Upcoming Battle Royale ‘Scavengers’ Adds New Elements to Saturated Genre

That’s right, there’s another one. Scavengers, an upcoming Battle Royale developed by Midwinter Entertainment, is set to enter Early Access tomorrow, April 28th (you can’t just hop in and play, but we’ve got the details on how to get access below). In addition to the standard map-closing-around-you squad based PvP, Scavengers adds a couple twists to the Battle Royale formula that might attract players who previously decided Fortnite and Apex aren’t their cup of tea.

In most other Battle Royales, the only path to victory is to be the last one standing. Scavengers offers a different take on grabbing the chicken dinner by making it possible to win without ever killing another player: teams are working to secure datapoints, which are obtained from AI enemies and can then be banked at various spots around the map. Multiple teams can extract on the drop ship, and the surviving team with the most datapoints claims victory.

In a Eurogamer interview, Lead Designer Josh Holmes spoke about the team’s desire to create a Battle Royale where you don’t have to be a PvP god to enjoy playing:

“We’re trying to achieve a better balance than in Halo 5‘s Warzone mode… We don’t want Scavengers to become one where killing players is the dominant strategy in the game, where if you’re not tremendously skilled at killing other players that you can feel like you’re not contributing to your team. We want to create the opportunity for players to contribute in a myriad of different ways on the battlefield. We’re interested to see what unpredicted player behaviours emerge from the game’s complexity and emphasis on creative team play.”

Scavengers also has some interesting survival elements not present in most of the popular Battle Royales. Teams will have to contend with hunger and weather, and the first phase of the match is all about not dying to AI enemies as you scavenge for supplies — hence the title. The environment also allows players to track one another; you can follow footprints in the snow, and in bad weather a storm shelter can make for a lethal ambush.

From other interviews and press releases, it sounds as though the developer is hoping that the various 3-man squads in a match will sometimes cooperate to take on tough AI enemies. This seems difficult to pull off, but could lead to some interesting emergent gameplay and fragile alliances if Midwinter can manage it. Scavengers sounds like it could truly be a breath of fresh air for the Battle Royale genre, and this author is hoping it ends up as different and exciting as it sounds.

Here’s how you can get access to Scavengers tomorrow, April 28th, starting at 3am EST:

• Stay up late, if you’re in the Western Hemisphere, or get up early if you’re on the other side of the globe.
• Make an Improbable Account and either sign in with Twitch, or link it to your Twitch account
• Watch 30 minutes of anybody’s Scavengers stream
• You should then receive a Twitch Drop, claim it and you’ll get an email with a Scavengers Steam key.

Are you going to try to snag yourself a key for Scavengers? Let us know in the comments!