Jeff Kaplan Explains Why Battle Royale Wouldn't Work in Overwatch

Beginning in 2017 with Player Unknowns Battlegrounds and continuing to the present with Fortnite, battle royale is the top genre in the video game industry at the moment as the adrenaline pumping action of fighting your way to being the last player surviving has captivated players across the world. With the success of the battle royale currently, there have been many rumors of other franchises looking to incorporate the game mode into their titles. Many others have already added the mode into their games, such as the first person zombie game Dying Light. 

In an interview with Kotaku, Overwatch Director Jeff Kaplan explained that seeing the last surviving player mode implemented into the first person shooter created by Blizzard Entertainment would be interesting to see, and the team has considered it, but it would be an incredibly difficult undertaking with the kind of game that Overwatch is.

"A lot of times when I hear some of our fans pitch it , they're like 'oh, just put a card in the Arcade one day that's a battle royale mode,' and I'm like 'F*ck, that would be awesome, but there's alot of design and tech work to get us to a place and not just feel like a me-too game." 

With the design of Overwatch being heavily invested in the unique and varying heroes that make up the team based game, Jeff Kaplan explained the difficulties that Blizzard Entertainment would face in making Overwatch a battle royale game. 

"First and foremost, Overwatch is a game about heroes, and part of what makes the core loop work in a battle royale game is the search, the looting, and the fairness that everybody's sort of equal. Overwatch wasn't designed to be 1V1. Every hero's not balanced against every hero." 

"Our primary engagement distance is usually around 15 to 40 meters. The Hanamura dojo point B is 45 meters across. I don't think people realize how tiny that it is. Part of what makes Fortnite and PUBG awesome is that you can have these really long engagements," stated Kaplan when adressing how the small map sizes in Overwatch would not be very appealing to the kind of combat battle royale games thrive on. 

While the Director of Overwatch is an avid battle royale fan, it is very unlikely that players will ever see a similar kind of game mode make its way into the world of the popular first person shooter without the creation of an entire new game. 

Interested in more Overwatch content? Check out the All-Access Pass that Twitch has announced for the Overwatch League.

(cover photo courtesy of GameSpot)