It's a last-one-standing Battle Royale with a difference: "Ring of Elysium" takes place within a ski resort, with snowboards, hang gliders, avalanches and hypothermia included. Each round ends when there are four players remaining, one for each vacant seat on a helicopter transporting them away. It's a far cry from "Minecraft," where players might cooperate to help each other survive, though Battle Royale games typically encourage strategic thinking under pressure and, where the format allows, teamwork and clear communication.
Developed and published by Chinese internet giant Tencent, "Ring of Elysium" -- previously known as "Europa" -- is to launch worldwide on September 19 via PC gaming platform Steam. Tencent has already published a test version of "Ring of Elysium" in Thailand and Indonesia via Singapore-headquartered games company Garena, but this international release is being distributed through Steam. While maintaining genre conventions -- up to 100 players scavenge for equipment and weapons in a fight to stay alive -- it introduces severe weather conditions as well as novel modes of transport such as snowboards, zip lines, hang gliders, and snowmobiles, with cliff-scaling pickaxes also available.
In this way "Ring of Elysium" anticipates a snow map currently anticipated for genre spearhead "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" by the end of the year, while likewise going toe-to-toe with Garena's own "Free Fire" and another Asian competitor for PC and mobile, "Rules of Survival." The possibility of contracting hypothermia also puts "Ring of Elysium" adjacent to current Steam success "SCUM," which simulates a number of physiological systems, even if Tencent's project adopts a simpler approach.
Tencent previously developed two "PUBG Mobile" games in cooperation with South Korean "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" studio Bluehole; it also owns a controlling stake in Epic Games, the studio behind the softer, more caricatured, and intensely popular "Fortnite."
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