It’s only been a few days since the reveal of Paladins: Battlegrounds — the battle royale mode of Hi-Rez’s class-based shooter — and the studio has revealed pre-Alpha gameplay footage of the game in motion. Though some may notice a lot of similarities between Paladins: Battlegrounds and other games on the market, the game mode makes a name for themselves with a host of different mechanics and an entirely different team-oriented strategy.
In the video below, the brand new Battlegrounds mode gets two different games with two different heroes. In the beginning of the match, players enter a common area before being dropped via zeppelin. The heroes are able to summon their mounts to rush through the map, looting nearby houses for chests while the fog narrows the area.
And while all of that may sound relatively similar, the gameplay and strategies themselves bring the divergence needed to set this mode apart from other battle royale games. Specifically, players take bolder strategies than the notoriously tactical gameplay titles like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds are accustomed to. Thanks to the presence of varied hero-based special abilities, the combat looks notably more like Paladins than a battle royale game. In turn, the gameplay trends less towards stealth and more towards action.
When enemies are downed, they turn into cartoon-y chickens which team members are able to revive. And while most of those chickens will be gunned down, there is still the option to run away from the action and (hopefully) make a comeback.
Paladins: Champions of the Realm is available free-to-play in beta for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. The Battlegrounds mode will also be free-to-play but isn’t currently available; however, it should be open to the public before Q1 2018 comes to a close. Check out the hour-long video below, filled with both gameplay and commentary from Hi-Rez Studios;