I’ve developed a rather strong opinion on the existence and prevalence of battle royale games since the genre’s popularity initially began to skyrocket; though I haven’t had the opportunity to publicly discuss my personal thoughts on that topic at any point during my tenure here at Phenixx Gaming. That’s quite possibly for the best, as I’d prefer to avoid alienating any portion of our audience who may enjoy battle royale titles to any degree.

However, the battle royale craze has now officially reached a certain point which compels me to express my opinion on the genre as a whole. To phrase it as bluntly, yet as diplomatically as I can, I honestly vehemently dislike every battle royale game of which I’ve been made aware since the hype related to such games approached a fever pitch.

Granted, I admittedly haven’t actually played a full-fledged battle royale game, and I’m aware that my intentional lack of experience with the genre doesn’t exactly qualify me to offer a detailed opinion on any game that falls into the battle royale category. Until the topic I’ll be discussing today came to light, I could simply ignore any battle royale games I encountered.

I know the battle royale genre definitely isn’t my cup of tea, but I was perfectly content in avoiding such games and focusing more on games that are more my forte; rather than demeaning battle royale games or those who enjoy them. I figured the entire battle royale scene would remain largely self-contained, which would mean I wouldn’t have to deal with any of its various aspects unless I had a sudden change of heart.

Much to my dismay and confusion, however, the battle royale scene is no longer self-contained within its own fan bases and multitude of different games. As you’ve probably gathered by now, the genre’s mechanics have been included within the most recent major content update to Sid Meier’s Civilization VI. Within this article, I’ll discuss a certain portion of my thoughts on this matter as concisely as I can.

You might know from reading a select few of my past articles that I hold Civilization VI near and dear to my heart. I’ve grown to love the vast majority of new mechanics that allow Civ VI to stand out from its predecessors, especially most mechanics that have been added or more fleshed out in the game’s two expansions.

Imagine my shock, then, when I learned that Firaxis planned to include a battle royale multiplayer mode within the game’s September 2019 update. Personally, this entire concept is almost too strange and unexpected for me to fully process. I haven’t quite come to grips with the fact that a game like Civilization VI would ever contain a mode such as this, and I’m still unsure as to when that fact will really sink in.

Due to my bias against battle royale games, I initially fully expected that I would despise Civ VI’s new mode based on what little I saw of it before its release. After I had a significant change of heart about World of Warcraft Classic, however, I learned not to be so quick to unfairly judge a game (or game mode, in this context) without actually giving it a chance to prove itself.

Therefore, I was able to alter my mindset about Civ VI’s new content. I elected to exercise cautious optimism until I could experience the game mode in question for myself. After all, I thought there was always a chance that Firaxis would be able to put a unique, enjoyable spin on the basic concepts of most battle royale games of which I’m currently aware.

Before I get to my thoughts on Civilization VI’s new additions, I think it would be wise for me to explain a bit of how its’ battle royale mode functions for the benefit of anyone who might be unfamiliar with the genre. The mode in question is called “Red Death,” and that name is quite an apt description.

There are no ordinary Civs playable within Red Death. Instead, there are several factions which each have a certain unique bonus, though they understandably lack such things as unique units or districts considering how the mode operates. For example, I chose to play as a faction known as the “Doomsday Preppers” within the round of Red Death from which I extracted most of the screenshots present in this article.

Each faction starts with at least two mid-to-late-game military units (namely Machine Guns and Infantry, in my experience), as well as a set number of civilian units. Your primary objective is to eliminate all the civilian units which belong to the enemy factions, while simultaneously ensuring that at least one of your civilian units survives. The last faction with at least one remaining intact civilian unit is declared the victor.

Those of you who are familiar with battle royale games are likely aware of what I like to call the “imminent doom” mechanic. By that, I’m referring to the gameplay aspect wherein the “safe zone” periodically shrinks and subsequently kills any players who are caught outside of it. In this context, that role is filled by the titular “Red Death.”

Considering that the gameplay within a round of Red Death takes place after an apparent nuclear apocalypse, there are several mechanics outside of the Red Death itself that will likely prove problematic very frequently. As aforementioned, players must ensure that their units remain within the “safe zone” and away from the Red Death for as long as possible.

You might reasonably theorize, as I initially did, that any bodies of water on the map that aren’t consumed by the Red Death are relatively safe; I found out the hard way that this is most certainly not the case. Even if a body of water is as far from the Red Death as possible, the irradiated water will heavily damage any units occupying it.

Because of this, I’ve found that instructing any units to automatically explore the map is a very bad idea. I lost two powerful military units that way after they blundered into the middle of an ocean before I was aware that I needed to send them back to dry land.

Unlike most battle royale games, a unit that ends up caught in the Red Death doesn’t immediately die; however, they likely won’t last more than a turn or two without making it to safety due to the high amounts of damage caused by the Red Death.

Units can still have certain amounts of their health points restored through promotions. You’ll quickly discover that each military unit has a much different and considerably shorter list of possible promotions within the Red Death mode, however. Still, healing a military unit via promotions did manage to save the lives of a small handful of my important units during my short time within Red Death.

I mentioned earlier that I fully expected to hate this Red Death mode from the moment it was announced. Somewhat surprisingly, that’s actually not the case; however, that doesn’t mean Red Death instantly became my favorite aspect of Civilization VI, either. Allow me to elaborate.

Honestly, I’m essentially completely indifferent to Red Death as a whole. I don’t love it by any stretch of the imagination, but I also don’t despise it as I thought I would. Sure, I’m most assuredly still confused as to why a battle royale mode was introduced in a turn-based strategy game, but I don’t have strong enough feelings in either direction about the mode’s existence to investigate the rationale behind its’ inclusion.

If that explanation seems anticlimactic to you at all, I want to emphasize that I feel that way as well. When I first became aware of Red Death’s inclusion, I was looking forward to tearing into it and explaining every single aspect of why I despised it with such passion.

I’m honestly rather surprised that I’ve found myself with so little to say about it due to lack of interest. To paraphrase T.S. Eliot, it seems to me that this specific version of an in-game world ends not with a bang, but with a resounding “meh.”

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