the bigger companies and failed due to lack of resources. Battlerite was fun and had potential. Esports for indie game needs rethinking. Battle Passes are symptoms of aggressive monetization and I can’t commit to them due to being a casual.

[@dj_koen1265]

I agree with you Adding to what you said i think lootboxes and premium currencies are also awful and toxic

[@yagobrasil7136]

I cant process the fact that such an amazing Game with one of the most balanced and excelent PvP ive seen..failed so hard.. RIP

[@jovaniotero2344]

To think V rising was the game. Absolutely one of the best I’ve played in a long while.

[@Narzick]

I went HARD in this game, can't wait to watch this. Was so fun but just got tired of it really

[@PAIN-lz8mk]

this type of game or rather battle arena genre iv always liked it, and battlerite seemed the best at it its characters and designs and the skill level were all amazing, its sad that it died and i hope they make a better version of it in the future i would definitely play it

[@daltinhorp]

the matchmaking was bad too, pairing you with pro players that was salt about the new players lack of skills/counters, this affect a lot game retention.

[@bazookajoe6317]

I remember flexing to my mates about me being placed in plat. I couldn't play ranked anymore though cuz I lost every game after my placements and would get rekt non stop.

[@apalmtree6229]

I still play from time to time the br game but it has about 0 population which kills the game. I queue for about 5-12 mins then go to an uncontested area (1 with good loot but off the main path of the dragons that drop you) After having a major looting i encounter about 1-3 people (who most of the time don't have good gear so they are not challenging) i get almost maxed out and then ready for the final battle with the 1-3 remaining player. Those 1-3 usually die to the storm. If they don't they have major skills missing and have half the damage they should. Just described 80% of the games, high win rate in battle royale games can be depressing.

[@FalcnPWNCH]

As someone who has dipped their toes into all sorts of MOBA-esque games *(played league for almost the 10 years of it's lifetime, with hundreds of hours mix of Smite/Dota2 and then Battlerite)* I also supported and jumped in on Battlerite aswell - and right from the get go I along with my friends had one big problem and it was ironically the high-octane action the game sold itself with, as the action was so intensive and fast paced, playing just a couple sets of best of 3 matches could already become *very exhausting and we'd be too fatigued to keep going* for more than three to five sets of matches which more often than not were complete shitstomps dominated by one side or even a single player at best, much like N.S. said in the video, to my experience you really couldn't play this game for extensive periods of time like how you could just blow out hours worth of matches in other MOBA titles - also one problem for me personally was how overly convoluted and stressful the use of *SEVEN SEPARATE ABILITIES* in such a fast paced environment was, many of the champions abilities felt very samey as all the classes of champions had to have very similar and samey abilities baseline like how almost if not *every character has one to two dashes, all melee characters had to have a directional block ability, all supports had to have an AOE and a single target heal, all ranged characters had have two to three linear skillshot nukes that did the exact same things but with minuscule differences* - it became really hard to tell the champions and their ability effects apart

[@129das]

It Had no area where you just have fun messing around with the champions.

[@bibbayeet8007]

Awww, is 7 abilities too much for the poor LoL player? Nah, I'm kidding I play some League too. Im the opposite where I liked it when you had 7 vs the 3.5 League has. You are right though, some of those games were somewhat exhausting especially the close games. I prefer them to the 35 min matches of league though, not to mention how uttlerly cancerous the league community is. Most Battlerite players would wait for an enemy AFKer to come back before attacking.

[@furrymessiah]

Exactly what was one of my main issues with the game - it always felt like you were either getting stomped, or stomping yourself. The matches were always, ALWAYS one-sided like that.

[@Toxihex]

@@bibbayeet8007 I think the problem is the lack of originality. What's the point of having even 10 abilities on a single character if the other characters do pretty much the same things? Also, league is toxic because it's frustrating and slow with very inaccurate skillshot animations and a huge skill gap between players of the same rank, a game that doesn't suffer from these issues doesn't have a reason to grasp at every chance to secure a victory.

[@bibbayeet8007]

@@Toxihex Why it's toxic doesn't matter cause I still wanna shoot myself when interacting with League players no matter the reason. As for abilities, I would say no Moba style games have very original abilities. I find myself playing LoL and saying "this champ is just this champ but better/worse" all the time. I find Battlerites abilities much more fun cause theres no bullshit point and click. Thats the most boring unfun shit.

[@danii_maciasr9866]

Played Battlerite since beta and I really loved that game, I really invested time into getting better and it is the only game I've ever been good enough at to actually compete. After quite a ton of hours (you don't want to know) I gotta say that, even if it died, it was worth it. I'll miss all the characters, the community and the emotions you get from playing such a frenetic game. R.I.P., I saw you born, grow and die, it was a great yet short life

[@A_Cheap_Companion]

Damn man I was hoping I’d never see this game on your channel. Really had a fun time when it was populated

[@Kakuren]

As a Blossom main, the loss of this game makes me sad. It's hard to find a 2 vs 2 game let alone something that was as competitive as this.

[@Diphenhydra]

Something I think you’re forgetting about the esports attempt is that, at the same time, the overwatch league was beginning. Surely drawing a lot of attention away from Battlerite.

[@dimitrijestanisic3478]

I play both even after their death, the mechanics are really clean so i just won't stop playing it on and off until the playerbase reaces below the 50 guys that are currently playing xD

[@lordento]

Should do one on Darwin project, amazing game yet not getting recognized sadly. Servers gonna get shutdown this year so it'd be a great Idea to make a review about it too. BTW great vid as always

[@geo6337]

darwin project just can’t be balanced w a spectator

[@QuicksliceFilms]

They really should've just built this in as an alternative game mode for Battlerite, this definitely split the already wavering core audience and accelerated the population decline. It would have been easy to add rewards that promote playing both arena and the battle royale versions. I just miss this game.

[@jijigri9224]

Great video, I just want to let people know that Battlerite Arena still has a good amount of players, so if anyone is interested in playing it, it is still very playable at the moment, and will probably stay stable for some time By the way, I love the conclusion of the video. While many people will say that Battlerite Royale was what killed the game, or that the last update did. At the end of the day, the game was just not the type of game that could attract and keep many players. Lot of people get bored very fast when game sessions are short and intense, so the game sadly wasn't design for the majority of players. This is a sad truth about online games: your game can be the most unique game there is, if it doesn't appeal to the vast majority of players, it will fail By the way guys play Quantum League. Very niche game, I'd like to see more people play it. Very unique FPS, it definitely deserves love and attention before it's too late

[@VanguardJester]

man, i remember battlerite. I was good at it. and I mean _good._ I played it competitively, and it was one of the rare times I walked into a game with a natural talent for it, as opposed to the sheer GRRIIIIND i put into other games to reach a similar skill level. Everything just sort of clicked in my head, ashka was always just so S P I C Y to play, jade was always magnificent to have in my back pocket, but the second ulric came out, I realized how much of a fucking M O N S T E R I could become in this game! I loved almost every character (poloma and pearl need to go a w a y) I was a raigon main for a little while until I got my hands on ulric, although shifu, thorn, and rook will always be loved! and to this day, I STILL have a crush on blossom! Just a shame battlerite had to go the way it did.

[@dj_koen1265]

Poloma > blossom anyday for me

[@Sonix07pr]

I loved this game. It was a great time, but everything went to shit when they released royale + questionable monetization.

[@firstnamelastname1749]

Love the detective conan music as always! I think it's pretty silly try to make a competitive game but take away the nuances of a competitive game. There needs to be enough room for a player to gain an advantage and enjoy that advantage. Battlerite was, at best, a small indie game for a semi-casual player base (think awesomenauts, brawhalla, etc.). It simply did not have the feedback loop of big games like dota/league where you have 10-15 minutes of laning phase where you can possibly stomp the living shit out of your opponent + leading to an advantage giving you the opportunity to dominate the entire enemy team. It did not have the technical skill expression of the simpler games like CSGO, fighting games, etc. or much strategic expressions. The company is just way too greedy without the necessary skills to back up that greed.

[@disappointedparents9406]

I despise the fact that this video has made me cried. You sir have dragged out memories that should've been forgotten and for that sir i respectfully gotta say DAM YOU!

[@johnsongab4211]

Found this game oct 19 2019 the trailer got me i installed it finding 1 sec mtches every mtches it gets slow and when i found out that it was dead i was so upset its a really fun game

[@al137]

I was about to go to bed you monster.

[@hellcopterts8895]

Aiming/Dodging skill shots while being positional aware of other 5 players on the field gets your brain tired REALLY fast. Fast pacing was it greatest strenght; but also it greatest weakness.