Path of Exile Releases Battle Royale Mode

In a surprise update that went live April 1, 2018 New Zealand Time, Grinding Gear Games has revealed a major genre pivot. Now titled Path of Exile: ROYALE, the action-RPG has added a free for all Battle Royale mode!

With only a day's worth of development time, the new mode pits up to 100 players against each other. All players start with no equipment and must open chests and defeat NPC monsters for exp and loot. Path of Exile's Battle Royale mode rewards hasty inventory management and knowledge about the game's mechanics. Players must quickly scan through a wide variety of loot and skill gems and constantly equip their character for battle.

Only new characters specifically created for the Battle Royale league can participate, and it is possible to level up within each match. While Path of Exile clearly intends for this mode to be an April Fool's joke, its actually a lot more fun than the game's standard PvP mode. At the very least, this experiment proves that Battle Royale need not remain the exclusive domain of the shooter genre. Perhaps more Battle Royale RPGs are already in the works?

Further Reading: Official Announcement