Gun Rush: The newest Battle Royale competitor is a heavy hitter

Although the whole Battle Royale craze is slowly settling down, I’m sure we all remember those long, long months when all the Internet seemed to talk about were Fortnite and PUBG. Plenty other BR games tried to jump the bandwagon but most of them crashed and burned, either because they weren’t very well-made or altogether unfinished or even hurried – still though, that didn’t stop more from appearing and trying their luck.

Now there is yet another new BR game out there – one with the same backstory as Fortnite. Originally a spin-off of a regular game, it was the Battle Royale play mode that really took off. In the case of Gun Rush, the original game is already popular though – Red Dead Redemption 2 was one of the biggest games of last year.

© Rockstar Games

Red Dead Online is the multiplayer component to the game, and in it’s most recent update, a new play mode was added – Gun Rush. 32 players duke it out on an ever-shrinking map with limited resources and weapons.

That said, the game isn’t quite like the BR games we’ve all played so far – not only do you have to sit through a somewhat slow-paced opening sequence first, but you even have to complete a few missions in order to unlock matchmaking.

As for the actual playing experience – matches can have up to 32 players but most often they run with less – around ten or so per match. This makes the experience a little boring. Rockstar Games, the developer, is known for putting out very published products, however the new mode doesn’t quite fit the bill – matchmaking is slow, the controls are stiff and some aspects like looting or reloading leave you vulnerable for an absurd amount of time.

Though this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, this mode also lacks flashy items and abilities – it’s all about shotguns, explosive arrows and the occasional horse and piece of armour. Matches are quick, but there is a very good chance a lucky shotgun blast will take you out before you so much as touch a weapon yourself.

© Rockstar Games

Other games that added a BR mode to an existing game – most notably CoD: Black Ops 4 Blackout – paid a little more attention to balance and fair gameplay. Gun Rush is still in Beta and changes will still happen to it, however at the moment, it’s an overall disappointing experience in most regards but one: It looks absolutely stunning.

With most BR games consisting of 100 players, server resources are quite sparse, so this is one of the first really visually high-quality Battle Royale games we’ve seen. Individual blades of grass, lighting, grass and even water effects are all top of the line – while map available isn’t quite on par with PUBG’s when it comes to size, they are spectacular to look at.

If you already have RD2, you should definitely have a look at this mode for that reason alone, but at this stage it’s highly unlikely that Gun Rush will threaten the likes of PUBG or Fortnite – Rockstar would have to make some serious changes, and quite quickly too.

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