Battle royale games have a variety of origins, but they all have one thing in common: a huge number of players enter, and only one departs. Battle royale is a bloody, chaotic, and frenetic multiplayer game in which the only objective is to survive until you're the last person standing.
In the greatest battle royale games, all strategies and styles of play are equally viable. You may either scavenge a weapon and start decreasing the herd's numbers yourself, or you can hide in the woods and wait for the herd to dwindle down. You'd be excused for believing there are just three battle royales out there with the boom of Fortnite, PUBG, and Apex Legends, but there are now a slew of new competitors to challenge them, each with its unique take on the established concept. With player numbers changing all over the place, it's essential to know which battle royale games are the most popular so you can be sure to find a match.
Whether you're looking for classics like Warzone or a fresh take on the genre, there's a battle royale game for you. As a result, we've put together this helpful list of the top battle royale games on PC to help you expand your horizons.
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CRSED: F.O.A.D.
The game formerly known as Cuisine Royale may have started out as a joke, but it is still attracting consistent player counts more than a year after its original debut. What is the key to their success? PUBG-style gameplay, regular updates that add new content, and a free-to-play business based only on cosmetics.
CRSED also adds its own twists to the well-worn battle royale concept. The most apparent difference is that instead of military armor and equipment, players must protect themselves from gunfire by using pots, pans, and other kitchenware. Other clever additions, such as a drastically decreased player count and basic WW2 games-inspired weapons, make battles simple and competitive. If you're searching for a free-to-play BR game that's semi-realistic, CRSED: F.O.A.D. is one of the finest presently available.
Call of Duty: Warzone
Except for the fact that there is still an ever-shrinking circle of death pushing all 150 players into combat until only one team survives, Warzone deviates from the conventional battle royale game concept in almost every way. There are respawns in the form of a strange 1v1 battle in the Gulag, you can gather cash and use it at Buy Stations to respawn teammates or killstreaks, and you can even build up your finest Warzone loadout before a match and call it in as a reward. All of this contributes to Warzone being a BR game in which losing one comrade isn't a huge concern, allowing you to play as aggressively as you like.
You can score a kill with almost any common assault weapon - looting is mainly for cash and ammunition – so you can concentrate on getting into and out of as many scrapes as possible. Other changes contribute to the simplicity: the zone is very deadly, so there's no camping in the gas meta, armor plates cover your whole body, so you don't have to worry about helmets, and health regenerates similarly to multiplayer. So, if you're searching for a fast-paced and accessible free battle royale game, Warzone is one of the finest choices available.
Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout
Fall Guys combines features from the battle royale genre with Takeshi's Castle, a popular Japanese game show, to create something really unique. Each player must beat their fellow jelly beans in a frantic race for the finish line, but only the top number of players may advance through each round to be declared the winner. The challenges aren't necessarily obstacle courses; they may include memory games, hanging to a platform for dear life, and even an enormous football game in which participants are divided into two teams.
The appeal of Fall Guys is that, regardless of skill level, nearly anybody can win, and it is this element of chance that makes the game so exciting. You'll have a wonderful tale to tell even if you don't win. Though Fall Guys' popularity has dwindled after its release in August 2020, the game remains very popular. Every few months, the creators add new material like as skins and challenges, and they listen to community input to improve the experience for both new and veteran players.
Apex Legends
It's no surprise that Apex Legends' player count surpassed 25 million in its first week, thanks to the dystopian appeal of Titanfall's mech-ravaged environment and the fierce gunfights that make PUBG so compelling. In its first seven days, Respawn's battle royale game outperformed genre mainstay Fortnite in terms of viewership on Twitch.
Apex Legends moves at a breakneck speed. Sure, this combat royale lacks the parkour and wall-running that we've come to anticipate from Respawn's renowned robot game, but it moves in its own unique manner. Sprinting is faster than you would think, and sliding covers more ground - particularly considering the hilly terrain. The tone of the gunplay is also determined by movement: if your team flanks another in a well-timed assault, you win their reward.
The Apex Legends weaponry has been fine-tuned, indicating Respawn's confidence in releasing the game as a complete game rather than an early access title. Shotguns have a terrifying crunch to them that may penalize a poorly-timed push just as much as a well-placed headshot can help a sniper rifle user.
Even better, there's plenty here for casual players. Apex Legends employs a ping mechanism to alleviate the difficulty of communicating without a microphone. The scroll wheel may be used to highlight important locations, precious treasures, and charging hostiles. Furthermore, the Apex Legends cast of characters is wonderfully diverse, quirky, and cool to inhabit, ranging from a time-hopping assassin to a zip line quip-happy robot. There's never been a better moment to join the Apex Games than now, with the release of Apex Legends Season 4 and the new Legend Revenant.
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
The fundamental battle royale concept is done well in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, which routinely attracts hundreds of thousands of concurrent players and has sold millions of copies. The chart-topping phenomenon is packed with features and is addicting beyond belief, thanks to regular PUBG upgrades and new PUBG maps.
Brendan Greene, the developer of PUBG and the guy behind the immensely famous Arma 3 Battle Royale mode, goes by the moniker PlayerUnknown. PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, for example, avoids complications such as crafting and a complex melee fighting system in favour of razor-sharp firefights, tactical play, and scavenging.
PUBG feels and handles more authentically than any other battle royale game on our list, leading in reactive gameplay that never gets old.
Fortnite
Do you want your 100-man massacres to seem like something out of a comic book? Fortnite Battle Royale takes PUBG's flawlessly balanced match structure and replaces it with vibrant colors and soft edges. Furthermore, with each new Fortnite season, Epic Games continues to outdo themselves by altering the landscape, introducing a slew of new Fortnite skins, and revamping gaming fundamentals. It's no surprise that Fortnite's player base continues to grow: it's the current king of battle royales.
You may also gather materials and construct buildings such as homes to camp in, walls for protection, and ramps to assist you to climb mountains. This is a battle royale game for those who enjoy putting their own spin on things.
This alters the game's rhythm significantly, placing a greater focus on resource collection during the battle so that you have enough resources to construct cover and fortify as the player count decreases. Being able to construct also implies having a lot of leeways when it comes to unorthodox methods. Are you pinned behind a tree? Take out your pickaxe, grab a few logs, and construct a wall to provide some more security. Are you looking for a covert method to get to an opponent? Consider constructing a sequence of ramps to flank them from an unexpected direction.
If you become tired of the Battle Royale element, you may switch to Fortnite Creative mode and enjoy some of the amazing player-made maps, innovations, and game types created using Fortnite Island tickets.
The Fortnite vs. PUBG argument isn't going away anytime soon, so enjoy the fact that we have two fantastic survival shooters to choose from.