This new battle royale is an FMV game
A battle royale movie? It'll never work
Just when you thought we'd seen every possible permutation of battle royale, here comes the strangest form yet: a movie. An interactive movie, specifically. Bloodshore will drop our laaad onto an island to fight for big money in murderous reality show Kill/Stream, with our decisions pushing the story down different paths and affecting relationships with other contestants. What's next, a battle royale novel?
So, here's a familiar premise: 50 people drop onto an island to fight it out until only remains and claims the prize of $10 million (or to put it in genre terms, that's 4,166,618 Tesco chicken dinners). We're in the shoes of a washed-up actor named Nick, making the decisions that'll affect his relationships and push him down different paths towards different endings. Eight hours of video in total, the devs say.
Bloodshore is due to launch November 3rd on Steam for Windows and Mac. It'll also be on PlayStations, Xboxes, Switch, and iThings.
It's coming from Wales Interactive, the publishers and sometimes-developers known for FMV games including The Shapeshifting Detective and The Bunker as well as horror games like Maid Of Sker. It's co-developed by Wales with Wayout Pictures, Good Gate Media, and Posterity Entertainment, and they say this one is from the producers of bioterrorism FMV thriller The Complex and FMV romcom Five Dates. Yes, FMV romcom game.
Honestly, the revival of FMV games and interactive movies remains a delight to me. The genre is largely the same as it ever was (same as it ever was), only with better video quality, and I find that fascinating. I like them; I would stop short of saying they're good.
Having now checked, I'm surprised to learn Epic have not put out a series of official Fortnite fiction books. Though they are rumoured to be considering a Fortnite movie. Honestly, I just don't see battle royale as a movie.